Category: UW-Madison Related

SOME TIME ago I suggested that newspaper people weary of reading the gloomy forecasts for the future of their business need only watch “Deadline USA” to get their fire back.

It’s still a good idea — few scenes can get a journalist’s blood stirring better than that movie’s closer, when a gangster, the subject of an expose in Humphrey Bogart’s (dying) newspaper, asks Bogart over the phone what the racket is in the background.

“That’s the press, baby,” Bogart replies. “The press. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Now, thanks to Allison Hantschel, I have another suggestion. Hantschel is a former editor of the UW-Madison’s century-plus-old student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal, and she has just published a book, “It Doesn’t End With Us: The Story of The Daily Cardinal.” It’s not just a great yarn about a newspaper but an interesting history of the University of Wisconsin and the city of Madison as well.

UW-Madison officials waited more than a month before advising more than 200 faculty and staff members of a potential exposure of their personal information on the Internet last year.

The personal information — including e-mail addresses, phone numbers and Social Security-based campus ID numbers of faculty and staff who made purchases from the DoIT computer shop — had been accessible on a campus Internet site for at least a year, said Brian Rust, communications manager for the UW’s department of information technology.

Pam Emmerich, 37, has been named as the principal for Madison’s newest elementary school, now under construction on the far west side.

Emmerich is currently the assistant principal at Chavez Elementary on the city’s southwest side.

(She has a degree in elementary education from UW-Eau Claire and a master’s in education administration from UW-Madison.)

The search for a new chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is almost under way.

The UW System today released the names of 21 people who will serve on the search-and-screen committee, tasked with taking nominations, sifting through resumes and picking five finalists for the job.

orrect me if this wouldn’t work: If the state doesn’t give Social Security numbers to vendors, the vendors can’t put Social Security numbers on the mail.

The much-maligned UW System has done away with showing Social Security numbers (granted, a federal mandate was involved). Why can’t the holier-than-thou state do as well in its operations?

The Wisconsin State Journal editorial board will concentrate on five priorities in the coming year.

The Wisconsin Covenant promises college funding for high school students who perform well. The huge Morgridge Fund for Wisconsin Scholars provides grants for financially needy high school graduates.

What about adults who want to go back to college?

Good news came this week in the form of a $1 million grant by the Bernard Osher Foundation to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to endow scholarships for returning adult students.

No charges are being filed against the driver in a deadly Beltline crash last spring, when Mara Wyttenbach blacked out and crossed over the grassy median into oncoming traffic near Whitney Way, killing one man and injuring another.

Wyttenbach, then 30, of Waunakee, said this week she is just trying to get beyond the tragic May 2 accident that attracted widespread attention because it shut down the westbound Beltline during morning rush hour, flooding nearby streets with traffic.

Wyttenbach admits she blacked out, and she is still not sure why. A former University of Wisconsin soccer player, Wyttenbach said she doesn’t have any medical problems.

When the candidates come to Wisconsin, they should be prepared to detail their positions on farm and energy policies, protection of the Great Lakes, support for education and the research conducted at universities such as UW-Madison, water and air quality regulation so important to Wisconsin tourism and industry, and more.

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in Japan reported last month they were able to turn human skin cells into stem cells, which holds promise for medical breakthroughs because they can become virtually any kind of cell.

If perfected, the technique could alleviate ethical concerns surrounding the field because it doesn’t involve destruction of days-old human embryos.

MOVIES AND literature are full of stories about the terrible night that Santa Claus got lost in the woods, or stranded in Texas, or over-served in a saloon.

This is the story of how, last week, Santa Claus got stuck in a UW-Madison parking ramp, which as many of us know can be one of the scariest places on earth.

LET’S START the new year with a bit of this, that and the other thing:

Fans of Madison author David Maraniss will be pleased to learn that his latest book, “Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World,” is now available for pre-order on amazon.com as well as Simon & Schuster’s Web site, simonsays.com.

….UW-Madison graduate and former WKOW-TV/Channel 27 reporter Steve Levitan recently contributed an essay on the Hollywood writers’ strike to deadlinehollywooddaily.com, Los Angeles journalist Nikki Finke’s Web site that is must reading for those in show business. The piece by Levitan, co-creator of the new Kelsey Grammer sitcom “Back to You,” is part of a series of essays titled “Why We Write” that Finke has solicited from the striking writers. In his piece, Levitan touches on his time at UW-Madison (“the Harvard of America’s Dairyland”), and at Channel 27.

….Last week in the New York Times, reviewer William Grimes loved “My Family and Other Saints,” the new “enchanting memoir” by UW-Madison professor of cultural anthropology Kirin Narayan.

For the early morning regulars at Rennebohm ‘s on University Avenue, the smell of coffee, eggs and sausage has been just a pleasant memory since 1981, when UW-Madison bought the building and turned it into offices.

Now it ‘s time for the building itself to go.

The process of “deconstructing ” it — to remove all the materials that can be salvaged or recycled before demolition — began in December. Efforts to preserve the building as a landmark failed, and the former Rennebohm ‘s, along with six other buildings in the 1300 block, will be razed to make room for the university ‘s $150 million Institutes for Discovery.

When he started in August, Blount said, Richard Outhier had a Wisconsin EMT license and claimed to be going to UW-Madison ‘s paramedic program. (UW-Madison spokesman Brian Mattmiller said he could find no record of recent students named Jonathan Derr or Richard Outhier.)

Commencement speaker James Madsen, a graduate from UW-Madison with a B.S. in applied math, engineering and physics.

Peter Greenberg has a newly released list of the world’s great, unspoiled and affordable vacation spots. He also is a 1972 University of Wisconsin graduate who may be one of the city’s most influential cheerleaders.

…in its almost century-long history, the School of Music has never had a full-cost undergraduate piano scholarship. That’s despite the popularity of the instrument, which must be studied by many other kinds of music students at the UW. But now that has changed, thanks to two former Madison residents from San Antonio, Texas.

Glen A. and Winifred “Wendy” Skillrud, who are husband and wife, have donated money to start the school’s first comprehensive undergraduate piano scholarship, along with the first similar scholarship for an undergraduate soprano singer.

Madison firefighters not only trained for fighting fires like the one that briefly flared at the top of the old Ogg Hall Friday morning, you could say they prepared for this very fire.

Slated for demolition, the 42-year-old student dormitory was used this past summer by UW-Madison Police and the Madison Fire Department to practice responding to emergencies in high-rise buildings.

Quoted: UW-Madison alum Steve Cohan.

We wish to publicly welcome Field Pass as a new neighbor and restaurant in the University Square project. We look forward to its contributions to this exciting university-private partnership.

UW-Madison and the project developer signed a covenant that permits alcohol sales only in a business licensed as a restaurant in the University Square project. The Field Pass license is as a restaurant — at least 50 percent of its revenue must be generated through food sales. We hope Downtown patrons will respond and choose it as a restaurant destination.

However, we have experienced the creation of a large, expensive, mixed-use facility trying to succeed in a student and bar business area. We hope Field Pass, and the city of Madison, will learn from the Luther ‘s Blues experience and maintain the expectation that Field Pass be a “best practice ” alcohol-service establishment.

This includes training all staff to be responsible beverage servers, regularly and diligently using ID scanners, not using cheap alcohol as the “hook ” to bring in customers, and promoting itself primarily as a restaurant.

As we learned from the Luther ‘s experience, no amount of after-the-fact license negotiation can save an establishment that begins with inaccurate assumptions or a poorly conceived business plan. We hope, and trust, that Field Pass ‘s business plan will guide it towards becoming an exemplary restaurant establishment. We stand ready to help.

— Aaron M. Brower, principal investigator, PACE Project; and Susan Crowley, director, prevention services, PACE Project

MADISON, Wis. — Five construction workers safely escaped a fire at an old University of Wisconsin-Madison residence hall Friday.

Madison Fire Department spokesman Eric Dahl said the workers were inside old Ogg Hall when fire broke out around 11 a.m. Friday. He said that smoke blocked the workers’ route to the stairs and that they climbed down scaffolding set up outside the building on West Dayton Street.

This morning, Madison firefighters battled a fire at Old Ogg Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

The first call came in at 11:08am to Madison Fire. According Eric Dahl with the Madison Fire Department, the fire burned in an elevator shaft and on the 13th floor.

There were workers in the building, but they weren’t hurt.

The residence hall is being torn down and no students live there. The university closed the 42-year-old building this past spring.

A fire at old Ogg Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus has been extinguished without injuring anyone.

During the first year of Grandparents University at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for instance, more than 75 percent of the grandparents were graduates. Coming up on its eighth summer, roughly half of participants now are alumni. Wisconsin says its program is the first of its type in the country. Organized by the universityâ??s alumni association and its extension program, the two-day workshop is for children ages 7 to 14.

Come on, Wisconsin, quit badgering Washburn University.

You folks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison simply cannot be serious about this lawsuit over your school logo.

It could soon become tougher for nonprofit groups to get funding from state university student fees in Wisconsin.

It is so wonderful that the University of Wisconsin is suing tiny Washburn University over similarities in their action “W” logo, which the Badgers have copyrighted.

Just the other day I was shopping for Badger gear for the upcoming Outback Bowl football game, and was aghast to discover when I got home I was sporting a blue jersey from Topeka. The logos were so alike. My confusion in selecting the right one was immense. I felt so stupid.

University of Wisconsin System enrollment increased 2.1% increase at its 26 campuses this fall, to a record high of 173,313 undergraduates and graduates, according to a report the Board of Regents plans to review Friday.

Chancellor John Wiley addressed members of the Faculty Senate Monday about the contract with the Big Ten Network, implications of the 2007-â??09 biennial budget and the need to help UW-Milwaukee become a great research university.

As an international correspondent and photographer, Ruth Gruber witnessed a lot of history. She also created history during heroic adventures as a humanitarian.

….Gruber, 96, will be in Madison Thursday to talk about her latest book, “Witness: One of the Great Correspondents of the Twentieth Century,” during a free public lecture at the UW’s Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St.

Gruber is actually returning to her alma mater this week. She received a master’s degree from UW-Madison in 1931.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents will decide Friday on new rules that would require faculty to take sick leave when they are out sick, even if they get other instructors to cover their teaching responsibilities.

Madison, Wis. – Are Wisconsin’s universities and technical colleges wasting an opportunity to save millions in taxpayer dollars by not migrating to free outsourced e-mail service like Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Live@edu product?

UW-Milwaukee administrators say they will rescind a larger security fee imposed on a student group to host a speaker who has drawn protests elsewhere.

A proposal for a new high-rise apartment building near the UW-Madison campus is up for an important hearing tonight and the big question is likely to be the fate of two historic buildings, each more than a century old, that stand in its way.

Why else would it have been news when a dozen or so rich folks recently pooled their resources to ensure that a business school in Wisconsin would not â?? I repeat, not â?? be named after anybody at all?

As The Associated Press reported last month, the dean at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business couldnâ??t find anyone to pony up a cool $50 million to get his or her name on the school. So the dean switched strategies and discovered that several givers were willing to chip in to ensure that, for 20 years at least, the school would not be personally branded, but would instead simply remain the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business (a long enough handle, surely). The non-naming fund eventually reached $85 million.

â??It is an unprecedented act of selfless philanthropy,â? Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, told The A.P. â??I hope it is the start of a trend.â?

School officials correctly reconsidered their decision to charge a student group an unusually high fee to provide security for the upcoming visit of a controversial speaker.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee administrators said Thursday that they would rescind a security fee imposed on a student group to host a controversial speaker on campus, responding to criticism that the charge was unfairly and prohibitively high.

MADISON, Wis. — Authorities said a Crandon man accused of stealing sausages and fleeing officers in a doughnut delivery truck is facing charges.

Warren G. Whitelightning, 36, is facing seven counts, WISC-TV reported.

Authorities said he fled drunk in a Krispy Kreme delivery truck early Saturday after stealing sausages from the Open Pantry at University Avenue and Walnut Street.

The invitation for the University of Wisconsin Badgers to play in the Outback Bowl in Tampa on New Year’s Day will bring in big money for the UW-Madison athletic department.

The Outback Bowl generates a payout of $3.1 million, but after $1.6 million in bowl-related expenses for the UW, the university will have to split the remainder equally with the other Big Ten schools. Adding together the allotments (minus expenses) from all seven bowl games that have Big Ten teams, the total is an estimated $1.8 million per university.

Cash bail of $2,100 was set today for Warren G. Whitelightning of Crandon, the man who allegedly led police on a high-speed chase through Madison’s west after stealing a Krispy Kreme Donut truck when he was drunk early Saturday morning.

Whitelightning was officially charged in Dane County Circuit Court today in a criminal complaint alleging several offenses. He is being charged with shoplifting eight giant red hot pickled sausages from the Open Pantry on University Avenue, stealing the doughnut truck, ramming a University of Wisconsin Police car, attempting to elude pursing officers, operating after revocation, his fourth time drunk driving, and a hit and run.

The state Legislatureâ??s Joint Committee on Employment Relations voted Tuesday to give UW System faculty and academic staff a raise of 5 percent over the next two years, though some call the increases disappointing.

A state legislative panel approved pay raises Wednesday for all nonunion state employees, totaling up to a 5 percent spread over the next 18 months.

Under a plan proposed in the legislature, Wisconsin state workers would get raises amounting to 5 percent over the next 18 months. For taxpayers, that translates into an additional burden of about $126 million, under calculations prepared by the Office of State Employment Relations.

Wisconsin has a lot of employees. There are all those office workers in all those buildings around the Capitol. There are bureaucratic outposts from one end of the state to the other. There are judges and prosecutors and public defenders. There are professors and support staff at the universities. And on and on and on.

One of the oldest trees on the University of Wisconsin campus will be chopped down because of advanced Dutch Elm Disease.

UW-Madison law Professor Leonard Kaplan is set to tell his story about the controversy regarding his alleged remarks in a class earlier this year at the Rotary Club of Madison Service Club luncheon at the Inn on the Park on the Capitol Square on Dec. 5.

Only Rotarians and guests may attend the noon event.

MADISON, Wis. — Discarded smoking materials are being blamed for starting a deadly house fire near the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus last week, Madison fire investigators said on Tuesday.

Peter Talen, 23, of Plymouth, was killed in the fire in the 100 block of North Bedford Street during the early-morning hours of Nov. 18. Three others, including Talen’s brother, were hurt.

Investigators said that they believe there was smoking on or near a couch on the front porch of the residence earlier that morning.

Residents here joined a statewide discussion Tuesday on how the University of Wisconsin System can help strengthen the state’s communities and economy.

The statewide listening session was meant to generate helpful information for Advantage Wisconsin, which is a systemwide effort to improve the state’s economy while educating residents. At least 50 UW Extension offices participated across the state, including 14 people at the Marathon County office.

University of Wisconsin students are encouraged to attend a forum Monday to discuss the changes in segregated fee policies â?? a fee included in all studentsâ?? tuition.

Some of the decline in time spent reading may be related to how it was taught. Todayâ??s young adults began school during the period when early reading education heavily emphasized the whole language method, with its focus on picking up reading through literacy experiences rather than the development of elementary skills, such as sounding out words through explicit instruction.

Whole language made learning to read unnecessarily difficult and robbed many people of the enjoyment of the reading experience. The great irony of the literacy-based methods is that they created readers who do not like to read.

Author: Mark Seidenberg, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

State residents have an opportunity to help shape the future of the UW. You’re invited to participate in the UW System’s statewide discussion about how to strengthen the state’s communities and economy, as part of the university’s Advantage Wisconsin strategic initiative.

One of the oldest homes in the wooded Highlands neighborhood on Madison’s west side — a Swiss-style chalet built for a UW English literature professor — is slated for the wrecking ball unless a buyer can surface.

The Madison Plan Commission Monday night approved demolition of the “Pyre House” at 1015 Hillside Ave., pending a one-year waiting period.

Frances L. Murphy II, 85, publisher emeritus of the longest-running African American family-owned newspaper in the United States, died yesterday of cancer-related illnesses at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.

Frances Louise Murphy II was raised in the newspaper business. The granddaughter of the founder of The Afro-American Newspapers chain, she learned the trade in classrooms and newsrooms, working as a reporter, editor and eventually publisher as she pushed to improve quality.

When blacks could not be admitted to the University of Maryland, the state paid for her to attend the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a journalism degree in 1944.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will start late-night walking patrols in the neighborhoods surrounding the school, hire more officers and seek a security review from an independent task force as part of a $500,000 campus safety initiative unveiled Tuesday

TONI SAMEK is not your mother’s librarian, but all things being equal, she wouldn’t mind being your daughter’s. That would indicate a future for librarians, an esteemed calling that inexplicably finds itself under fire from bean counters.

The Madison Police Department responded to a report of an armed robbery Monday morning from the Badger Campus Credit Union, formerly the UW Employeeâ??s Credit Union, after several separate robberies had been reported the previous week.

At least one smoke detector was removed from its ceiling mount and others were not working at the site of a fatal house fire early Sunday near the UW-Madison campus.

As a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who resided at Ogg Hall during its farewell year, I think the construction of a $28 million state-of-the-art residence seems unjustified in a time when the university struggles to fund desperately needed diversity initiatives (“Raucous UW dorm goes upscale,” Nov. 12).

The intimate rooms and dated decor of “Odd Ogg” would have been small inconveniences to endure for attending a university that achieves a diverse student body by allocating ample financial aid to under-represented groups. At the present tuition rate, the $28 million spent on Ogg could have provided complete four-year scholarships to about 1,000 students who might otherwise be financially unable to attend UW-Madison.

n a setback for Gov. Jim Doyle, a proposed constitutional amendment to kill the so-called “Frankenstein veto” cleared a major hurdle today.

On a bipartisan 4-0 vote, the Senate Ethics Reform and Government Operations Committee approved the proposed constitutional amendment, clearing the way for Senate approval of the measure. If the full Senate approves it, the proposal would go to voters for final approval next year.

The old Ogg Hallâ??s era has come to an end but thanks to â??The One and Only Ogg Blog,â? hundreds of former residents have shared their memories and even requested pieces of the building.