Category: UW-Madison Related

The application, which serves as Madisonâ??s bid for a $97 million high-speed Google fiber-optic network, was due March 26, and Google has not offered a definite schedule of when applicants can expect to hear back, said Preston Austin, a leader in efforts to bring the network to Madison. He said itâ??s expected that Google will make selections this year.The ice cream flavor created to woo Google, MadFiber, didnâ??t even last a month, said Sara Brummel, manager at UW-Madisonâ??s Babcock Dairy.

Wisconsin won more funding Thursday than every state but California when the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $76 million in funds for development of energy-efficiency technologies and careers. Wisconsin was awarded $7.9 million in this round of stimulus funding, the agency said.That includes two projects at Johnson Controls Inc., one at Eaton Corp., two at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one at Milwaukee Area Technical College. UW-Madison will receive $246,249 to work on technology linked to a high performing non-vapor compression cooling system. The $7.9 million for Wisconsin includes $1.6 million for training projects funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That includes $934,712 for a UW-Madison initiative to develop a curriculum to train operations staff working in commercial buildings on ways to manage a buildingâ??s energy consumption and environmental impacts.

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow earns about $50,000 less than the median salary of chancellors at similar schools in the Midwest.

Plans to upgrade UW-Madisonâ??s Charter Street Heating Plant to burn biomass and natural gas instead of coal got the blessing of the cityâ??s Urban Design Commission Wednesday night, while a separate university proposal to build a laboratory building was referred to a later meeting

MADISON, Wis. — A construction worker at the Chazen Art Museum work site in downtown Madison fell 15 to 20 feet, but suffered what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Madison Fire Department.

Officials said emergency responders were called to the construction site at 6:45 a.m. on Wednesday at 750 University Avenue for a report of a fall. Upon arrival, they found a worker who had fallen off of a wall.

A judge says a lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin-Parkside over its handling of an alleged sexual assault can move forward.

The Madison Common Council will take final action Tuesday on the liquor licenses of seven downtown Madison businesses owned by a couple convicted of tax evasion.

Two Wisconsin natives are among the “top staffers” on Capitol Hill, according to the newspaper Roll Call.John Buckley, of Hartford, Wis., is the Democratic chief tax counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee. The lawyer has been a congressional aide for 36 years and “has had a hand in nearly all the major tax bills,” according to the Capitol Hill-based newsaper. He received a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Ward McCarragher, of Waukesha, Wis., is chief counsel for the House Transporation and Infrastructure Committee. He received both his B.A. and his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin.

President Obama named five panelists to a commission tasked with finding ways to avoid a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 men and started the nationâ??s worst oil spill. Panelist Fran Ulmer is a UW law school grad.

Wisconsin Department of Administration Secretary Michael Morgan will step down from that post and join the University of Wisconsin System as the systemâ??s senior vice president for administration and fiscal affairs, university system officials announced Friday. The move fills a post being vacated by Tom Anderes, who was appointed to the job two years ago and left to become head of the University of Arizona System. It fills a vital role for the university system as it develops a budget proposal for the 2011-13 biennium, UW System President Kevin Reilly said.

A new UW-Madison Lakeshore dorm, cafeteria and a $245 million rebuild of the Charter Street Heating Plant got approvals to move forward at the UW Board of Regents meeting Thursday. A committee of Regents approved the design reports for the three projects. The full Board of Regents is expected to approve the projects today.

A top aide to Gov. Jim Doyle accepted a position Friday as chief operating officer for the University of Wisconsin System, where his pay will increase by $108,000.

University of Wisconsin System regents are expected to discuss a report Friday that recommends salary increases and changes to the universityâ??s compensation system. A commission of business and higher education leaders appointed by System President Kevin Reilly found that average salaries for most academic employees in Wisconsin lag far behind what comparable schools pay.

A downtown design committee showed interest Thursday night in getting a planned redeveloping of the 700 block of State Street done a year earlier than originally planned.

…WHY IS IT that so many public sector institutions are absolutely tone deaf and clueless to the economic suffering being widely experienced by the people?

The latest example â?? itâ??s an annual ritual, actually â?? comes from the University of Wisconsin system. It is twofold: (1) The system has unburdened itself of yet another study purporting to show that employees and faculty are woefully under-compensated and deserving of big raises; and (2) UW regents will be asked, again this year, to grossly exceed prevailing inflationary figures by enacting a 5.5 percent tuition increase.

Doctors spend almost as much time on the subtleties of billing codes as we do on patient care. Primary care in particular is adversely affected by a fee-for-service system that stifles innovative approaches to managing complex chronic and preventive care in favor of those services insurance companies and Medicare will reimburse.

John J. Frey III, Madison, Wis. The writer, a doctor, is a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

A 22-year-old downtown resident was so ticked off at the loud bar crowd next door he grabbed a bow and arrow and went out to confront the most boorish of the brood, Madison police reported.

Unfortunately for the modern day Robin Hood, the bow and arrow was disturbing to others, with police being called and an officer eventually drawing his gun at the archer before citing him for disorderly conduct.

U.S. Senator Herb Kohl says he has appointed an 11-member bipartisan task force of Wisconsin legal experts and community leaders to examine the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. The group includes Frank Tuerkheimer, professor, University of Wisconsin Law School
and Brady Williamson, professor, University of Wisconsin Law School and attorney, Godfrey & Kahn.

The liquor licenses of seven downtown Madison businesses owned by a couple convicted of tax evasion are still up in the air.The Alcohol License and Review Committee is considering pulling the liquor licenses for Vineyard Liquor, Churchkey Bar and Grill, Badger Liquor, the Badger Tasting Room, Samba grill, Brickhouse BBQ and Rileyâ??s Wines of the World.

Salaries for University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff have fallen so far behind their peers that they must be increased quickly to remain competitive, a report warned Monday. Average salaries for almost every category of academic employee are now behind what comparable schools pay their employees, a 19-member commission created by UW System President Kevin Reilly concluded. “If not remedied in a timely fashion, the Commission believes that these deficiencies could have a damaging effect on the UW System, the UW Systemâ??s ability to achieve its goals for the Growth Agenda of Wisconsin, and on the quality of life in Wisconsin,” the report warned.

The University of Wisconsin System is seeking approval for a $35.9 million one-year budget for its ongoing plan to install a new payroll and benefits system. The Board of Regents approved the outline of the $81.4 million plan last year, but required system administrators to come back every year for approval of the budget.

Two UW-Madison students woke up with a maple tree in their living room Saturday morning, then spent part of the day replanting it because they were the ones who dragged it there in the first place. Thomas Schroeder, 21, of Menomonee Falls, and Brenton Neuharth, 21, from Eureka, S.D., were issued citations for damage to property for taking a newly planted tree out of the ground on a terrace on West Main Street near South Broom Street.

Seriously, the Silver Dollar may soon have to return to its speakeasy beginnings, because alcohol licenses are evaporating in the downtown area.

Madison police said they are investigating an arson fire after a vehicle was set on fire downtown early Wednesday morning. The arson happened shortly before 3 a.m. in the 100 block of West Johnson Street, said Lt. Joey Skenandore. No one was injured.

A week ago, UW-Madison police arrested a 21-year-old student for allegedly setting fires in two trash-filled dumpsters and in two university-owned vehicles.

A law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., was arrested in Rwanda Friday for what are considered illegal views on the Rwandan genocide. Peter Erlinder has local ties because his daughter, Sarah Erlinder, graduated from UW-Madisonâ??s law school last year.

State officials wisely prioritized ridership in picking Downtown Madison as the best of several locations for a passenger train station. A station near Monona Terrace should provide passengers from Milwaukee, Chicago and elsewhere with easy access to the state Capitol, State Street, UW-Madison and related sporting events – as well as buses and cabs to get elsewhere in the city.

A Wisconsin prison inmate pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping his cellmate, a convicted killer, commit suicide by hanging himself from their bunk bed. Under the deal, Walters pleaded no contest to one count of assisting in the Jan. 10, 2009, suicide of 20-year-old Adam Peterson in their cell at Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun. Peterson, a native of Stillwater, Minn., who had dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died of asphyxiation.

A report says the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is addressing concerns about student power on campus, but further clarification is needed in two areas.

The goal was simple â?? consume only as much Wisconsin beer and cheese as I could burn off biking Madisonâ??s omnipresent trails and paths. And though I saw all of Madisonâ??s many attractions from a bike saddle, I came back from my three-day adventure blissfully bloated.

When Scott Haumersen was a student at UW-Madison, he changed his major from social work to business after realizing he wouldnâ??t be able to support a family on a social workerâ??s salary, he said.But when he got his first full-time job as an accountant straight out of college â?? at Madisonâ??s Wegner CPAs & Consultants, where he remains today as managing partner â?? he brought that social-worker sensibility with him and changed the company.

Inmate Joshua Walters called out for help. His cellmate of three weeks, a 20-year-old convicted killer named Adam Peterson, was hanging from a noose made out of a bed sheet tied to their bunk bed. A note tucked in the waistband of Petersonâ??s pants apologized to the family of the stranger he had stabbed to death a year earlier. Peterson grew up in Minnesota and attended University of Wisconsin campuses in La Crosse and Madison before dropping out, developing a mental illness and committing murder.

John W. Vaudreuil, 55, has served his current position as an assistant U.S. attorney since 1980. Vaudreuil also taught as an adjunct professor at the UW-Madison Law School, where he graduated from in 1979. Vaudreuil graduated from UW-Madison in 1976.

Scientific advances and religious beliefs have clashed repeatedly in recent years over issues such as stem cell research and evolution. As nanotechnology becomes a greater part of Americansâ?? daily lives, researchers have asked whether it will face similar opposition. Experts say that the answer lies in finding solutions to the larger challenges of communicating between science and religion.

Today, Medill News Service reported on research by Dietram Scheufele, a professor of life science communication at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, about how religious values may shape the publicâ??s view of nanotechnology. Scheufeleâ??s continuing work studying nanotechnology and society has resulted in new research, published in the May issue of Materials Today, that addresses how Googleâ??s search suggestions may shape and how people view the field of nanotechnology.

UW-Madison Police arrested a 21-year-old UW-Madison student for allegedly setting fires in Dumpsters and university-owned vehicles early Tuesday morning, police said. Alexandrew Colin Kaufer, of Madison, was tentatively charged with four counts of felony arson and one count of carrying a concealed weapon.

UW-Madison Police arrested a 21-year-old UW-Madison student for allegedly setting fires in Dumpsters and university-owned vehicles early Tuesday morning, police said.

MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department said Tuesday that a suspect has been arrested in connection with arson cases. Police said that four fires were reported between 2:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Tuesday in an area south of University Avenue, north of Regent Street, east of Charter Street and west of Park Street.

Firefighters and police were busy early Tuesday morning putting out four fires set on the UW-Madison campus.

The UW Police Department said the four fires were reported between 2:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. in an area south of University Avenue, north of Regent Street, east of Charter Street and west of Park Street. Two fires were in trash-filled dumpsters, and two were set in university-owned vehicles, said Sgt. Anita Kichefski of the UW-Madison Police Department.

Gov. Jim Doyleâ??s “risky” $251 million plan to overhaul a UW-Madison power plant seems a better bet these days after a large collection of state businesses have stepped forward with eco-friendly proposals for running it. Doyleâ??s office announced Monday that 59 businesses responded to his request for information on powering the Charter Street Heating Plant through a combination of natural gas and fuel derived from wood and agricultural waste.

Kudos to Mayor Dave and the Madison City Council for their leadership on â??getting to yesâ? on the Edgewater project this week. The historic Mansion Hill neighborhood, the adjacent University of Wisconsin, Madison residents and visitors to the area will all benefit significantly from this elegant development.

Gov. Jim Doyle says dozens of Wisconsin businesses are interested in supplying biomass products to help fuel a University of Wisconsin-Madison power plant. The governor announced Monday that 59 businesses responded to a state request to gauge interest among the private sector. Under the governorâ??s plan, the Charter Street Heating Plant is expected to stop burning coal next year and switch to a mixture of biomass fuel and natural gas.

Anyone who heard magnificent Russian accordionist Sergei Belkin play at the UW-Madison spring band concert or at the 32nd annual Rudy Burkhalter Memorial Accordion Jamboree in Oregon is aware of the uniqueness of the accordion, which should become Wisconsinâ??s official state musical instrument.

There will be injured victims, squad cars, and police with guns drawn. But donâ??t worry, this is just a test. UW-Madison will conduct a full-scale emergency response exercise on Wednesday, May 26 near Bradley Residence Hall, 1900 Willow Drive.

Companies and institutions looking to brighten their office space on a budget are turning to used furniture as a less-expensive and greener strategy. Affordable Office Interiors recently completed a project for the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health that incorporated reused and remanufactured furniture.Jennifer Quale, facilities planning specialist for the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said the university works with multiple furniture vendors and has implemented a purchasing contract for recycled furniture, both as a cost-savings measure and as a way to work toward sustainable designs.

After a year of passionate, polarizing debate and a final marathon meeting, the Madison City Council approved the Hammes Co.â??s proposed $98 million redevelopment of the historic Edgewater hotel. The council, after an eight-hour public hearing featuring an A list of movers and shakers, historic preservationists, hoteliers and residents, and four more hours of questions for staff and debate, cast five separate votes to move forward one of the most controversial developments in recent city memory. Bob Harlan and Pat Richter — the former Green Bay Packers chief executive officer and former University of Wisconsin athletic director, respectively — praised Hammesâ?? work on the Lambeau Field renovation and the Kohl Center.UW-Madison, the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Trek Bicycles, Downtown Madison Inc., and organized labor also enthusiastically supported the project.

Cooking from scratch takes more effort, but University of Wisconsin-Parkside Chancellor Deborah Ford knows it will yield a better finished product.

Her recommendation to stop accepting new students into the schoolâ??s teacher education program was, as she termed it in a letter, “a bold action.” And a necessary one, as the universityâ??s Faculty Senate affirmed last week.

Last year, Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz told us the city scheduled many downtown road construction projects at once to get it all over with.

Congratulations to longtime Madison progressive leader Helen Vukelich and community organizer and advocate for the homeless Cynthia Lin for the honors bestowed on them this week by the Social Justice Center.

….Lin received the centerâ??s Visionary Award. As a young activist, she has served as a volunteer organizer with Operation Welcome Home, a group of people affected by homelessness. Sheâ??s also a board member of Freedom Inc., a group that does community organizing and anti-violence work in low-income communities of color.

Employed by the UW-Madisonâ??s Multicultural Student Center, she trains students on social justice, community organizing and social movement topics.

Immigration reform is back on the American publicâ??s agenda, catapulted into the headlines with the passage of a controversial Arizona law that sent thousands of demonstrators into the streets across the country on May 1. Yet there is no legislation before Congress, and Democrats are floating only an outline for reform in the Senate. Where are these efforts heading, and where does immigration reform fit in American society? Reporter Pat Schneider of The Capital Times talks with Doris Meissner, commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Bill Clinton, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Meissner, a Milwaukee native who graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a member of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. She was in Madison recently to speak to the Madison Committee on Foreign Relations.

Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, has stated that student achievement is the purpose of education. What is meant by “student achievement?”…If he has an explanation of “student achievement,” itâ??s his duty to explain the means of analysis and policies clearly. Otherwise he needs to have and explain a clearer conception of “the purpose of education.”

The city of Madison said that construction projects that will impact traffic will begin Monday at two University Avenue intersections and on Broom Street.

Madison traffic planners are backing off a directive to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to rebuild streets and intersections surrounding the Charter Street power plant.

The traffic tie-up of the summer, hands down, should be the shutdown of Park Street from Johnson Street to University Avenue.

But thatâ??s only one of a half-dozen street projects beginning Monday in the UW-Madison campus area, projects that will cause a summer of headaches for commuters heading into and out of downtown from the west side.

The work centers around the final phase of the East Campus Utility Project, according to the UW-Madison facilities department.

Converting the aging coal-burning Charter Street Heating Plant into one of the greenest facilities of its kind is coming at a price.

The new facility, which received initial approval from the city Plan Commission Monday night, will have the capacity to burn wood chips, corn stalks or other biomass.

But including biomass in the fuel mix has added at least $50 million in cost to the estimated $250 million power plant, the most expensive single project in UW-Madison history.

If a rezoning amendment approved Monday night by the Plan Commission moves forward, UW-Madisonâ??s Charter Street Heating Plant will be renovated and expanded to burn biomass and natural gas instead of coal. The $250 million project will transform the plant that has been burning coal since the 1860s, said Alan Fish, UWâ??s associate vice chancellor for facilities. The project includes demolishing part of the facility on the south side of the UW-Madison campus and building a biomass fuel handling and storage facility there.

The University of Wisconsin-Parkside is considering suspending admission to the schoolâ??s teacher certification program and dissolving the teacher education department.

Chancellor Deborah Ford announced her intent Friday to close admission to the long-troubled University of Wisconsin-Parkside teacher licensure program and dissolve the Teacher Education Department.

A body of a 17-year-old male found on the UW-Richland campus Wednesday night was that of a missing Richland Center youth who apparently committed suicide, according to the Richland County Sheriffâ??s Department.

Crabb, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin law school in 1962, served in the 1970s as a federal magistrate.
(Also has photo of Ted Crabb.)

As direct witness to the tragedy of heroin addiction among our young, I found the opening of your series on the killer drug lacking in its explanation of significant reasons for its increased local presence. Noted UW-Madison historian Alfred McCoy and others have shown that increased domestic flows of heroin have long been related to this nationâ??s foreign policy and military ventures.