Category: UW-Madison Related

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

Three friends at a house party near the UW-Madison campus were beaten up by others from the party in a parking lot on Mound Street, police said. One of the friends ended up in the hospital, the other two bloodied and battered.

Madison police said the incident happened about 11:40 p.m. Friday in the 1100 block of Mound Street.

A new report says the aging of the University of Wisconsin System work force will present a major challenge for the state in the next several years.

The report says one out of three UW System faculty and academic staff members is 55 or older, compared with one out of five 10 years ago.

The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, currently a yawning hole between Campus Drive and University Avenue, is a $150 million research complex of unprecedented scope in Wisconsin. The building, set to open in 2010, consists of twin institutes: the publicly funded Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the private Morgridge Institute for Research.

Deeply touched by the third-graders she taught in Brooklyn as a 20-year-old with a psychology degree from UW-Madison, Judith Laitman, who grew up in New York, says her motivation is simple: to help youngsters learn how to think.

A wind plant only gets energy when the wind blows. A solar panel only absorbs energy when the sun shines.

A nuclear power plant, though, runs nearly all the time.

That gives nuclear power the highest operating rate and is one of the reasons it’s undergoing a renaissance.

In a world concerned about global warming, nuclear power is cleaner than gas or coal, and much safer than it was in 1979 at the time of the Three Mile Island accident, said John J. Hirt, who is seeking an MBA in finance and is participating in the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school’s Applied Security Analysis Program.

As a UW-Madison alum, I was disappointed and ashamed to learn that UW educators participated in supporting domestic terrorist Bill Ayers by signing an on-line petition.

No thinking person can condone his and his wife’s terrorism, regardless of whether it occurred 40 years ago. Following the signers’ logic, will the next petition be to rename Sterling Hall the “Armstrong Building?”

Madison has a great chance to finally and emphatically declare the annual State Street Halloween party a success this weekend.

Eric Sandgren is wearing a Band-Aid two inches above his left eyebrow. The associate professor at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine notes that he’s been banging his head on things since he was 3 years old. This time, it was a dresser.

Madison’s mayor and city officials on Thursday announced the launch of Alert Madison, a text messaging system to help alert citizens to snow emergencies.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz called Alert Madison part of a comprehensive strategy to respond to snow events

Quoted: Marcos Hernandez, 39, a research specialist in fetal alcohol syndrome at UW-Madison, who volunteered as a drinker.

Madison police say their plan for handling Saturday’s Freakfest on State Street is adequate even if a free, illegal Mifflin Street block party springs up to compete with it, but city officials are trying to avoid testing the premise.

Despite a struggling national economy, the Wisconsin Badgers Athletic Department plans to go forward with two major capital projects.

But not only have the projects been scaled back in terms of scope and cost, UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said he wouldn’t hesitate to pull back completely rather than jeopardize the financial future of his department.

Alvarez said this week that a practice facility for men’s and women’s hockey and an athletic performance center remain on the same priority course to be built starting in 2009. The projected cost of the two initiatives has been trimmed from approximately $100 million to $70 million.

MADISON, Wis. — Madison’s mayor and city officials said Wednesday that the city is launching a text messaging system to send alerts to residents.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said the Alert Madison text messaging system will launch on Thursday.

More than $250,000 has been donated to the University of Wisconsin as part of an ongoing fundraising effort for need-based scholarships through a partnership between UW Credit Union and the UW Foundation.

A proposed settlement between Google and national author and publisher organizations could bring important enhancements to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s digitization partnership with the information technology giant.

Last week, over 40 UW-Madison affiliated employees have signed an online petition to â??Support Bill Ayersâ? and his academic achievements.

Bill Ayers, a 20-year professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has come under fire for his involvement with the terrorist organization, the Weather Underground. The Obama campaign has taken steps to distance themselves from Ayers and his alleged acts of terrorism during the Vietnam War.

The petition calls for all citizens, in particular scholars and teachers, to support Ayers for his exemplary scholarship, teaching and service. As of Oct. 28, the petition has received 4,090 signatures online, a majority of which affiliate with a university or college. Over 40 names on the petition listed an alignment to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tonight in Jefferson hundreds of people showed up at the court house for a public hearing about 2009’s budget.

The majority were there to talk about a $182,000 cut to the UW-Extension.

According to officials that’s about 40-percent of their annual budget.

The cuts would cost four people their jobs and according to some, would hurt services that are vital to the community.

Psst. Halloween is kind of a big deal in Madison. But that’s just between you, me and the tens of thousands of people who will be turning out downtown this weekend as Sarah Palins and sexy devils.

After years of putting up with a boozy, tear gas-laced freak-out every Halloween on State Street, city officials finally put the clamp down in 2006. They fenced it off, gave the event the cute name Freakfest, booked musical acts and started charging admission. Now it’s a well-organized freak-out, brought to you by Mountain Dew.

The annual Halloween celebration that draws thousands to State Street for music and merrymaking, could be settling into a pleasant adulthood after a long, turbulent youth.

Fires, broken windows and fighting were the hallmarks of the old Halloween on State Street, with crowds coming from around the Midwest to be part of the excitement, including the inevitable street-clearing tear gas and riot-equipped police to top off the evening.

Popping up in my inbox lately, and on some conservative blogs, is the allegation that Barack Obama was once a member of the Communist/Socialist/secretive/evil New Party, which is based (reasonably) on a New Party publication describing him in passing as a member.

When this first emerged, I called up the founder of the New Party, a University of Wisconsin professor named Joel Rogers, who objected both to the characterization of the party and Obama’s relationship to it.

MADISON, Wis. — This weekend’s homecoming is a long-standing tradition that brings back University of Wisconsin alumni from around the country to join current students to celebrate the school.

Those alumni bring back fond memories of campus and some of them are bringing cash to donate to their alma mater. However, some officials are concerned that the nation’s economic tumult will impact the economics of giving.

The UW officials said that they’re game plan doesn’t change, saying the most important aspect of fundraising is “building relationships” with its graduates.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads his Republican opponent, John McCain, in all Big Ten states, according to results from the second Big Ten Battleground Poll released Thursday.

Lively drumbeats and performances by the University of Wisconsin Wind Ensemble began ceremonies to give a warm welcome to new Chancellor Biddy Martin.

Both referred to their respective threat-of-choice as “existential” in nature, and throughout the foreign policy-themed debate at UW-Madison repeated established arguments from the Right and the Left on things like U.S. relations with Iran and Cuba, the status of Guantanamo Bay, support for “family planning” efforts overseas and whether or not President Bush and Vice President Cheney are worthy of impeachment.