Wisconsin Public Radio has named Mike Crane as its director of radio, the top position at WPR. Crane joined the network, which has more than 30 stations around the state, as chief operations officer in 2008 and has served as interim director of radio since July when Phil Corriveau stepped down due to health reasons.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students must be all atwitter with the news that theirs is the most buzzed about university, at least according to the Global Language Monitor.
Madison is the 15th drunkest city in the U.S. according to a survey released by Men?s Health magazine.
More than a dozen police officers were called to quell a disturbance that erupted early Saturday on Regent Street. At 1:38 a.m. Saturday, Madison police reported, several officers responded after more than 30 people exited a bar in the 1200 block of Regent Street. Several of the people started to fight nearby.
Among the issues of concern to candidates for Dane County executive and Madison mayor are UW-Madison?s Charter Street heating plant, which may be forced to abandon alternative fuels for natural gas; and education, as the state holds purse strings for 4-year-old kindergarten, schools and UW-Madison.
At least two Milwaukeeans have been chronicling the quake?s aftermath.
Jacob Kushner, a Shorewood native who graduated in May from the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s School of Journalism, has been living in Port-au-Prince and writing about the elections, education and other issues for The Associated Press, Newsweek magazine and his own website.
UW-Madison political science professor Charles Franklin also spoke on the impact the mass shooting may have on the political landscape.
“This reminds members of Congress that their opponents are their political opponents and not their enemies,” said Franklin. “There?s been a little recognition in the last 24 hours [since the shooting] of the common ground between members and I think that that is a perhaps a small positive thing to come from this, the notion that it will fundamentally change the nature of political debate and political discourse I think is a fantasy.”
If you?re an alumnus of the University of Wisconsin, yesterday your social networks blew up with every old friend from college linking to this article on Time?s website. As the article states, the Global Language Monitor took it upon themselves to rank American universities by brand equity, or by what others? perceived value of the university is as represented on the Internet. As Time puts it, the formula used is a measurement of the universities? ?buzz? factor. Here are the top 10:
Dear Editor: On behalf of the city of Fort Worth and the TCU Horned Frog fans, I want to congratulate the Wisconsin Badgers on a good, hard-fought game on the Rose Bowl turf. I also want to thank Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, the city of Madison and the Badger fans for their graciousness. We express our deepest thanks to the Rose Bowl officials who made this an exciting and memorable occasion. It was a day like no other, and something my wife Rosie and I will never forget.
But aside from the game, I learned a lot about the people of Madison.
The Badgers may have lost the Rose Bowl Saturday, but they can still boast that they?re the coolest school in America. The University of Wisconsin at Madison beat out the University of Chicago and Harvard to be the top national university by internet brand equity, according to the Global Language Monitor?s 2011 TrendTopper MediaBuzz internet rankings.
As is the case with many great adventures, Matt Schwalbach?s nearly didn?t get off the ground. Fifteen minutes before the door was to close on the last flight from Minneapolis to Los Angeles that would make it possible to reach the Rose Bowl before kickoff, the University of Wisconsin graduate?s wife, Megan, checked her computer to gauge Matt?s likelihood of making it onto the plane.
UW-Madison ranks 4th in the number of Fortune 500 CEOs as graduates.
Wisconsin stood out among its state school peers, granting 17 degrees to the CEOs, which put the school fourth overall, despite having an average U.S. News rank of 33 for the school?s undergraduate, business, and law programs. In the Fortune analysis, Wisconsin finished ahead of highly ranked schools like Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and Northwestern University.
Madison police said a University of Wisconsin fan is facing charges after punching two Minnesota Golden Gophers fans in the face following Tuesday night?s basketball game between the two schools.
Branding is HUGE for universities. Attracts $ and students. UW-Madison is kicking major ass.
To the Editor: Yes, Shael Polakow-Suransky is right. One can design tests that are worth teaching to, but they are more expensive and harder to grade.When money is tight, cheaper tests will be multiple choice, teachers will teach test-taking skills, the curriculum will narrow to what is tested, and the risks of cheating will rise. Test-based reform has turned out the way critics anticipated, not the way the reformers intended.
Francis Schrag
Madison, Wis., Dec. 15, 2010
The writer is professor emeritus of educational policy studies, University of Wisconsin at Madison.
An opportunity for the university to shine!
How can you not like playing in the Rose Bowl? It?s one of the most recognized college football bowl games of all time with a great tradition in a great location. Short of a national championship it?s about as good as it gets in college football.
But even if you don?t like the sport, there?s a lot to like about Wisconsin playing in Pasadena. The spotlight all week will be on the university and its fans as much as on the team, and it’s an opportunity for the UW to shine.
I had the pleasure of attending my niece?s graduation from UW-Madison on Sunday. That?s a very special date for a young person. The sense of a major accomplishment and hope for the future are the hallmarks of this day.
Instead, she was subjected to a political speech in a forum that should not have any politics involved. Rather than hearing about optimism, dreams and hard work, she heard about dependency on oil, campaign finance reform and other agenda items.
The cost for Madison police to staff the city?s annual Halloween party has dropped dramatically since the first year.
Changes in strategy by the Madison Police Department on staffing the city?s annual Freakfest Halloween party on State Street has resulted in a dramatic drop in costs, according to figures released Tuesday.
Since the first year of Freakfest in 2006, city policing costs have dropped 58 percent, from $376,900 to $155,595 this year. These are just Madison Police Department costs; other law enforcement agencies working the State Street area for Freakfest also have their own costs.
The brother and sister of a mentally ill McFarland man filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Madison Friday alleging officials? inadequate care resulted in his suicide last year at a Portage prison. The suit charges that Jesse Miller, 21, was subjected to “wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain, suffering, embarrassment and death.” He hanged himself on June 23, 2009, at the Columbia Correctional Institution. Miller was serving time for crimes including phoning in a threat to police three years ago, disrupting classes at UW-Madison.
In September, before the Chazen Museum of Art began stashing some of its collection to make room for construction, I stopped in to see John Steuart Curry?s iconic paintings of the Midwestern countryside. The half-dozen paintings, largely executed during Curry?s groundbreaking tenure as artist in residence at the UW-Madison College of Agriculture (from 1936 to 1946), include his portrait of ag dean Chris Lauriths Christensen striding through an experimental cornfield, tie flapping in the wind. It?s a stunning painting.
The Associated Students of Madison approved a resolution to ensure the consideration of students? opinions in the development of the Badger Partnership at their meeting Wednesday.
A Madison attorney was convicted in an attack on a Badger football player.
Education scholar Diane Ravitch, once the darling of conservative critics of American public education, recanted her support of charter schools, standardized testing and test-based teacher culling last year. Now she?s coming to Madison in March to give her views on the future of public education in a talk co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, the UW-Madison School of Education and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, which is part of the School of Education.
Madison residents hoping to get ultra-high-speed broadband from Google will have to wait a few more weeks to see if their community wins the company?s contest.
Twenty-five years ago, when Steve Hilton was an entry-level guy working in the file room at his familys foundation, he sometimes had to explain his place within the family legacy. (Pictured, John & Tashia Morgridge.)
Faculty at three more University of Wisconsin System campuses want to vote to unionize. UW-River Falls, Stevens Point and Stout filed petitions to hold elections, with union representation through AFT-Wisconsin.
MADISON, Wis. — Frustrated state workers are calling on Wisconsin lawmakers to approve new contracts.Workers stood arm-in-arm at a news conference at the state Capitol on Tuesday and demanded the Legislature take action. Mike Senn, who teaches inmates at Redgranite Correctional Institution, says he works hard for taxpayers and he never thought he would have to stand up and demand lawmakers do their jobs.
Roughly 60,000 people with connections to the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been contacted after officials discovered a database, containing names and social security numbers, was compromised.
Madison police believe there may be a connection between the unsolved homicide of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann and an early morning break-in at a University Avenue tavern months later involving three Madison teenagers with gang ties, the State Journal has learned. Assistant City Attorney Roger Allen confirmed there is a “possible connection” between Zimmermann?s April 2, 2008, strangulation and stabbing death in her Downtown apartment and the July 9, 2008, break-in at the Blue Moon Bar and Grill, 2535 University Ave.
Last week my wife and I attended the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery open house. We were impressed with its design, the choice of materials and construction and the spaces for dedicated use. It reminded us of the Overture Center, with the latest and most beautiful use of glass, marble, ceramic, stainless steel and natural wood, built to the best of current standards. The institute is owned by several parties, including the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Wouldn?t it be a good idea for UW-Madison and the community – and a huge problem solved – if the university purchased the Overture Center for $1 and used it as a teaching facility and performance center, possibly using the current management and maintenance?
Despite having its vocal critics, the University of Wisconsin System must be doing something right. In a national survey of young alumni (ages 25 to 39), 94 percent of those who graduated from one of the UW System?s four-year campuses believe “that their college education was worth the time and money.” Ninety-two percent “think their institution charged them a fair price for their college education.”
housands of former University of Wisconsin-Madison students and staff are discovering their identities might have been compromised in a two-year-long data breach on campus.
Neither of the incoming Republican leaders of the Wisconsin legislature will rule out the prospect of stripping the state?s public employee unions of their bargaining rights.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A University of Wisconsin Board of Regents committee has approved a 2 percent pay increase for faculty and staff despite objections from a key Republican state lawmaker.
Governor-elect Scott Walker has picked a fight with Wisconsin?s public employee unions – even before his inauguration. But that?s not the surprising thing.
What?s surprising is that Walker is willing to consider what amounts to abolishing public unions. And with the news Wednesday that Walker?s Republican colleagues might introduce right-to-work legislation next year, the climate for labor is growing chillier by the day.
Tough talk. But when it comes to the public employee unions, it?s justified.
State workers are on a collision course with Governor-elect Scott Walker after his comments about decertifying state employee unions.
The two new leaders of the state legislature responded to Governor-elect Scott Walker?s proposal to essentially end state labor unions by saying the issue “needs to be on the table.”
Governor-elect Scott Walker says he hopes for no layoffs of state employees next year. But he also threatens to have no state employee unions.
UW-Madison?s athletic department continues to rank among the national leaders in revenue produced according to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The university?s athletic department ranked 10th nationally in 2009-10 by raking in $93.9 million. That figure marks a 4.5 percent increase over the previous year.
MADISON, Wis. — The incoming leader of state Assembly Democrats said it?s ?shocking? that Republican Gov.-elect Scott Walker would consider the possibility of essentially abolishing state employee unions. Walker suggested that possibility on Tuesday. He is seeking deeper concessions from public employee unions, who have reached tentative contract agreements with the state.
As the local spring primaries draw nearer, two new competitors entered the races Tuesday for Dane County executive and mayor of Madison.
Former Madison alderman Noel Radomski has announced he will challenge Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in the spring election.
In front of a group of friends and their children in a warehouse on the East Side, Noel Radomski announced his candidacy for Madison mayor this afternoon.
MILWAUKEE — Gov.-elect Scott Walker is renewing his call for state unions to pay more for their health care and pensions, saying it would help the state deal with a budget shortfall.
When it comes to collective brains, Madison is pretty smart. The Wisconsin capital, which is home to the University of Wisconsin, comes in 8th place in a list of the ?brainiest cities? in America, according to Portfolio magazine.
In his appearance on Mike Gousha?s program “On The Issues,” Gov. Jim Doyle discussed how he plans to move forward with the labor contracts and why he cannot halt proceedings as Governor-elect Scott Walker has requested.
MADISON (WKOW) — A scholarship fund has been set up in Dylan Ellefson?s name at UW-Madison, where he was a student. Twenty-one-year-old Ellefson was hit by a car in October. Police say he had pulled over in the 1400 block of East Johnson Street in Madison because of car trouble when he was hit and killed.
The bare branches, not the cold November wind, are driving Michael Higgins out of the hidden urban encampment he?s called home since May. When the leaves fell, he realized that his four-tent compound was in danger of being spotted, so he?s been trying to scrape together enough money for a locker to stow his gear while he spends the winter in an emergency shelter until trees fill out again in spring.
Concealment is the key for Higgins and a few dozen others who live under tents or tarps strung up furtively in obscure corners of Madison?s busy landscape.
A local union plans to picket at the grand opening of the $205 million Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (WID), because restaurants in the private part of the facility will not be using union workers. Local 171 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) will rally at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the new research facility in the 1300 block of University Avenue, according to a release from the local.
Los Angeles is a more religious city than Madison. No, really, it?s true; you can look it up.
As December arrives and the holiday season approaches, the subject of religion has somehow made its way into the latest edition of Men?s Health, a national magazine typically focused on women, sex, fitness, grooming, and well, more sex. In its latest list, “Holy Hometowns,” ranks the 100 most-to-least religious cities. Madison ranks 81st, one spot behind L.A. How could this be?
Two former hockey players at the University of Wisconsin-Stout have been ordered to stand trial in the death of a fellow student who was allegedly shoved off his bicycle.
Kevin Reilly had just pulled into the parking lot of a local retailer to take care of some holiday shopping three years ago when his cell phone rang. John Morgridge was on the line.
Governor-elect Scott Walker wrote to state lawmakers Monday asking that they halt proceedings with labor contracts two weeks after his similar request to Gov. Jim Doyle was thwarted.
What a difference five years makes. It seems like only yesterday that Madison?s Halloween celebration drew 100,000 revelers from the four corners of the nation to get drunk, pepper sprayed and arrested….The 35,000 who attended this year made the attendance consistent with past Freakfests. But the arrest tally is down: a paltry 44 compared to 61 last year and 181 in 2007. Not only were there fewer people than ever arrested, but they also were significantly less drunk.
….In a university town notorious for its alcohol overconsumption, no one’s saying that the drunken Halloween monster has been slayed. But (Madison Police Central District Capt. Mary) Schauf notes that “I am very pleased with the overall direction of this event.”
Legislative leaders are now getting a personal appeal from Gov.-elect Scott Walker not to go forward with a deal on state worker contracts.
MADISON, Wis. — Legislative leaders are now getting a personal appeal from Gov.-elect Scott Walker not to go forward with a deal on state worker contracts. Walker has sent a letter to all four legislative leaders, asking them to not go into special session to approve state contracts. In the letter, Walker said any deals reached now will limit the flexibility of state leaders to narrow budget deficits next year.
Over the past generation, a curious thing happened to Wisconsin?s public universities: They became a lot less public. Yes, the University of Wisconsin System still educates the vast majority of college students in the state; 179,000 were enrolled last year. But little by little, the share of the UW System budget that comes from tax dollars has declined. It?s the best argument we?ve seen for the creation of a new agreement between the state and its university system.
