Category: UW-Madison Related

A University of Wisconsin-Green Bay vice chancellor will step down in December amid questions about the decision to rehire him after he had retired.

Campus Technology recently had an opportunity to talk to Masterson about how she uses Web 2.0 technologies in both the graduate library science course she teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in her position as Instructional Technologist at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI.

This is a story that starts with a barn and ends with a bench, and it spans nearly 80 years. In the decades between, a jewel of Madison came into existence and prospered, while a man who was there by accident at the beginning grew to love it as much as anyone ever has. Their story begins on a hot June day in 1934, when a UW-Madison chemistry student named Harold Tarkow took a walk along Mills Street from campus to an area of farm and woodland south of Lake Wingra.

A family of UW-Madison boosters have come up with a novel way to give scholarship money while also increasing support for the university on social media. Will and Jenny Hsu, of Minneapolis, pledged to give $1 to the Great People Scholarship for every new person to follow UW-Madison or the Wisconsin Alumni Association on Facebook or Twitter — up to $50,000. Will Hsu?s parents, Paul and Sharon Hsu of Wausau, Wis., will also contribute.

MADISON (WKOW)- Men?s Health magazine described Madison as the city “where the average household has more degrees than a thermometer”, and that?s one of many reasons it ranked Madison at the top of its compilation of most educated cities in America.

Five universities participating in efforts to digitize books for student usage, including the University of Wisconsin, are battling a lawsuit over copyright protections filed by author guilds and authors.

Imagine if the Wisconsin Alumni Association planned to build a surface-level parking lot on top of a lakefront park next to the Memorial Union in the heart of the UW-Madison campus.The public outrage would be loud and furious. Well, the good news is that the WAA just proposed doing the opposite.

UW-Madison ranked 10th on U.S. News & World Report?s list of the top public colleges nationwide for 2012 Tuesday.

The University of Wisconsin rose to 10th in the ranks of public institutions in the U.S. News World Report?s 2012 edition of America?s Best Colleges.

Dogs are getting plenty of chances to stay fit this time of year in Madison.Sunday was the fifth annual Dog Paddle at the Goodman Pool, sponsored by Capital K9s and the local pet store Animart. And this coming Sunday is the 28th annual Dog Jog benefit race, sponsored by the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

In 35 years of public service for the city of Madison, Dean Brasser earned a reputation for being a straight shooter. He served under five different mayors, starting in 1976 fresh out of UW-Madison after one of his favorite professors there, city comptroller Paul Reilly, let drop that there was an opening at city hall for an accountant.

Dane County?s commemoration on the roof of Monona Terrace featured dozens of police officers and firefighters. Tom Cleary of New York recounted the frantic days after the World Trade Center collapsed when he and other family members searched local hospitals in vain for his brother, Kevin Cleary, 38, a UW-Madison graduate who spent part of his childhood in Maple Bluff.

Dogs are getting plenty of chances to stay fit this time of year in Madison. Sunday was the fifth annual Dog Paddle at the Goodman Pool, sponsored by Capital K9s and the local pet store Animart. And this coming Sunday is the 28th annual Dog Jog benefit race, sponsored by the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

Dave Arnold knew things were getting strange when he found himself talking on the telephone with Matt Lauer. It wasn?t just that he had the anchor of NBC?s ?Today? show on the line. While Arnold was talking to Lauer, he had Barbara Walters of ABC on hold. At the same time, he was fielding an email from Wolf Blitzer of CNN.

?It was a little surreal,? Arnold said last week. It was happening in the spring, when Arnold, 26, a Rice Lake native, UW-Madison journalism graduate and former Wisconsin State Journal intern, found himself at the center of a true media maelstrom.

A 31-year-old Madison man suffered minor injuries Saturday afternoon after a vehicle struck him in downtown Madison.

Duke University Press has struck an agreement with HathiTrust and Google to make a large number of its backlist titles freely available through the HathiTrust digital repository. The press, like many others, hasn?t had spare resources to digitize and archive all those books itself.

University of Wisconsin-Madison police said they arrested an Oshkosh man during the UW Board of Regents meeting on Thursday.

….Heidi Fassnacht?s beautiful letter of thanks to all who helped her family following the death of her father, the brilliant young scientist Robert Fassnacht, in the Sterling Hall bombing is a classic in the making.

A new park will get prime lake frontage on the UW-Madison campus, displacing about 70 parking spots and resculpting the lakeshore along Memorial Union ? one of a handful of major changes planned for the campus landmark. The Wisconsin Alumni Association announced plans Wednesday to donate $8 million for a park between the union and the Red Gym, adding a pavilion and temporary boat parking for the public on Lake Mendota.

A 21-year-old Madison man was mugged while walking on Park Street early Wednesday morning, Madison police reported. The mugging was reported at 1:59 a.m. Wednesday at 35 N. Park St., according to a police news release, which reported that the victim heard voices and footsteps behind him.

Local law enforcement agencies, fire departments and military units will gather Sunday morning on the rooftop of Monona Terrace to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001.

An Iowa man who apparently didn?t want to be arrested during a melee in a block of bars on University Avenue early Saturday morning ended up having himself and five friends who tried to help him in his struggle getting arrested. Daniel Rodgers, 22, Dubuque, was tentatively charged with battery to a police officer, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct and resisting following his arrest at about 2:23 a.m. Saturday in the 600 block of University Avenue, Madison police said.

Detectives from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department said they have arrested a suspect in connection with a substantial battery that happened outside the Red Gym early Thursday morning.

A sexual assault investigation is under way, according to the University of Wisconsin Police Department.

Officers and detectives from the UW-Madison police department are investigating a sexual assault that took place in the UW-Madison Arboretum at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday. Neither the victim nor the suspect are affiliated with the university.

“Most of us are very far from home, so these are our surrogate families,” said Arij Beshish, 29, a researcher at UW Hospital who grew up in Libya. “We?re one big family, showing our love for each other.” Families will exchange gifts and friends will dine together.

Sadam Issa, 30, a Ph.D. student at UW-Madison, said he will call his family in Jordan and wish them well, then enjoy lots of coffees and teas with friends. Tuesday?s larger gathering was the perfect start, he said.

“It shows we are one community, that we are one group despite our different ethnicities,” he said.

The view from Picnic Point is going from barely there to panoramic. Work began this month along the popular peninsula to clear out invasive plants, opening up expansive views of Lake Mendota, Downtown Madison and campus.

Quoted: Gary Brown, UW-Madison’s director of campus planning and landscape architecture.

James Perry?s bosses at the University of Wisconsin decided that Perry could no longer be the dean and campus executive officer at UW-Fox Valley in Menasha because of his actions on a UW-sponsored trip to Namibia.

For more than 40 years, Paul Soglin – born and raised in Illinois – has been an almost constant presence in the city?s affairs. He was a leader of student demonstrations in the 1960s at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, member of the city council, and later mayor over 14 years in two stints, one that began in 1973 and another that began in 1989.

The terrace is the heart and soul of UW-Madison?s Memorial Union. Apparently this isn?t enough to prevent the design committee from significantly altering it to add a lobby and lounge to the Union Theater. Arguments about square footage or sunset views miss the point – the experience of being on the terrace will be radically changed, and not for the better.

Very little sparks fear faster than being alone in the early morning hours on a dark street with a stranger coming from behind. Footsteps quicken. The heart races. Waves of terror crash in unabated. Often, the episode proves harmless and the fear gene subsides as quickly as it arose. Sadly, sometimes that?s not the case and violence occurs. Too often on Madison streets people are accosted, beaten or sexually assaulted.

The view from Picnic Point is going from barely there to panoramic. Work began this month along the popular peninsula to clear out invasive plants, opening up expansive views of Lake Mendota, Downtown Madison and campus.

A $25.2 million redevelopment of a prominent and long-blighted site is stalled before the city?s Urban Design Commission, largely over a parking lot demanded by the main tenants of the project for safety reasons.But Ghidorzi Cos. of Wausau, which has been working with the commission since May, has already altered its proposal for parking and most recently sought a three-story, 235-space garage and 70 surface spaces. The surface spaces, which are cheaper, are needed because the clinic for safety reasons wants a well-lighted lot next to the office building for use by physicians and patients, said Alan Fish, vice chancellor for facilities at UW-Madison.

A woman now serving her third stint in prison for a 1996 fatal drunken driving crash was convicted Tuesday of her third drunken driving offense, which happened during a brief period of freedom earlier this year. Lori Kasten, 45, of Madison, was back behind bars on April 23, when she was arrested in a UW-Madison parking lot. Her blood alcohol concentration was 0.25 percent, just over three times the 0.08 limit for Wisconsin drivers without a previous drunken driving conviction.

The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee has gone public with its efforts to contact about 75,000 people to let them know they may have had their names and Social Security Numbers accessed by cyber-criminals.

The abrupt retirement earlier this year of the dean and campus executive officer of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley was due to misconduct on a study-abroad trip to Africa, Gannett Wisconsin Media is reporting.

The abrupt retirement earlier this year of the dean and campus executive officer of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley was due to misconduct on a study-abroad trip to Africa, Gannett Wisconsin Media is reporting.

The course for the Madison Mini-Marathon runs slightly uphill for much of the middle segment of the race and passes by the Capitol, Kohl Center, Camp Randall Stadium and Arboretum before finishing at UW?s Memorial Union. ?That?s definitely why I chose to do it, because I enjoy the course,? said women’s winner Katie Howrey. ?You start and finish at the Union, and that?s one of the great ways to showcase the Madison area.? UW graduate student Francis Eanes followed up on his Madison Marathon victory by claiming the men’s and overall title.

MENASHA ? The abrupt retirement of James Perry as dean and campus executive officer of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley in February stemmed from misconduct weeks earlier in Africa, The Post-Crescent has learned.

A 20-year-man was arrested in connected with a stabbing near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on July 16.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed a Web presence, a portal and mobile apps for the iPhone and Android platforms. And the university may consider a mobile-optimized website.

A man was walking a woman to her car Thursday morning but then reportedly grabbed her purse from the car and ran, police said.The theft was reported at 4:41 a.m. Thursday at West Washington Avenue and Bedford Street, the Madison Police Department reported.The 21-year-old Madison woman met the guy at a downtown nightclub, police said.

Motorists on West Dayton Street will have to deal with more construction for the near future, probably up to the first Wisconsin Badgers football game on Sept. 1.

Officials at UW-Green Bay want to position the school to better attract prospective students. This fall the school is launching an in-depth study to identify its strengths, and then market them.

A 21-year-old Madison woman was sexually assaulted early Saturday morning while she was walking on West Dayton Street, Madison police reported. Police said the assault happened around 3 a.m. in the 500 block of West Dayton Street and was reported about 10:30 a.m. Saturday.

The Groundhog Blizzard of 2011 was very costly to local units of government but some relief has come this way through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. More than $1.4 million in federal aid has been paid to 51 local governments and six school districts in Dane County to cover some of the costs stemming from the the Jan. 31 and Feb. 1-2 storms that dumped more than 18 inches of snow in the Madison area.

….The county joined 52 out of 61 local units of government in Dane County, UW-Madison and nine school districts in requesting more than $1.5 million from FEMA.

The US University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is notifying 75,000 students and staff that their personal information may have been exposed in a breach of one of the institution?s IT systems in May, but the delay is highlighting the need for more timely breach notifications.

Madison police chief Noble Wray said the number of what are called “pattern robberies”  has been decreasing in the city,  but the crimes remain concerning because they?ve included violence and are random.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said Thursday he believes the police are making progress in stopping a series of “beat down” robberies occurring around the city this summer.

A computer system at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was hacked and bugged with malicious software, potentially exposing the names and Social Security numbers of about 75,000 students, faculty and staff, the school announced Wednesday.

A computer system at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been hacked and bugged with malicious software, putting at risk the Social Security numbers of 75,000 students, faculty and staff.

For some reason the UW athletic fields were being watered at 11 a.m., when mid-day watering is known to be inefficient because most of the water evaporates before falling to the ground. To make matters worse, a GMC Suburban was driven along the path to monitor the watering…In the future, I hope to see the fields being watered in the early morning and a more fuel-efficient vehicle in use, such as an electric car or even a bike.

Braveheart?s remarkable recovery will be on display on UW-Madison Day at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis on Wednesday, Aug. 10. In addition, Braveheart, along with UW?s Bucky Badger will lead the daily parade around the fairgrounds that day.

Longtime state Rep. Spencer Black has returned to his roots – in more ways than one. Black, 61, retired in January from the state Assembly after spending 26 years fighting though the maelstrom that is politics in Madison. These days, if Black is not in his garden (his biggest passion), he is teaching an urban and regional planning class at UW-Madison.

Richard Lyman Cates, who rose from childhood years in an orphanage to become a successful Madison lawyer and played a key role in the Watergate impeachment inquiry that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Three teenagers were arrested by Madison police early Saturday morning for allegedly smashing out car and house windows with baseball bats. A UW-Madison police dog assisted Madison police in tracking the suspects.

Noted: He later moved to the U.S. where he obtained a master?s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a doctoral degree in Business Management from Ohio State University.

Wisconsin Sen. Rob Johnson is wrong to hold up the nomination of Victoria Nourse to the federal appeals court that serves Wisconsin.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced three finalists for its dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences opening on Wednesday, and none of the candidates currently work at the university.

…. (Peter) Hanson does have strong ties to UW-Madison as he earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in veterinary science from the university. Hanson also has been a member of UW-Madison’s CALS board of visitors for the past three years.

LA CROSSE ? Janet Kirsch spent six years juggling students, research and committees to meet the yearly demands of her job as a chemistry professor.