Category: UW-Madison Related

The salary for the dean of the business school will now be paid for by a private endowment created with a gift from supporters of the University of Wisconsin School of Business.

For most people, a raise at work serves as a reward for a job well done and the opportunity for self-indulgence.

Everyone agrees that Gov. Jim Doyle faces a serious challenge when it comes to addressing Wisconsin’s budget shortfall of $5.4 billion.

But that challenge is being made more serious by the governor’s refusal to be realistic about what the state will have to do to balance its books.

Accused killer Adam Peterson, 20, will plead guilty Monday to first-degree intentional homicide for the stabbing death of Joel Marino in his Madison home in January, according to veteran assistant public defender Dennis Burke.

(Peterson was enrolled at UW-Madison for a short time in the fall of 2007)

Although many students, faculty and staff at University of Wisconsin schools say they are comfortable on campus, some say they have experienced harassment, often based on sexual orientation, gender, race or ethnicity, according to a new survey.

The UW System Board of Regents on Thursday discussed a Campus Climate Survey administered in spring to students, faculty and staff at UW-Milwaukee, UW-Oshkosh, UW-La Crosse, UW-Stevens Point and the UW Colleges.

An endowed deanship position at the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s School of Business has been created with a donation from long-time university supporter Albert Nicholas and his wife, Nancy Johnson Nicholas. The donation creates the Albert O. Nicholas Dean of the Wisconsin School of Business, which will cover the costs of the schoolâ??s deanship, which previously were paid primarily by university funds.

The Madison Police Department has just proved the case against its own secrecy policies.

Leopold School has a partnership with UW-Madison to recruit student teachers to support the foreign language program.

Local and state leaders attended the opening of Google’s office in Madison Wednesday.

Gov. Jim Doyle said Google will collaborate closely with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which he said is one of the reasons that education funding is still important during these tough economic times.

You can find Madison Wisconsin on Google.com, and now you can find Google in Madison.

The internet search engine leader officially opened their new office at 301 Blount Street in downtown.

At the open house, Governor Jim Doyle called Google a perfect fit for Madison.

A veteran of newspapers in Wisconsin and Iowa has been named the top editor of the Wisconsin State Journal.

John Smalley, editor of the La Crosse Tribune since 2002, will lead the State Journal as the 156-year-old Madison institution faces the twin challenges of a recession and a shift by readers toward the Internet.

A day after accounts of Brittany Zimmermann’s murder and 911 call were unintentionally released to the public, Dane County officials said they still don’t know why a 911 operator didn’t hear screams and a struggle.

This economic survey was co-sponsored by the UW-Madison School of Business.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin said she has asked deans to start considering contingency plans for how best to absorb potential cuts in funding due to the state’s financial crisis.

Martin, speaking at Bascom Hall Monday evening during this month’s UW Faculty Senate meeting, asked those in attendance to come up with “innovative ideas” that might help the university operate more efficiently and implored faculty and staff to “think outside the box” in an effort to find solutions to possible budget cuts.

With the bleak economy hitting people in the pocketbooks, many are scaling back on contributions and gifts to organizations, including the UW-system. The outlook is mixed for two of the systemâ??s larger campuses.

Sandy Wilcox is president of the U-W Foundation in Madison, which is its official fundraising and gift-receiving organization. He says the Foundationsâ?? brought in 4-percent more financial contributions than last year already — but thereâ??s also bad news. (Third item.)

When Ben Granby ran for Dane County coroner a decade ago, he pledged to “demystify the office” and wanted to market key chains, T-shirts and caps with the coroner’s logo.
He lost that election to former coroner Ray Wosepka and after thinking about making another what he described as a “joke-candidacy” run for sheriff in 2000, Granby, who had founded the political student group Ten Fat Tigers on the UW-Madison campus, gave up local politics for an international perspective.

University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly has halved his recommendation for faculty pay raises because of the growing financial strains on the state government.

Reilly said he is recommending annual raises of 2.5 percent for faculty and staff members rather than 5.2 percent to help address what could be the worst budget deficit in the state’s history.

It’s time to put director Mike Leckrone and his UW Marching Band on notice.
Either Leckrone gets the band to stop the senseless, repulsive hazing of younger members, or UW officials replace Lekrone with somone who can.

It’s that simple.

A Dane County judge has ruled a media attorney can listen to a 911 call made from a slain college student’s cell phone.However, the attorney can’t disclose the call’s contents to his clients or anyone else.

Dane County Circuit Judge Richard G. Niess said Wednesday he’ll rule later on whether the tape may be made public.

When Chris Klundt began toying with the idea of starting an online academic network for students and teachers in 2006, he had few visions of entrepreneurial grandeur.

Klundt, who earned undergraduate degrees from UW-Madison in computer sciences and biomedical engineering in 2005, had simply become frustrated during his days as a student with how few of his professors used Learn@UW — a collection of software tools that allows instructors to create course-specific Web sites to enhance the learning experience and help improve student-instructor interaction.

Some of the nationâ??s universities are trying to sell chunks of their portfolios privately as their endowments swoon with the markets.

Last year, approximately 1,900 UW-Madison students participated in a study abroad program, up about 14 percent from the year before. In fact, UW-Madison ranks 10th among U.S. research universities for study abroad participation, according to the annual Open Doors report, released last week by the Institute of International Education.

College endowments across the country are reporting substantial losses, and the University of Minnesota is no exception.

The Universityâ??s Consolidated Endowment Fund shrunk by 7.1 percent in the third quarter, and has declined 12.1 percent since September 2007, leaving just over a billion dollars in the fund. The third quarter includes July through September.

The University of Wisconsin Foundationâ??s President Andrew Wilcox and Chief Investment Officer David Erickson reported that their endowments had lost 12 percent by Sept. 30.

The governor wants to close a $5.4 billion budget hole without raising sales or income taxes, but how does he plan to make that happen?

Part of Governor Jim Doyle’s plan is to require state agencies to cut as much as 12.5-percent from the budget requests for the next biennium. He’s also ordered that vacant state jobs will remain unfilled for the time being. The state will also sell off vehicles from its fleet.

A conference at the University of Wisconsin Thursday focused on how tricky navigating the changing global workforce of the 21st century can be for recent college graduates.

With constant construction on campus, the University of Wisconsin continues to undergo expansion with the help of generous donors in the community.

In the midst of a struggling economy, a fundraising campaign sponsored in part by the University of Wisconsin has yet to reach the halfway point of its goal to raise $3 million for charity with only a week to go.

Gov. Jim Doyle said Thursday that state government faces a budget deficit of nearly $5.4 billion through mid-2011, $400 million more than he estimated only days ago.

Doyle said he was taking immediate steps to start to shore up the budget by selling 500 vehicles, leaving 2,800 jobs vacant and not filling 700 openings expected through retirements and other attrition, ending the practice of giving some workers bonuses and canceling up to $30 million in grants.

Those cuts are a down payment on the $346 million deficit that state government faces by June 30. Doyle and legislators could fix that separately with a second budget-repair bill in a year or include those changes in the budget he will propose early next year. The two-year budget that begins July 1 is off by more than $5 billion.

The defense attorney for a former UW-Madison student awaiting trial for homicide charges filed a set of stipulations in Dane County Circuit Court Wednesday, including one acknowledging his defendant did cause the death of Joel Marino in January.

Gov. Jim Doyle has called a press conference for Thursday afternoon to detail steps the state will take to overcome an expected $5 billion state budget shortfall from the current budget and the 2009-11 budget.

Madison police released a sketch Wednesday of a man suspected in the sexual assault of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student on Sunday.

On Wednesday, Burke filed a series of proposed stipulations, the first of which admits that Adam Peterson, a former UW-Madison student, caused Marino’s death on Jan. 28. Marino, 31, was found stabbed to death in his home on West Shore Drive along Monona Bay.

Those driving downtown on University Avenue or Johnson Street have noticed little old University Square has undergone quite a makeover–from a humble one-story mini-mall–to a massive, 1.1 million-square-foot facility.

Despite some difficulties renting commercial space in the new University Square facility, developers say the trouble on Wall Street hasn’t made its way down University Avenue just yet.

In August, Madison development firm Executive Management, Inc., in partnership with UW–Madison and Steve Brown Apartments, completed construction on the massive 1.1 million-square-foot University Square facility. The building features a ten-story apartment tower, a nine-story office tower, a parking garage and two full floors of commercial retail space.

State budget writers, struggling to overcome a $5 billion state budget shortfall, likely will be working in the dark until Barack Obama moves into the White House.

Democratic Congressional leaders have spent the fall trying to enact a series of aid packages to bail out struggling states. But they’ve hit a road block in President George W. Bush. And until states know what the federal government is going to do, their own budgets remain in limbo.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher is among those joining President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team.

University of Wisconsin Law School professor R. Alta Charo, a nationally prominent bioethicist, has served on a federal panel on embryonic stem cell research.

The salaries and benefits for presidents at public colleges and universities are growing faster than that of private institutions, according to a survey released Monday.

Many young, aspiring reporters despair that traditional print journalism is dying rapidly. For longtime reporter and editor John Nichols, however, this is the most exciting and promising time in journalism yet.

Nichols, associate editor of The Capital Times, said that while the print journalism industry is quickly dying, it needs to die to create a new, healthier and more uplifting field of journalism. He spoke to a conference at UW-Madison devoted to consider the connection between democracy and journalism.

The highly visible Madison corner where Josie’s Spaghetti House once served up old-style Italian fare could be made over with a $14 million apartment and retail development.

Madison developer Thomas Degen wants to build the 65-unit, six-story project at the northwest corner of Park and Regent streets.

Madison city leaders are sounding an alarm on the city’s smoke detector regulations.

Ald. Mike Verveer wants to require tamper-proof smoke alarms in every apartment unit. The alarms would have to be installed on both sides of a bedroom door. Essentially, one smoke detector per bedroom. They would need to be hard wired and last for at least 10 years.

Single family homeowners, residents of duplexes, condos, and mobile homes would have to replace all smoke detectors that are 10 years old or older.

City fire inspectors support Verveer’s proposal, which has been in the works since a fatal house fire near the UW-Madison campus last November. The home did not have working smoke detectors.

State Democrats hinted earlier this week an economic stimulus package for the state is in the works, but specific aspects of the plan are yet to be determined.

The University of Wisconsin System is tightening its hiring as the state faces a huge budget shortfall.

UW System President Kevin Reilly has ordered chancellors who lead the state’s universities to approve all new hires on their campuses.

In a memo, Reilly says chancellors should only fill the jobs they consider “most essential to the university’s mission at this time.”

The Madison City Council finished the entire city budget a day ahead of schedule, passing its 2009 operating budget — which included funding for a Madison Metro bus fare increase — just after 2 a.m. Thursday.

….The council debated 45 amendments put forth by council members Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the most controversial being an effort to keep Madison Metro bus fares at their same prices that received widespread support at Wednesday’s public hearing on the budget.

Madison property taxpayers keep forking over more and more money to the city’s bus system. They’re paying enough.
It’s time for those who actually ride the buses to contribute a bit more to maintain routes and improve service.

Over the past quarter of a century, Noble Wray has gone from Madison beat cop to Madison’s top cop…and Madison has changed a lot in that time.

During a recent one-on-one interview Chief Wray said, “It is becoming more and more of an urban city. It is growing by leaps and bounds, and in the last ten years has been one of the fastest growing cities in the state of Wisconsin.”

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — New University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin is moving to put her stamp on the school, remaking the administration with an eye toward improving communication.

Two months after she succeeded John Wiley, Martin is moving to replace two Wiley aides with staff members of her own and to create a new high-profile communications post.

Leaving the chancellor’s office will be Casey Nagy, who played a key role in running the state’s flagship university during Wiley’s seven-year tenure. Nagy, a lawyer, was Wiley’s chief of staff and involved in many of the most sensitive decisions on personnel and other matters.

Also leaving her job, the school confirmed Wednesday, is Wiley assistant Deb Lauder.

The harsh economy will drive Wisconsin’s budget shortfall to more than $5 billion over the next 2½ years â?? the worst fiscal crisis in more than two decades and a harbinger of deep spending cuts, state job reductions and at least some targeted tax increases, Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday.

Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday that the state budget deficit would top $5 billion through mid-2011, making it by far the biggest funding gap in state history.

Chancellor Biddy Martin is planning to create a vice chancellor for university relations position as part of the University of Wisconsin staff.

Because of heavy usage generated by UW-Madison and state government, Metro delivers far more service per capita than any similar system in the nation, a September audit by the state Department of Transportation says.

With big spending increases difficult, Pocan said Democrats would look at smaller ticket items such as a plan long-sought by UW-Madison and other state universities to give domestic partner benefits to their employees. During the last budget process the Republican lawmakers who then controlled the Assembly blocked the measure.

Being one of the few large universities in the region that doesn’t offer health insurance to employees’ same-sex partners makes it harder to attract some top faculty, University of Wisconsin System spokesman David Giroux said. The $670,000 a year cost of the benefit would be returned because it would help attract or retain researchers who bring in the big federal grants that help drive Madison’s growing knowledge economy, he said.

“We’re going to do what we can to help the UW be competitive in keeping” faculty, Pocan said.

Plunging world markets have hit the Wisconsin Retirement System hard, with total assets in the fund down 29 percent or some $25 billion year to date and officials renewing warnings about a pending cut in pension payouts.

It’s the University of Wisconsin System’s version of a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

On the one hand, system leaders agree it’s time to seriously address the issue of low pay — at least when compared to peer institutions — for faculty and staff. To help close this widening gap, some are asking that UW System President Kevin Reilly request a hefty 7.78 percent annual pay plan increase for each of the next two years.

Yet as determined as people seem to be to tackle this pressing issue, no one knows where the money is going to come from to solve the problem. After all, the state is facing a budget shortfall of at least $3 billion, and many system leaders are leery about making students shoulder the large pay increase in the form of significant tuition hikes.

At its meeting Thursday, the Board of Regents debated allowing other University of Wisconsin System schools to offer doctoral degrees as well as educational doctoral degree programs.

Segregated fees for University of Wisconsin students currently stand at a bloated $445 per semester. Starting next fall, theyâ??ll go up another $48, thanks to the Wisconsin Union Initiative. And if the UW Recreational Sports Board has its way, you could soon add another $60 on top of that.

The ill winds on Wall Street have swept away more than one-quarter of the value of the state’s core pension fund this year, putting it on track for a possible $500 drop in average yearly payments to 150,000 state and local retirees, state officials said Thursday.

Madison police this morning released a sketch of a suspect in connection with the armed robbery of a 20-year-old UW-Madison student in a parking lot in the 100 block of Langdon Street Monday night.

A growing number of retirements coupled with less-than-competitive faculty salaries in the University of Wisconsin System will critically challenge the system’s ability to attract and keep the best corps of academics, according to a report up for discussion at the UW Board of Regents meeting today.

MADISON, Wis. — The Dane County 911 dispatch center is under fire again for failing to send officers to investigate noise complaints that later became a homicide investigation.

Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said that the 911 center violated policy when it failed to send officers to respond to two complaints it received about men fighting in Lake Edge Park on Monday night.

A UW-Madison library official says a proposed settlement between search-engine giant Google and various writers and publishers groups will greatly enhance learning and research opportunities.

The settlement seeks to end a 2005 lawsuit filed against Google by the Authors Guild and numerous publishers and authors. It alleges that Googleâ??s scanning of copyrighted library books and posting unauthorized portions of them in search results was illegal. (11th item.)

UW-Madison engineers and physicists have developed a method of measuring how strain affects thin films of silicon that could lay the foundation for faster flexible electronics.

The details offered in a UW news release definitely fall under the “iDGi” category, but we welcome anything that promises faster flexible electronics. We offer the details for those who might get it.

Quoted: Max Lagally, the Erwin W. Mueller and Bascom Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UW-Madison