Category: UW-Madison Related

As promised in November, the defendants in the civil lawsuit filed by the parents of slain UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann have filed motions to dismiss the suit.

I agree with Journal sports columnist Andy Baggotâ??s Friday column about the Camp Randall Hockey Classic, but Iâ??d add one thing. A sellout would be much more likely if the Badgers played Minnesota or North Dakota.

The March issue of Menâ??s Health magazine will contain a ranking of â??Americaâ??s Drunkest Cities,â? and coming in at No. 15 is Madison, Wisconsin with a grade of D-.

On a cold, snowy day, when itâ??s no fun to wait outside for a bus that may be delayed, you could see on a map exactly where your Metro Transit bus is and find out when it will roll up to your bus stop, just by checking your mobile phone before you leave home. That is, if you have technology developed by UW-Madison professor Jignesh Patel and his company, Locomatix.

A trial expected to begin Monday will recall an ugly chapter at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, when two black administrators were each demoted within months for misusing university credit cards.

UW system President Kevin Reilly presented his new initiative to improve faculty compensation at a Board of Regents meeting Thursday.

A new $1.8 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will enable humanities departments at the University of Wisconsin to hire postdoctoral students and expand course offerings beginning next semester.

UW-Madison news roundup.

Jonny Hunter of Underground Catering will lead the Slow Food UW-Madison guest breakfast team Saturday at the â??Taste of the Marketâ? breakfast at the winter Dane County Farmersâ?? Market.

Tuition would spike by $1,200 at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in the next four years under a proposal that cleared a key hurdle Thursday. A UW System Board of Regents committee approved the plan, known as the Blugold Commitment, despite concerns about a lack of specifics and the student body being divided over the proposal. The full regents board, which governs the UW System of 13 four-year universities and 13 two-year colleges, may give final approval Friday.

The state auditor is warning that the University of Wisconsin Systemâ??s aging payroll program could be compromised because of weak financial controls. State Auditor Jan Mueller says the program is “very old” and “very fragile” and errors could cause huge problems for tax processing and payroll payments for thousands of employees.

A key University of Wisconsin System regents committee is approving a four-year, $1,200 tuition increase at UW-Eau Claire.

Owners of a popular downtown bar that is slated to be demolished to make way for a University of Wisconsin-Madison expansion are not giving up their fight against the university.

In 2008, the UW System voted to use its eminent domain power and condemn Brothers Bar and Grill. It was a move to make room for a performance facility for the UW School of Music.

Some of the stateâ??s public two-year colleges may offer four-year degrees as early as next year, under a plan approved Wednesday (2/3) by the UW System.

The plan would have up to six of the thirteen UW Collegesâ?? campuses offer a four-year, bachelor of applied arts and sciences degree on a pilot basis.

The sluggish economy took its toll on the amount donors were willing to give to colleges across the United States during the 2009 fiscal year, with donations down 11.9 percent from the previous year according to the Voluntary Support of Education Survey.

The Souper Bowl XIV, a fundraiser for UW-Madison Habitat for Humanity, will be held Saturday, Feb. 6, at West High School, 30 Ash St., from 3 to 8 p.m.

Listening to the soft-spoken words of the Somali-born guest stood in stark contrast to the ferocious debate the campus visitor brought with her to the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Tuesday.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken feminist who is critical of Islam and its treatment of women, spoke to an overflowing crowd of 1,300 people as part of a lecture series.

The UW-Madison Faculty Senate voted Monday to support a state bill that would exempt non-state-funded university employees from state-imposed furloughs.

The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate voted Monday to support a bill that aims to improve the amount saved through state-mandated furloughs.

The UW-Madison Faculty Senate will take up a resolution this afternoon to support a bill that would exempt state workers from furloughs if their positions are not funded by state dollars.

A trial date of April 8 and 9 has been set in the case of Brothers Bar and Grill versus the university.Brothersâ?? owners Eric and Marc Fortney sued the UW Board of Regents in October in an attempt to prevent UW-Madison from taking their bar, 704 University Ave. The university wants the land to build a new School of Music building.

Officers responded to a frantic call for help from a man who was being beaten in the Equinox apartment building at approximately 8 p.m. Thursday.

A 22-year-old woman who had been missing has been located on the University of Wisconsin campus. She is safe and has been taken to a local hospital for evaluation, according to Dane County officials.

A proposal to make the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus entirely smoke free is on hold because of enforcement questions.

A proposal to make the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus entirely smoke free is on hold because of enforcement questions.

A 22-year-old town of Westport woman who had been reported missing Friday morning was found in a UW-Madison campus building, authorities said.

Melanie Meyer was reported missing at 7 a.m. Friday, and was last seen at her residence at 5001 County M about midnight, authorities said.

Gabriela Farfan, 19, a West High School graduate and now a freshman geology major at Stanford University, will attend tonightâ??s State of the Union address as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama. While in high school, Farfan spent two years working with geology professor Huifang Xu in his UW-Madison lab and credits the universityâ??s geology museum for sparking her interest in minerals at age 7, according to UW-Madison.

Starting Monday, Dane County residents facing foreclosure will have a new mediation option that could help them keep their homes even as new filings continue to mount. The program, approved recently through an order by Dane County Circuit Court judges, will require lenders in a foreclosure action to provide the homeowner with a court-approved form informing them of the mediation programâ??s existence. UW-Madison Law School students will help families prepare for the mediation sessions.

A University of Wisconsin-Platteville sorority — Zeta Beta Chi — is on probation until Jan. 1, 2012, the result of hazing incidents that occurred in mid-November.

Richard Egley, Dean of Students, said the sorority is a local student organization not affiliated with an international or national Greek letter organization. It was founded in 1994 by 16 female UW-P students.

Reflecting the difficult financial environment for higher education, university endowments lost an average of 18.7 percent in the last fiscal year, the worst returns since the Great Depression, according to a study of hundreds of public and private institutions.

A UW-Madison center got a federal grant of nearly $9 million, which will help researchers prepare to conduct stem cell studies in humans.

I have wasted years smearing my bread with yellowing stick butter, left out on the kitchen counter to turn rancid. No more. Not after the butter I tasted Monday at Slow Food UWâ??s Family Dinner Night, prepared by Madison Club chefs Dan Fox and Jason Veal.

….More than 110 people turned out at a church basement on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus for the locally sourced feast, the kickoff to the semester of weekly Family Dinner Nights that Slow Food UW organizes.

Two bits of news in the past week should give disciples of academic cooperation some encouragement:

University of Wisconsin campuses in Madison and Milwaukee announced a $300,000 grant program designed to encourage intercampus research. Either campus could take the lead on a project, but at least 25% of the work would have to be done at the other school.

The Madison campus, meanwhile, is cooperating with two Wisconsin manufacturers to develop stronger and lighter metals using nanotechnology. Oshkosh Corp. and Eck Industries of Manitowoc are partners with UW-Madison in a five-year research project. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has given the project $5 million. According to an article by the Journal Sentinelâ??s Rick Barrett, the market for nanotech products will reach $1 trillion by 2015.

After the earthquake struck Haiti last week, a former Wisconsin Badgers football player quickly set about organizing a team to lead a medical effort in Haiti.

By now, almost everyone has seen images of the destruction and despair in Haiti following the massive earthquake that hit oPort-au-Prince on Jan. 12, but one University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor witnessed the disaster firsthand.

As he watched the chaotic scenes from Haiti unfold on television, Jake Wood worried that large-scale relief efforts couldnâ??t move quickly enough to reach many of the earthquake victims in time. 

And Wood knew his leadership and survival skills put him in a unique position to help; Wood, 26, was a reserve offensive lineman for the University of Wisconsin before joining the Marines, where he served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A University of Wisconsin System official agreed Wednesday to take on the role of interim chancellor for UW-Colleges and UW-Extension, pending approval by the UW System Board of Regents next month.

Southeastern Wisconsin woodland owners plan to discuss stewardship, invasive species and coexisting with wildlife at their annual conference on Saturday, Feb. 6, in Waukesha. Conference sponsors include the University of Wisconsin Extension.

Noted: Perhaps the most damning endorsement of the proposed anti-scalping law came from the lobbyist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who said the Badgers havenâ??t had any problems with ticket scalping outside Camp Randall or the Kohl Center, but that UW would support the bill just in case it finds a need for it sometime in the future.

Jeffrey Henriques initially introduced a classroom response system–a “clicker”–into his courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during fall 2004 to encourage students to participate in the questions he would throw at them. The researcher and senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology adopted the technology as an alternative to asking students to raise their hands to answer questions in his classes. He found that a large number of students wouldnâ??t respond.”

The rise of research efforts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has sometimes put the campus in competition with its larger, older sibling in Madison, but chancellors at the two campuses are seeking ways to get researchers cooperating.

Thatâ??s why the two campuses are putting together a $300,000 grant program to encourage their faculty to work together.

Mentions that Terrance Wall grew up in the Madison area and has a masterâ??s degree in real estate appraisal and investment analysis from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In March, the century-old Blount Street power plant Downtown will make natural gas – not coal – its primary fuel. As new generation has been built in recent years – including the natural gas-fueled power plant on the UW-Madison campus that provides steam and chilled water to heat and cool campus buildings, in addition to generating up to 150 megawatts of electricity – the Blount Street plant has been relegated to secondary status.

Noted: Alumnus Darold Treffert graduated from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in 1958 and did his residency in psychiatry at University Hospital in Madison.

Advocate Magazine and Advocate.com ranked Madison the #5 gayest city in America in its February 2010 issue.

American colleges are slowly beginning to account for their students and faculty members caught up in Tuesdayâ??s devastating earthquake in Haiti, and a handful, including an Arizona State University graduate student whose foot had to be amputated, have made it back to the United States on relief flights.

Bold plans for a new kind of middle school in Madison deserve encouragement and strong consideration.

The proposed Badger Rock Middle School on the South Side would run year-round with green-themed lessons in hands-on gardens and orchards. The unusual school would still teach core subjects such as English and math. But about 120 students would learn amid a working farm, local business and neighborhood sustainability center.

A 74-year-old Madison man suffered what appeared to be non-life-threatening head injuries and a broken leg when he was struck by a taxi Wednesday afternoon in a crosswalk at the bottom of Bascom Hill on the UW-Madison campus, Madison police said.

A list of charitable organizations based in southern Wisconsin working on relief efforts in Haiti includes the UW-Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

UW-Madison officials reported two groups of students are unharmed and accounted for in Haiti, though one group may have to delay its return.

Two volunteers from a Milwaukee church group are safe in Haiti after a powerful earthquake. Volunteers at the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukeeâ??s Haiti Project were trying Tuesday and Wednesday to reach two men who had been working in a small village in the mountains near the community of Jeannette, Haiti.

Three universities will refrain from using Amazonâ??s Kindle DX in the classroom under terms of deals announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice has reached agreements with three more universities regarding the use of e-book readers and blind students.

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Ore. have all agreed not to use the Amazon Kindle DX or any other e-reader until blind students can use the devices as well as sighted students, as per the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Public health officials are trying to prevent a third wave of the H1N1 flu by encouraging more residents to get immunized.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz on Tuesday named Rob Phillips as Madisonâ??s new city engineer.

Phillips, who has been the cityâ??s interim engineer since July, succeeds Larry Nelson, who retired last year after 19 years in the position.

A former registrar at UW-Whitewater has been named interim registrar at UW-Madison.

Dan Edlebeck will begin his year-long appointment on Feb. 1, replacing Joanne Berg, registrar and vice provost for enrollment management, according to a release from UW-Madison.

An alert couple on the cityâ??s west side helped police capture a burglary suspect who could be linked to other break-ins.

“Detectives from both the Madison and University of Wisconsin-Madison police departments were interested in speaking with the suspect about possible involvement in recent burglaries and thefts,” (Madison Police spokesperson Joel) DeSpain said.

A Madison council member, a retired UW-Madison music professor and a senior at Memorial High School are the 2010 recipients of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. awards.

The humanitarian award winners are Shiva Bidar-Sielaff and James Latimer, while the youth leader winner is Jarrel Brandon Luke Montgomery.

Ralph Armstrong, whose convictions for the 1980 rape and murder of a UW-Madison student were overturned in 2005 and charges against him in the case were dismissed in July after he spent almost 30 years in prison, remains in a New Mexico prison on decades-old parole violations.

Armstrong, 57, was transferred in August from Wisconsin to New Mexico after the Dane County district attorneyâ??s office decided not to appeal the dismissal of charges against Armstrong in the death of Charise Kamps.

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claireâ??s plan for a new student union wonâ??t require a tree with historic significance to be cut down or moved after all.