Category: UW-Madison Related

See Amiri Baraka, “the Godfather of Spoken Word,” speak at the Wisconsin Union Theater (800 Langdon St.) at 7 p.m. on Monday, July 7. The free “lit-hop” lecture/performance kicks off the 3rd Annual Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Educator’s Institute, running on the UW-Madison campus until July 11.

Alumni of the University of Wisconsin-Madison are invited to two events during Farm Technology Days in Brown County. Former students and friends of the UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences are invited to the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association’s annual Picnic on July 16. That will be held between 3:30-7:30 p.m. at Wayside Dairy Farm near Greenleaf. The picnic costs $10 per person. No reservations are necessary.

Adam Peterson gave Madison police an incriminating statement when they contacted him at his mother’s Minnesota home June 26, causing them to arrest him in the slaying of Joel Marino.

A suspect in a high-profile stabbing death that frightened Madison residents was ordered jailed on a $1 million bail Tuesday.

Adam Peterson, a Minnesota native who attended UW-Madison briefly and who checked into a Madison hospital’s psychiatric ward for a week in March, appeared before court commissioner Todd Meurer wearing a suicide prevention smock.

A Stillwater Area High School graduate accused of murdering a Wisconsin man is being transported from Stillwater to Madison, Wis.

Adam Charles Peterson, 20, was released today from the Washington County Jail. He was arrested at his mother’s home in Grant last week and later charged in Dane County, Wis., with first-degree murder.

He is accused of stabbing Joel Marino to death on Jan. 28. Marino was found in an alley near his Madison home.

Peterson attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison last fall, but withdrew from the university in November. His father said he believes his son suffers from mental illness.

The father of the suspect in the Joel Marino murder says his son couldn’t be involved in two unsolved murders in Madison because he was out of town at the time, according to a story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

A college dropout charged with killing a Madison man is being transported from Minnesota to Dane County.

About six weeks after Joel Marino was stabbed to death in his South Side leading to a weeklong stay in the psychiatric ward of a Madison hospital.

MADISON (WKOW) — For nearly five months, there has been a sense of unshakeable dread in the bayfront, southside Madison neighborhood of murder victim Joel Marino.

The father of Adam Peterson, who was charged in the killing of Joel Marino, said it’s unlikely his son was involved with Madison’s other unsolved slayings.

A Minnesota man charged in a fatal stabbing in Madison, Wis., could not have committed two other unsolved murders in that city, his father said.

Growing up, Adam Charles Peterson was introverted and shy often relying on his twin brother Eric to make friends and socialize when the pair attended Stillwater High, his father said.

Going off to college only seemed to compound Adam Peterson’s social awkwardness. Peterson, 20, once a good student, dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 2007. Peterson’s parents feared he was depressed and desperately unhappy. The situation turned so dire that Peterson was hospitalized for a week after a psychotic outburst and then moved back home to his mother’ s house in Grant to attend “psychological and psychiatric counseling,” his father, Melvin Peterson, said.

A former University of Wisconsin-Madison student was charged Friday with first-degree intentional homicide in the Jan. 28 stabbing of Joel Marino, 31.

People on the chancellor search committee at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside knew the man they recommended as a finalist got a no-confidence vote at the college where he was dean, but they didnâ??t tell the Board of Regents or the UW System president about it â?? raising more tough questions about the university systemâ??s vetting process

In other recent polls, Obama led 50% to 37% in a June 8-10 survey by Wispolitics.com and the University of Wisconsin-Madison political science department; and he led 52% to 43% in a June 13-16 poll by Survey USA in the state.

KENOSHA, Wis. –The educator who resigned before becoming University of Wisconsin-Parkside chancellor because of a pending criminal investigation received a “no confidence” vote from University of Louisville faculty members at a meeting in 2006, a newspaper reports.

The Kenosha News said in a story on its Web page Thursday that it obtained minutes of that meeting through a Freedom of Information request, and they show some faculty members spoke out with criticism of Robert Felner’s performance as dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Louisville.

MADISON (WKOW) — Madison Police tell 27 News an arrest has been made in the Joel Marino murder case.

27 News has learned the suspect was arrested in Grant, Minnesota.

In a news release Madison police say, “Through extensive police work and information from the community Madison Police Detectives learned that our person of interest may have information pertaining to the January 28, 2008 homicide.

While one lone airport traffic controller waved Oconomowoc native Maj. Jodi Maroney into Dane County Regional Airport Wednesday, the 30 friends and family may have stood out more as they fluttered their American flags in anticipation. Maroney flew in from Edwards Air Force Base in California, and is stopping over in Madison before making her squadron’s final flight Thursday.

MADISON, Wis. — A University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate returned to town on Wednesday, this time at the controls of the largest and most powerful helicopter the U.S. military operates — the CH-35 Super Stallion.

Madison should ensure safety, maintain a sense of fun, encourage business growth and seriously consider commuter rail as part of its new Downtown plan.
The city is holding public meetings this week on the future of Downtown. Anyone who lives, works or visits the central city is encouraged to participate.

The city ‘s last Downtown plan is almost two decades old. Since then, the area bound by Park, Regent, Proudfit and Blair streets has seen significant change, some of it guided by a “Downtown 2000 ” plan, adopted in 1989.

The state Capitol and UW-Madison continue to anchor and enrich the city ‘s center. But the private sector has made huge investments in Downtown ‘s future.

The man who was set to take the helm at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside resigned from the position Tuesday in the midst of a federal criminal probe involving the use of funds at his college, UW officials announced.

Robert Felner, who has served as dean of the University of Louisville’s College of Education and Human Development since 2003, was supposed to start his new job as chancellor at UW-Parkside July 1. But he called UW System officials Sunday to tell them of the federal investigation.

The U.S. attorney’s office in western Kentucky said Monday that it was conducting a joint criminal investigation with the University of Louisville and federal law enforcement agencies. The U.S. attorney’s office did not name Felner. But his attorney, Scott C. Cox, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that Felner is at the center of the investigation sparked by university officials’ allegation that roughly $500,000 in federal grant money was mishandled

Facing new revelations that he is at the center of a criminal investigation, Robert Felner, the recently appointed chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Parkside, withdrew from his new job today.

MADISON â?? A University of Louisville dean hired to lead UW-Parkside resigned his appointment Tuesday amid a federal criminal investigation in Kentucky.

Robert Felner, dean of the Louisville College of Education and Human Development, was to start July 1 as Parksideâ??s chancellor.

But Felner alerted UW System President Kevin Reilly on Sunday that his college was facing a criminal investigation and offered to resign, said spokesman David Giroux.

A federal criminal investigation is under way at the school where newly appointed University of Wisconsin-Parkside Chancellor Robert Felner is dean â?? and UW officials are trying to figure out what the news means for the schoolâ??s future.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) A University of Louisville dean picked to lead the University of Wisconsin-Parkside has alerted UW System officials that his college is under federal criminal investigation, a spokesman said Monday.

Louisville College of Education and Human Development Dean Robert Felner was approved by the Board of Regents earlier this month as the next UW-Parkside chancellor. He is to start July 1, replacing retiring Chancellor Jack Keating.

The University of Louisville’s education department is the target of a federal investigation that was announced Friday, according the department’s outgoing dean.

Robert Felner, dean of U of L’s College of Education and Human Development, called University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly on Sunday to alert him to the investigation, Wisconsin officials said. Felner is the new chancellor at UW-Parkside.

The family of a slain college student wants to intervene in a lawsuit by media groups seeking a copy of a 911 tape made from the woman’s cell phone call at the time she was killed.

The parents of University of Wisconsin-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann, 21, said their requests for the tape and other records have also been denied. The parents, Kevin and Jean Zimmermann of Marshfield, told Dane County Circuit Court in a filing earlier this month they wanted to intervene in the media groupsâ?? case because they want the tape to pursue their claim for damages against Dane County.

Third headline: Maybe new UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin will do a good job, but the profile printed in the Wisconsin State Journal last Sunday gives me pause.

….Although Green Bay has been his home for more than three decades, the Kenosha native already has some strong connections to Madison.

Nerad earned two advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including a master’s in social work. His wife, Jean, a public health nurse specializing in lead poisoning issues with children, also earned a degree from UW-Madison, as did their son Ben, 23, who works as a legislative aide in Madison.

Applications for this year’s incoming class at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater were up 10% from last year to 6,700. The university will have a fall freshman class of at least 2,100, its largest since 1985. Whitewater got a boost from its athletic programs, including a national football championship, officials said. Other schools in the system also saw growth this year, with UW-La Crosse’s applications up 10% and UW-Madison up 2% to a record 25,123 applications.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Applications for this year’s incoming class at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater were up 10 percent from last year, outpacing much of the UW system, which saw slight growth.

The school got 6,700 applications this year and will have a freshman class of 2,100 or more in the fall. That’ll make it the largest class since 1985 – a year when many of their incoming freshmen weren’t even born. Nationally, the 2008 class of high school seniors is the largest ever, so there are more students applying.

Admissions officials said Whitewater was seeing a boost from its athletic programs, including a national championship in football. Admissions director Steve McKellips also said the university is attracting students in popular programs like accounting and business and through more personal recruiting efforts.

Now that we’re in the thick of the volatile weather season, it isn’t always easy to know when and where it’s raining. That’s not the case anymore at the Memorial Union Terrace, which now has a Webcam running so people can check conditions.

The Webcam is at www.union.wisc.edu/webcam. It offers a clear view of the Terrace and weather conditions. Also, if equipment can be seen being set up, it will confirm that the evening music will be outside on the Terrace stage rather than moved inside to der Rathskeller in case of inclement weather.

Dane County health officials closed all local beaches after an overflow in the sewer system sent untreated wastewater spilling into two Madison lakes.

As critical as leadership is, it can be overrated.

The Board of Regents for the University of Wisconsin System fell into that trap last week by giving hefty raises to some top officials. Most noticeably, the board gave system president Kevin Reilly a 21 percent boost to more than $400,000.

To his credit, Reilly plans to pass much of that fatter check on to his scholarship fund. Which makes us wonder why the board was so determined to vote it through in the first place.

Was it simply a symbolic move to lighten the ego bruise that Reilly must have suffered when new UW-Madison head Carolyn â??Biddyâ? Martin became the first chancellor to out-earn the leader of the system? Or is this a genuine strategy the regents have adopted to better compete for top talent?

Donâ??t answer that. Neither answer could justify such a big salary hike for a top dog.

Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain 50 percent to 37 percent among 506 likely voters, according to a poll conducted Sunday to Tuesday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s political science department and Wispolitics.com, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

In Wisconsin, Obama leads John McCain by 13 points in a University of Wisconsin / WisPolitics.com poll. Strictly speaking, this is the debut edition of this poll, and so we have no trendlines against which to compare. But the poll is conducted by Charles Franklin of pollster.com and his colleague Ken Goldstein, and so should be pretty solid.

Two political scientists with top-notch reputations — Charles Franklin of Pollster.com and Political Arithmetik fame, and Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project — have teamed together to conduct a series of polls for the Wispolitics.com empire, and their first effort has a surprising result: Barack Obama is up by double digits in the state.

University of Miami President Donna E. Shalala has been selected to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian award.

A White House statement announcing the honor called Shalala one of the nation’s “most distinguished educators and public officials.”

At the outset of a fierce campaign debate over jobs and taxes, Barack Obama returns today to Wisconsin, a blue-collar swing state that gave him one of his broadest victories in the Democratic primaries and where the political climate now tilts markedly in his favor, according to a new poll.

Likely voters in Wisconsin are overwhelmingly sour about President Bush, the Iraq war and where the country is headed, according to the poll, conducted Sunday to Tuesday by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s political science department and Wispolitics.com.

Pedro Reyes, the associate vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment at the University of Texas in Austin, was in Madison Tuesday night to give the commencement address for the 16th annual high school completion recognition ceremony at Madison Area Technical College.

He addressed a group of about 450 graduates and their friends and families during a standing-room-only commencement ceremony in the Mitby Theatre at the Truax campus.

….Reyes, who studied English for two semesters at MATC before transferring to UW-Madison, where he eventually earned his Ph.D., said he came to Madison without knowing one word of English.

The Federal Reserve Board is done cutting interest rates for at least a while, but don’t look for higher rates before fall, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said Friday.

Speaking at a conference on housing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, James Bullard said the Fed’s aggressive rate-cutting since last August has stabilized the economy, and inflation is now becoming a larger concern.

MILWAUKEE — The UW System Board of Regents voted unanimously Friday to officially approve a differential tuition plan for engineering majors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

On Thursday, the Business, Finance and Audit Committee voted to approve the plan and forward it to the full Board.

Engineering students will eventually pay $1,400 more per year in tuition than most other undergraduates at UW-Madison. Business majors at UW-Madison are the only other undergraduates who pay differential tuition, with that major paying an extra $1,000 per year.

The man who has served as the voice of Mayor Dave Cieslewicz for almost four years will soon be moving on, according to city officials.

George Twigg, who is in charge of public relations and community outreach for the mayor’s office, will be leaving for Vermont in July, aide Joel Plant said from the mayor’s office. Plant said Twigg is moving with his wife, who is an English professor with a job lined up in Vermont, and does not have any current plans.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is expected to vote today on a proposal to create the country’s first school of freshwater science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Given the excellent work already being done at UWM’s Great Lakes WATER Institute and the position of UWM and southeastern Wisconsin on the shore of the planet’s largest freshwater system, the regents should have no doubts about following the lead of their Education Committee – which approved the proposal Thursday – and giving it their imprimatur.

Students who are resident undergraduates at four-year schools in the University of Wisconsin System would pay 5.5% more for their tuition this fall – in part to subsidize tuition for veterans, who can go to public colleges here for free under state law.

The quintessential college town is lush and lined with quaint boulevards. Itâ??s Ann Arbor, Mich., Charlottesville, Va., and Boulder, Colo. Itâ??s dive bars and bookstores and movie theaters that still charge less than a meal.

University of Wisconsin System leaders want lawmakers to pay the full cost of tuition benefits they ‘ve given to veterans.

Wisconsin veterans can attend the UW System and Wisconsin Technical College System for free under a 2006 law. The benefits are popular, but lawmakers and Gov. Jim Doyle have not given the schools enough tax money to cover them.

University of Wisconsin-Madison students looking to score high-paying jobs as engineers after college may have to start paying more for their undergraduate degrees under a proposal the Board of Regents will consider next week.

The flagship’s College of Engineering wants to charge undergraduates $700 per semester on top of base tuition to help make the college more competitive with other engineering schools and to help offset the higher cost of engineering education. The differential tuition policy is similar to a plan approved for the UW-Madison School of Business last year.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is reviving a proposal that would require engineering students to pay $1,400 more in tuition than other undergraduates.

The Board of Regents is expected to vote on the proposal next week. If approved, tuition for engineering majors would go up $600 next fall and $400 in each of the following two years.

State Assembly Republicans on Wednesday failed to override vetoes by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle – vetoes that Republicans said jeopardized spending on public schools, health care and transportation.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is reviving a proposal that would require engineering students to pay more tuition than other undergraduates would.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison officials are reviving a proposal that would require engineering students to pay more tuition than other undergraduates would.

Gifts and grants to area educational, cultural and civic organizations totaling more than $1.9 million were announced by The Evjue Foundation, the charitable arm of The Capital Times.

The grants, which are made possible by the will of the late William T. Evjue, the founder and longtime editor and publisher of The Capital Times, includes $818,400 to the University of Wisconsin for 29 special projects and programs during the coming year and $1,097,524 to 87 cultural and nonprofit organizations, mostly in Madison and Dane County.

When Alta Charo received a job offer in February from the University of California at Berkeley that included a raise of roughly $45,000, many assumed the high-profile law and bioethics professor would join the list of talented people leaving town for seemingly greener pastures.

Even Charo, a native of New York City, figured it might be a golden opportunity to ditch the small-town feel of Madison for something a little more fast-paced.

The 911 call received from the cell phone of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student slain last month may contain additional evidence that hasn’t been explored yet, which has police considering whether a forensic analysis of the call would yield more information.

The embattled Dane County 911 center should hire two extra dispatchers this year, Dane County leaders agreed Wednesday, though questions remain about the center’s current staffing needs.

A University of Louisville dean considered a leader in education is the top pick for chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

UW System President Kevin Reilly and a regents committee on Thursday recommended Robert Felner, dean of Louisvilles College of Education and Human Development.

Some Madison officials want to make it harder for people to get a cheap buzz and cause problems Downtown.

The move comes amid rising concern about aggressive behaviors and panhandling by chronic alcoholics.

MADISON, Wis. — Florence Chenoweth, who has been a Badger alum for nearly four decades, is the focus of WISC-TV’s Inspiring Women series.

After getting her Masters in agricultural economics In 1970, Chenoweth went back home to Liberia to serve as the country’s Minister of Agriculture.

Civil war in Liberia left her a refugee in Sierra Leone, but that didn’t stop Chenoweth from returning to Madison.