The Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) brought the community together July 28 for its inaugural celebration of campus and community leaders and advocates in a gathering titled ?A Celebration of Campus and Community Connections? at the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center.
Disabled students and advocates for the physically challenged criticized UW-Madison?s plan to eliminate more than fifty handicapped parking stalls on campus beginning Sept. 1.
Disability advocates are questioning a move on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Right now there are 73 free disabled parking spots on campus. Over the next year and a half that number will be cut to 16.
UW-Madison will provide the seventh most Teach for America participants among similar colleges and universities, according to a UW-Madison news release. The 70 recent graduates from UW-Madison joining Teach for America is up from 56 last year.
Many in the Vilas Park area are mourning the loss of one of the city?s most magnificent oak trees, which they say was butchered by the city this morning even as neighbors were lobbying to save it. City crews lopped off the tree?s last remaining branches around 8 after park officials deemed them to be a hazard.
Late last week, the top of the tree crashed to the ground in the middle of the night, leaving it looking like a headless torso with arms askew. But it was still alive and it was still beautiful, says Bill Barker, a parks commissioner and a geology professor at UW-Madison who happened to be biking past Friday when city crews first tried to cut it down.
After returning from a summer break, it?s time to catch up on some higher education-related items …
One combatant was stabbed and several others were battered in bar-time fights at University Avenue and Frances Street early Thursday morning, according to Madison police. A Brooklyn man, 27, was stabbed when he tried to break up a fight at about 2:15 a.m. A hospital visit confirmed the injury, which was described as a flesh wound.Two other men reported being battered trying to break up related disputes.
John Drake easily glides the shiny red bike into an open slot at a kiosk near the City-County Building after spending his lunch hour biking around the UW-Madison campus. His cycling jaunts to places like Picnic Point, which he makes a couple times a week if the weather permits, are thanks to B-cycle ? the new bike sharing program.
Letter by Darald Hanusa, Midwest Domestic Violence Resource Center and UW-Madison School of Social Work.
The 1100 block of West Dayton Street will be blocked off from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and Friday so construction crews can move equipment into the refurbished Charter Street power plant at the corner of Dayton and Charter streets.
A man who sublet an apartment downtown was arrested after he allegedly stole two computers from the apartment renter and then tried to sell those computers on Craigslist. Kenneth Reneau, 22, of Madison, was tentatively charged with theft of moveable property following his arrest Monday night, Madison police said.
According to the incident report, the two computers valued at $2,200 were reported stolen on July 9 by the 21-year-old Madison man who had recently returned to Madison and his North Lake Street apartment.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson is single-handedly blocking the nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals – a nominee who though likely no ideological soul mate of the freshman senator appears to be well-qualified and who was nominated before Johnson even took office.
Johnson?s single-minded opposition to Victoria Nourse (who teaches at the UW Law School) seems more of a political game than anything else and one that he should put a quick end to.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson?s decision to block the judicial nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor has drawn a pointed letter of protest by a group of legal academics from around the country.
Johnson has single-handedly held up consideration of Victoria Nourse for the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
Gov. Scott Walker announced the appointments of two students to the UW Board of Regents Wednesday, his first appointees to the governing body of the 26-campus University of Wisconsin System. Katie Pointer, 19, will be a UW-Madison student this fall after spending one year studying political science, public administration and finance at UW-La Crosse. Troy Sherven, of Oregon, is a student at UW-Stout, continuing his education after 20 years of work. Sherven, 36, will serve a one-year term, filling a vacant seat of the non-traditional student representative.
The newly renovated School of Human Ecology building on the UW-Madison campus will be the first exclusively-academic facility on campus to be named in honor of a woman. Nancy Nicholas Hall is scheduled to open in 2012, named after Nancy Johnson Nicholas, who graduated from the school in 1955 and was the major contributor along with husband Albert “Ab” Nicholas to the building of the new facility.
Chris Taylor almost assuredly will be the new state representative for the 48th Assembly District. Taylor, 43, came out on top of a six-way primary election Tuesday to replace former state Rep. Joe Parisi, who was elected Dane County executive in April. Taylor has a bachelor?s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from UW-Madison.
A ?beggar? took advantage of a man?s generosity early Sunday morning when he allegedly grabbed all the cash from the donor?s hand when the donor only wanted to give him $1.The robbery was reported at 2:33 a.m. Sunday on Conklin Place downtown, Madison police said.
Five people were arrested for disorderly conduct early Tuesday morning after they allegedly approached and frightened two men in separate incidents downtown. Chi Williams, 17 and Eddie Armstrong, 19, both of Madison, Harold Wilson II, 21, and Kenneth Edwards, 22, both of Sun Prairie, and a 15-year-old male from Janesville were arrested following the incidents near Gorham and State Streets, Madison police said.
The former head of General Electric Capital and Conseco Inc. has given $2 million to increase access for students across the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus who are interested in business.
Despite a tragedy in which a Metro Transit bus struck and killed a pedestrian on June 22, Madison?s bus system has an improving safety record amid rising ridership, city records show. Metro had 72 crashes in which the bus driver was at least partially at fault in 2010, the lowest sum in at least seven years.
….In the first five months of 2011, Metro has had 36 crashes. The sum doesn’t include the June 22 accident when Maureen E. Grant, 58, of New Glarus, was struck by a bus on University Avenue near UW-Madison.
A federal grand jury has indicted a former University of Wisconsin-Madison student on one count of sharing child pornography computer files. According to court documents, an FBI agent in Los Angeles logged onto a file-sharing site in August 2010 and downloaded nearly 160 images linked to a computer in 23-year-old Matthew Hendrickson?s UW-Madison dorm room.
Madison police said they are investigating a rash of muggings across the city.
Got a cause to promote? A political axe to grind? It soon may be easier to have your say if the city of Madison changes its ordinances to facilitate, rather than restrict, the distribution of literature on city streets.
When Dennis Shields arrived on the UW-Platteville campus as the new chancellor last year, he immediately recognized a need for more student housing. But he knew that if he went through the normal channels to build a dorm ? which involves a gauntlet of state and university approvals ? the project could be delayed for several years. So instead, he looked for alternatives, eventually settling on a partnership with the UW-Platteville Foundation that put the project in private hands. Partnering with a private organization is a method University of Wisconsin System chancellors may look to more as a way to build campus housing quickly without having to tiptoe through the state approval process, which can take a year or more.
The Metro Transit driver who was driving the bus that struck and killed a pedestrian last week has been cited by Madison Police for failure to yield to a pedestrian. District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said the citation given to Debra Foster, 52, of Madison, was made by the police department, which has given his office the reports and video used in the investigation.
It sure is nice to have a bench of former chancellors so deep that we can just pluck one from the list of globally respected education leaders to fill the temporary void on the Madison campus.
Following a string of burglaries Saturday morning at downtown apartments, Madison police are urging residents to make sure their doors and windows are secure to prevent becoming the next victim. The close to half-dozen burglaries had common threads: unlocked doors for entry, and laptop computers the target items.
Braveheart, the emaciated mutt found in a commercial trash bin in Kentucky with mange and worms and covered with sores, is now strong and healthy and virtually unrecognizable after being treated at the UW Veterinary Care Small Animal Hospital and finding a loving home.
UW System will no longer deduct membership fees from the paychecks of employees who are part of membership organizations such as the UW-Madison faculty group PROFS, or the academic staff group ASPRO. Some UW-Madison faculty said they were surprised by UW System?s decision to end the longtime practice.
MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Metro bus driver who was involved in a fatal crash that killed a pedestrian on Wednesday had received an award for safe driving in 2010.
The Wisconsin Alumni Association unveiled the secret ingredients of Babcock Hall Dairy?s new flavor, Mad Grad Medley, at a birthday party to commemorate its 150th anniversary. Bucky Badger and football great Ron Dayne delivered the first tastes of Mad Grad Medley — a Door County cherry-infused vanilla ice cream whipped with chocolate chips and topped with chocolate flakes — to the June 23 party on Alumni Pier, just east of the Memorial Union Terrace.
Longtime UW-Madison library employee Maureen E. Grant, 58, of New Glarus, was identified Thursday as the pedestrian killed when struck by a Metro Transit bus on campus Wednesday morning. Grant was on her way to work at Memorial Library, walking across busy University Avenue in a crosswalk at around 9 a.m. A makeshift memorial of flowers now marks the corner where police say the bus hit her as the driver tried to make a left turn from North Lake Street onto University Avenue. The bus was driven by Debra Foster, a two-year employee of Metro Transit, according to information released by the city of Madison on Thursday afternoon. Metro Transit said it will not release more information about Foster due to its ongoing investigation.
The woman struck and killed by a Metro Transit bus on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was a longtime university library employee. The Dane County medical examiner?s office identifies the victim as 58-year-old Maureen Grant of New Glarus. The Wisconsin State Journal reports Grant was walking to work at Memorial Library on Wednesday morning when police say she was struck by the bus turning left. Grant was in the crosswalk and had a walk signal.
A long-time UW-Madison library system employee, Maureen E. Grant, 58, of New Glarus, was identified Thursday as the pedestrian killed when struck by a bus on campus Wednesday morning. An email sent to employees of the library system Wednesday alerted co-workers of the death. Grant is listed as an employee of the Central Technical Services department in the general library division of the university, working at Memorial Library.
A woman struck by a Metro Transit bus Wednesday morning on the UW-Madison campus has died, according to the Dane County Medical Examiner?s Office. The woman was walking north across University Avenue in a crosswalk shortly before 9 a.m. and had a walk signal when she was hit by the bus turning left from Lake Street, the Madison Police Department said. The woman, whose name is not being released pending notification of relatives, was taken to UW Hospital.
A woman has died after being struck by a Madison Metro bus on Wednesday morning in downtown Madison.
MADISON, Wis. — A woman has died after being struck by a Madison Metro bus on Wednesday morning in downtown Madison. The incident apparently occurred at about 8:54 a.m. when a woman was walking in a cross walk northbound on University Avenue. She was in the crosswalk and had a walk light when she was hit by the bus, which was turning left onto University Avenue from Lake Street, according to Madison police.
Authorities with the aid of hydraulic emergency equipment removed an injured female pedestrian from beneath a Madison Metro Transit bus at University Avenue and Lake Street at about 9 a.m., Madison Fire Department officials confirmed. The injured woman was taken to the UW Hospital and traffic was snarled Downtown while the rescue operation was underway.
Investigative journalist Scott Carney doesn?t sugarcoat his findings. When asked if anything surprised him while researching his book, ?The Red Market,? he replied, ?The depth of human depravity knows no bounds.? In a book that explores the global trade and sale of human body parts, that sort of attitude shouldn?t raise any eyebrows. Carney, who completed his master?s in anthropology from UW-Madison in 2004, worked as a journalist in Madison (including a stint writing for the Wisconsin State Journal) until 2006, when he moved to India.
Lost in all of the budget rhetoric this week was a bit of good news for public employees. Tucked away in the final version of the state?s 2011-2013 spending plan is a provision that will allow state and local employees to save hundreds of dollars a year by making “pre-tax” contributions to their retirement funds.
The Senate debate over Gov. Scott Walker?s budget Thursday was delayed for about 90 minutes after two protesters locked themselves to railings in the Senate gallery with U-shaped bicycle locks. Officials had to call in police from UW-Madison to get a special tool to cut the locks, which French and O?Brien locked around their necks.
Robert Alvarez selectively picks his facts to present a very distorted view of both nuclear power and the accident at Fukushima (“Guest view: Time to rethink nuclear power, disposal of fuel,” June 11).
The Legislature will write Gov. Scott Walker?s frozen limits on collective bargaining into the state budget Tuesday if the state Supreme Court hasn?t restored them by then, the leader of the state Assembly said Monday.
Eight local organizations are joining forces to make summer more fun and educational for kids and more organized for their adults. And they have an agenda. Dubbed ?the FUN Agenda,? the organizations ? which include the Madison Children?s Museum, Monona Terrace, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art ? are issuing a summer activity calendar for local kids. The calendar features entertainment, hands-on activities and learning opportunities for kids and their families. Programming includes concerts, movies and presentations, workshops and interactive exhibits. The other participating organizations include the UW-Madison Geology Museum, the Wisconsin Historical Museum, the Madison Public Library-Central Library, UW-Madison Space Place and the Wisconsin Veteran?s Museum.
For the first time, graduation ceremonies from Madison high schools this year will be shown live online via the school district?s media portal, www.mmsd.tv….Close to 1,600 students will graduate from Madison high schools this week. Ceremonies take place at the Kohl Center.
An Australian Rules football club from Milwaukee will host a tournament Saturday at the UW-Madison fields on University Bay Drive, according to the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau.
People around the globe took notice of the Egyptian revolution earlier this year. Anna Therese Day was on the ground in Cairo following it all. A 2010 graduate of UW-Madison, Day covered the uprising ? which led to the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11 following more than two weeks of protests and public pressure ?as a freelance journalist for a number of media outlets.
Homeowners facing a foreclosure suit can get free help tomorrow at a walk-in legal clinic offered by sponsors including the Dane County Foreclosure Prevention Taskforce. Staffed by volunteer lawyers and UW-Madison law students, the clinics provide homeowners in foreclosure with basic legal information.
The new book “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” contains a fair number of references to people and events with connections to Wisconsin sports. The former chairman of ESPN, Steve Bornstein (left), is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin.
Madison police have identified the man taken into custody after he reportedly fired a gun on the porch of a Williamson Street residence Monday as Forest Shomberg, who spent six years in prison for a sexual assault a judge determined he didn?t commit. Shomberg was released from prison in November 2009 after the Wisconsin Innocence Project presented DNA and other evidence that raised doubt about his conviction for a March 8, 2002, incident in which a UW-Madison student was pulled from State Street and violently groped.
Bicyclists will be banned from riding along the dirt path that leads to Picnic Point, starting May 28. UW-Madison officials said they made the decision because people complained about reckless bikers riding too fast among pedestrians and off the designated trail.
Several European cities are making money by offering tours of their sewer systems, according to the Wall Street Journal. Because we are always looking for city-university partnerships, we could package the city sewer tour with a tour of UW-Madison?s underground steam tunnels. The labyrinth of campus tunnels was first constructed in the late 1800s. They are not open to the general public, but people have been known to explore them anyway, most famously a guy nicknamed “Tunnel Bob,” who startled students across several decades when he stuck his head – adorned with a Packers cap – out of various tunnel entrances.
SUPERIOR-A historic vote Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Superior poises the campus to be the first in the UW-Superior with a unionized academic staff.
The (Sunday May 15) paper has a full page ad by the Wisconsin Alumni Association pushing the New Badger Partnership. As a life member of the Association I am more than angry about this ad and other activities by the Association promoting this initiative.
The reconstruction of Lake Street from University Avenue north to Lake Mendota on the UW-Madison campus could cause traffic delays during peak commuter times, city officials said. The Madison Traffic Engineering Division said work is scheduled to begin Monday, May 16 on the project, with construction expected to continue until the end of August.
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay faculty members have voted overwhelmingly to form a union through the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin.
Elizabeth Warren, the creator and presumptive head of President Barack Obama?s controversial new consumer finance protection agency, has been invited to headline UW-Madison?s annual spring conference on housing and the economy.
A man who told police he was “just trying to impress some girls” was arrested after dumping a non-swimming canoeist into Lake Mendota off the UW-Madison Memorial Union Terrace on Tuesday afternoon, Madison police reported. Barry Richardson, 24, of Madison, was arrested for disorderly conduct, police said in a news release.
If being stuck in traffic is your idea of a good time, head down to Dayton Street this weekend. The annual UW-Madison graduation weekend, coupled with thousands of students moving out from dormitories, will cause traffic woes on Dayton Street and the surrounding area.
Tom Loftus turned to international affairs in a commencement speech Friday. Loftus, a member of the UW Board of Regents, suggested that UW institutions reconsider their increasing involvement with China because of that country?s human rights record. Loftus, a former ambassador to Norway and former speaker of the state Assembly, made the comments to graduates at UW-Richland.
