Slain University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann would not have wanted her final moments broadcast publicly, her parents have written to a Dane County Circuit judge in a letter released Monday.
In the face of a budget crisis, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said the state’s flagship university will likely have to make choices that “won’t feel good to do but will make the university stronger.”
Martin made the statement at the first of three forums for University of Wisconsin-Madison students, faculty and staff to discuss the university’s future in a slumping economy.
According to the warrant, a UW-Madison police officer spotted the car about 10 p.m. at Monroe and Spooner streets and recognized it as belonging to a man whose driver’s license was suspended.
UW-Madison students turned out in huge numbers for last month’s presidential election.
Yet only 6 percent of students took the time to vote on a plan to build a new campus student center two years ago.
Now a group of several hundred students is upset that the new building will cost $96 per student, per semester. Over a college career, that could total $800 or more.
The lesson — for voters of all ages — is simple: Local elections and referendums matter. They can even have more effect than state or national elections on ordinary people’s lives, services and expenses.
Wisconsin’s projected budget deficit is actually a large but manageable $1.25 billion — not the frightening $5.4 billion that has caused consternation at the Capitol and around the state.
That conclusion offers a useful, attitude-adjusting way for Gov. Jim Doyle, state lawmakers and taxpayers to approach the 2009-2011 budget.
Wisconsin’s projected $5.4 billion budget shortfall would at least double the number of unfilled state jobs if Wisconsin doesn’t get financial help from Washington, Gov. Jim Doyle told federal lawmakers last week.
Doyle testified before the House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau, about the need for a federal bailout for states facing fiscal challenges.
Some University of Wisconsin-Madison students are preparing to beat a world record for snowball fights.
More and more companies are cutting back and unfortunately that means laying off workers, but today graduates at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse tried to put the fears of finding a job behind them to accept their diplomas.
741 students earned degrees during three different ceremonies at the University’s winter commencement Sunday.
An emergency test reveals UW Police now have it figured out after a system that could save lives was failing for too many people.
But they are facing a different challenge.
Instant information in the palm of your hand is a pretty valuable tool but it doesn’t do much good if the message isn’t getting through and the message can’t get through if the students don’t sign up.
Two homicides at bar close in recent months have bar patrons in downtown Madison a little on edge.
Justin Kaatz’s friend Juan Bernal was killed outside the Plaza in September, and another friend, Roynell Fuller, is accused of murdering a man outside the Crave earlier this month.
“I think it’s unnecessary. Juan Burnell, for instance, lost his life over a fight over a jukebox. That’s ridiculous,” said Kaatz at State Street Brats on Friday.
The 911 operator who answered the call from Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone told her supervisor she heard background noise and voices, but the “scream” on the audio recording “didn’t register as a scream.”
UW-Madison graduate Jim Yeadon quietly broke ground in Wisconsin, trying to make sexual orientation “a non-issue” as he campaigned and served on the City Council.
The 911 dispatcher who took a call from a college student around the time she was slain told investigators she either did not hear a scream on the call or did not recognize the sound as a scream.
The dispatcher, Rita Gahagan, also told investigators the subsequent noise on the call did not strike her as sounds of distress. Police have described the call as containing a scream followed by the sound a struggle.
With extremely poor economic conditions, universities across the country have experienced losses in their endowment funds, and the University of Wisconsin is no exception.
After seeing an increase in the number of complaints about late-night vendors from residents around North Frances Street, a Madison committee contemplating options Wednesday to change the situation.
A Dane County judge Wednesday ordered the release of documents withheld since May related to the Brittany Zimmermann homicide and mishandled 911 call but wants to hear from law enforcement officials before deciding whether to release the call itself.
Many Downtown residents didn’t comply with snow emergency parking rules during Tuesday’s storm, and the city said they would tow violators on Downtown streets Wednesday night and early Thursday.
The start of a commuter rail line between Madison and Milwaukee, a new UW-Madison medical research tower and expansion of Interstate 94 are among the local projects Gov. Jim Doyle says could be started within months if federal lawmakers pass a massive economic stimulus bill for states.
The dean of the Wisconsin School of Business has been asked to craft long-term strategies to boost revenue for the state’s flagship school – part of public universities’ shift toward private sources of aid in an era of declining state support and a national recession.
A Dane County judge ordered the release Wednesday of a full report on the mishandling of a 911 call around the time a college student was murdered, but put off ruling whether audio of the call should be released.
Since arriving on campus in late August, new University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin has stressed the need for public institutions of higher education to reevaluate their funding models.
On Wednesday, Martin took her first major step in helping UW-Madison address this issue.
Princeton University will pay $50-million and almost as much in legal fees to foundations controlled by the heirs of a major donor to the institution, in a settlement that ends a closely watched lawsuit over how strictly colleges must adhere to a donor’s wishes.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison must increase private sources of revenue to remain a world-class university, Chancellor Biddy Martin said Wednesday.
Martin named UW-Madison business school dean Michael Knetter as a special assistant for long-term strategy and development.
MADISON, Wis. — The dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school has been tapped to take on a larger role at the university.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin has named Michael Knetter a special assistant for long-term strategy and development. Knetter is an economist who has led the business school since 2002. He will stay on as dean.
While banks and automakers command Washington’s attention, Gov. Jim Doyle this week wants to shift the focus to state governments across the country that face “unprecedented” and “devastating” budget cuts that could weaken their economic competitiveness.
A 20-year-old University of Wisconsin dropout pleaded guilty Monday on a single count of first-degree intentional homicide of a Madison resident.
Former UW-Madison student Adam Peterson pleaded guilty to the charge of first-degree intentional homicide at a hearing Monday for the January stabbing death of Joel Marino.
Already in court in a patent infringement lawsuit, computer chip giant Intel fired back at UW-Madison on Friday with a lawsuit of its own, this one alleging that Intel was denied the use of UW research that the company funded.
After escaping the war zone that was his country, former child soldier Ishmael Beah, now a best-selling author, had forgotten many simple things.
“I had forgotten how to sleep. I had forgotten how to trust people. I had forgotten how to be happy. I had forgotten how to sit in one place more than a few seconds. I was very restless,” the Sierra Leone native told a near-capacity crowd of more than 1,000 people Monday night in the Wisconsin Union Theater during his Distinguished Lecture Series talk.
The UW System Board of Regents approved Friday a proposal to increase UW faculty salaries by 2.5 percent each year for the next two years.
The 2.5 percent increase for University of Wisconsin System faculty and academic staff for 2009-11 was approved by the Board of Regents Friday and will now move to the UW Department of Administration for approval.
Parts of a previously sealed document released Friday from the Brittany Zimmermann homicide investigation shows the 911 call she made on the day she was killed lasted 57 seconds, but sounds heard on the recording were not clear enough at the time for the dispatcher to hear anything indicating an emergency.
A college dropout pleaded guilty Monday to fatally stabbing a 31-year-old Madison resident in his home – a stranger killing that shocked the city and remains something of a mystery.
Adam Peterson, 20, acknowledged that he walked into Joel Marino’s home near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and used a knife to stab him in the abdomen and chest on Jan. 28. Marino, a musician and employee of a medical device company, was found dying in a nearby alley.
Nearly 11 months after 31-year-old Joel Marino was found dying in an alley between his Madison home and a local hospital, the man responsible for his death has pleaded guilty to first-degree intentional homicide.
A long-time family of supporters of the Wisconsin School of Business recently donated a large sum of money to help begin an endowment deanship.
Former UW-Madison student Adam Peterson, 20, will plead guilty to first-degree intentional homicide Monday for the murder of Madison resident Joel Marino in January.
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.
