Proposed rules meant to speed up the firing of University of Wisconsin System professors charged with serious crimes were developed without the mandatory approval of faculty groups, faculty leaders complained Wednesday.
Paul Barrows was among those honored at a diversity program recognition banquet at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On Friday, the PEOPLE program celebrated the more than 1,000 students who have participated. The program, also known as Pre-College Enrichment Opportunity Program for Learning Excellence, helps the state’s young people of color earn high school diplomas and go on to college.
Meteorologists called it “A 100 year event”. About 5 inches of rain fell near the campus area in Madison in just a matter of hours. At Park Terrace West, a three year old luxury apartment building, the underground parking garage filled floor to ceiling with water and the garden apartments were under up to five feet of water.
It appears that academically qualified students are not finding space in the University of Wisconsin System schools, especially at the Madison campus. This situation will only become worse once the new diversity criteria are fully implemented. It remains to be seen how many in the new diverse student body will actually complete a degree.
A man suspected of exposing himself to several women in the Madison area was being held today on 22 criminal charges.
Brian C. Carley, 30, was arrested after checking himself into the Veterans Hospital Friday. He was charged with four counts of lewd and lascivious behavior, four counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, seven counts of disorderly conduct and seven counts of bail jumping. Police spokesman Mike Hanson said Carley fought briefly with officers during the arrest.
Poor leadership, a lack of planning and bureaucratic infighting plagued University of Wisconsin System’s failed project to install a new payroll management system, according to critiques by private consultants.
The two assessments, obtained by The Associated Press after an open records request, detail widespread mismanagement of the project that cost $26 million before the System canceled it earlier this month after eight years of planning and attempted implementation.
In sweltering heat that made his face glisten beneath a large sombrero embroidered in gold, 9-year-old Marco Hernandez performed a ceremonial dance used by Aztecs to give thanks each year for the sun, the moon and the universe, and their connection to them.
His sister, Adriana, 6, also performed a traditional Mexican dance in the children’s area at Saturday’s Fiesta Hispana in Warner Park, along with other girls wearing brightly colored dresses with long, full skirts that fanned out when held up at their sides with outstretched arms.
“I feel very proud of them to show our culture,” said their father, Martin Hernandez, who plans to return to his native Mexico with his family after completing a Ph.D at UW-Madison.
A suspected serial stalker has been seen driving a 2004 red Chevy Avalanche pickup truck with a Wisconsin license plate that bears, in part, “AD29,” according to Madison police. The incidents have taken place in the State Street and Langdon Street area, and at East Towne and West Towne.
….Professor injured: A UW-Madison engineering professor sustained serious head early Thursday morning when his motorcycle crashed on Haight Road in Madison.
….Intruder: UW Police are investigating an intruder who broke into a woman’s bedroom Thursday at the university’s family housing facility.
The Madison City Council will shape the mayor’s controversial plan to gate State Street, charge $5 admission and provide entertainment there on the Saturday before Halloween.
Meanwhile, some UW- Madison students have started planning to move the party to nearby Langdon Street.
A violent storm that dumped 3 to 5 inches of rain in 90 minutes in parts of Madison Thursday flooded streets and damaged 30 buildings on the UW-Madison campus, where the Fluno Center was evacuated.
….Barrett’s association with the university should be discontinued, not because he speaks from an irrational political position, but because he demonstrates an astounding degree of intellectual poverty that offends the morality of U.S. citizens who lost loved ones in 9/11.
Our university officials erred in their decision to continue Barrett’s appointment because they were incapable of recognizing the enormity of the crimes against humanity that was evidenced in both the Holocaust and 9/11. Perhaps if they “had been there and done that,” their decision might have been correct.
Paul Grindrod Madison
Due to this afternoon’s storms, there are numerous reports of stopped traffic, signals out, wires down and live wires on vehicles.
Additionally, a semi-truck lost a load of corn, closing� the Beltline between Fish Hatchery Road and Park Street. Cars are reported covered in water up to their windshields in the Randall-Monroe street area.
Police urge citizens to not drive until conditions have stabilized. If travel is essential, be cautious with regard to downed wires, traffic signals not working and standing water on roadways.
The president’s in cahoots with some shady characters, see? He sets up some terrorists to let loose nerve gas but the scheme backfires and … What? You’ve already heard this one? It was last season’s plot for “24”? Darn.
Scott Galla, a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin, was the first to arrive — at 9 a.m. By the time the doors opened more than two hours later, the line was wrapped around the building, nearly two blocks long. Two thousand interns had descended on Washington’s Warner Theater to answer a simple call: “Uncle Sam needs you.”
Six letters to the editor commenting on the recent NYT op-ed by Stanley Fish on the Kevin Barrett matter.
The grousing of Rep. Steve Nass regarding the opinions and course topic of Kevin Barrett are taking on the hallmarks of a witch hunt, with pitchforks and torches raised in the name of protecting the students. It would appear, according to Nass, that students are unable to decide for themselves what they should believe.
The advice to get your tickets early never has been more appropriate for fans of the University of Wisconsin men’s hockey team.
More than 11 weeks before the home opener, the sale of season tickets for the defending national champions already has reached record levels, a development that should provide an unbudgeted boost to the athletic department’s coffers.
Dear Editor: I can only hope that when a lecturer comes to UW to teach about intelligent design, or to argue that abortion is wrong, or against affirmative action, or that welfare payments should be cut, that such an individual is defended as vigorously in the pages of your paper.
Peter Healy Fitchburg
Woke up this morning to another story about some poor mope getting the living hell beat out of him downtown. A pack of gangstas rolls up � jumps out � beats the guy senseless, cops his wallet and then rolls off, laughing in the dark.
Woke up this morning to another story about some poor mope getting the living hell beat out of him downtown. A pack of gangstas rolls up � jumps out � beats the guy senseless, cops his wallet and then rolls off, laughing in the dark.
It was just two weeks ago when Aviad Shapira watched his wife prepare to return to the couple’s home in Israel after their brief reunion in Madison. For both, duty was calling.
Reuma Shapira craved to return to Haifa, where she practiced medicine in a hospital. He needed to continue his research in engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They sensed the violence in Israel would escalate, but neither said a word about postponing her trip. The couple met while serving in the Israeli armed forces more than 30 years ago, had weathered worse times, but Aviad Shapira still worried.
Dear Editor: I agree with Michael Meeropol that the UW should not fire Kevin Barrett for his classroom content (July 11).
Part of being a college instructor is being able to have academic freedom to state what you believe.
Part of being a college student is learning that not every instructor is right and discerning who to believe based upon the facts that they present.
University of Wisconsin professor Kevin Barrett will present evidence from both sides and promote discussion, not simply teach that 9/11 was an inside job.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has a lot of loose ends to tie up in his effort to ensure a safer and less costly Halloween bash Downtown.
Nonetheless, the plan he outlined last week deserves support.
Why on God’s green earth would UW-Madison Provost Farrell agree to spend our tax dollars to hire the “controversial instructor” who posits that 9/11 is a big lie, who wants to overthrow U.S. imperialism, is a rabid peddler of a conspiracy theory and teaches hatred for the government of the United States?
MADISON, Wis. — Construction near the UW Arboretum is building animosity from neighbors.
The controversy stems from a project, which would subdivide a lot in the area to construct new homes.
….The controversy surrounding UW-Madison instructor Kevin Barrett and his 9/11 views is making waves far beyond Wisconsin.
Dear Editor: U.S. Rep. Mark Green says he went to school at the University of Wisconsin. Then why hasn’t he heard of “sifting and winnowing”? One method of teaching is to throw out a very controversial statement and let the students try to defend/refute it based on their own backgrounds and assumptions.
Dear Editor: I am also an alumnus of UW Madison (not, as Rep. Mark Green calls it, an “alum”), and I wish to point out to Green that about 80 percent of the Muslim world outside the U.S. thinks 9/11 was an American setup to provide a pretext for military adventurism. Why do you think that is? Maybe Kevin Barrett will help his students address this notion in light of the facts.
Dear Editor: U.S. Rep. Mark Green appears to be making erroneous statements, with poor reasoning regarding Kevin Barrett and the instructor’s views on 9/11.
Green appears to be projecting his own refusal to look at the evidence and draw logical conclusions, preferring instead to parrot the official explanation.
Barrett is acting scholarly. Green could learn much from him.
The city plans to charge $5 admission and turn State Street into a gated community on the Saturday before Halloween to try to hold down the mass drunkenness and property damage that have marred past celebrations.
“This is a community event,” said Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc. “It’s time that we take it back.”
Dear Editor: I would like to address Reggie Moody’s sophomoric attack on UW instructor Kevin Barrett (“Barrett crosses line separating teaching from proselytizing,” published in The Capital Times on July 12).
Moody ignores the fact that trying to show “both” sides of an issue, while a noble effort, does not address the inherent bias in his own position.
Dear Editor: Kevin Barrett should be familiar to people who read the Madison papers last February as he made the claim to be an expert on Osama bin Laden and said that bin Laden’s videotape taking credit for 9/11 was a forgery produced by the CIA.
I would like to raise some serious questions about the opinions of Kevin Barrett, who calls himself an Islamologist and Arabist and contends that the recent tape of Osama bin Laden is a fake produced by the CIA and that bin Laden has been dead since 2001 or 2002.
Dear Editor: UW Provost Patrick Farrell deserves much praise for defending the integrity of the University of Wisconsin against political grandstanding. But it should be understood that allowing Kevin Barrett to speak of his 9/11 “conspiracy theories” in class is more than an issue of allowing the free exchange of ideas.
The end purpose of schooling is for students to be able to reason through complex “theories,” weigh evidence according to traditional objective methods, and only then evaluate ideas. By standing up to power Farrell is implicitly insisting that basic standards of knowledge and civility in discourse be maintainedÃ? against the smearing and appeals to emotion that so far has dominated discussions of today’s wars….
Readers react to the decision to allow part-time lecturer Kevin Barrettt to teach.
Wide range of feedback on the Barrett decision.
I represent a group called Truth 12/7 that believes that the U.S. attacked itself at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and also later in the war, at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal.
As a guardian of the First Amendment, this newspaper supports the right to free speech and the expression of thoughts.
Milwaukee, Wis. – The resignation of University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee vice chancellor of research Abbas Ourmazd was made official today in a statement released by the university.
Dear Editor: When I was a UW-Madison student, Joe McCarthy was demagogically intimidating much of the academic community and U.S. society by unjustifiably labeling political dissenters as unpatriotic subversives.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is dead wrong to allow 9/11 conspiracy believer Kevin Barrett to continue to teach there.
Many people in Madison will welcome the news that Kevin Barrett has been allowed to teach a course on Islam at the UW. Most will see it as a triumph of academic freedom. Others will rejoice because they believe what Barrett alleges: that the terrorist attack of Sept. 11 was “an inside job” and a “gargantuan, Satanic lie” concocted by the U.S. government to wage an endless war.
I, however, will not be one of those celebrating.
Nearly 8,200 state employees will receive pay raises under contracts approved Wednesday by the Legislature.
The union-represented workers will see pay increases of at least 2 percent a year under the four contracts passed without debate in both the Assembly and Senate.
The Why Files site, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explores the science and technology behind the news. For example, one scientist recently made headlines with claims that red rain that fell in India might have contained alien cells. A Why Files investigation found a much more likely source for the odd red cells, algae, and previously published findings to back up that explanation.
MADISON, Wis. — A Madison man pleaded guilty Wednesday to possessing an unregistered sawed-off shotgun on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in March.
Jason Hall, 21, appeared in U.S. District Court in Madison on Wednesday.
….Kevin Barrett, who will be teaching a course on Islam in the fall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, claims that “overwhelming evidence proves that 9/11 was an inside job.” He will be trying to convince, as he’s done before, his students that Bush was responsible for 9/11. He will be preaching to a captive audience of somewhat naive and usually poorly informed young people, proselytizing and trying to convert them to his position.
This has nothing to do with academic freedom. This is an instructor taking advantage of his students, attempting to teach them what to think rather than how to think….
We certainly hope that Kevin Barrett’s 15 minutes of fame have expired.
The UW-Madison part-time lecturer who believes in the ridiculous theory that the U.S. attacked itself on Sept. 11, 2001, gets to keep his job, UW officials announced this week.
That’s the right decision for the wrong guy.
But it’s still the right decision.
(MADISON) Ethnic cleansing in Darfur Province has prompted some state governments and universities to pull their money out of corporations with operations there. The University of Wisconsin may follow the lead of Illinois, which is leading the charge to put financial pressure on the Sudanese government, which is accused of committing atrocities. (Second item.)
Dear Editor: I do not agree with UW instructor Kevin Barrett’s assertions about the 9/11 atrocity. However, I think it is crazy and counter-productive to attempt to have him fired. In fact, what I believe ought to happen is that his views should be subjected to very detailed serious examination.
Well-known community volunteer Martha Vukelich-Austin has been named the new president of the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools, Susan Bakke, chair of the foundation’s board, announced today.
Today I’m announcing that veteran newspaperman Paul Fanlund, the current vice president for operations at Capital Newspapers, will become the executive editor of The Capital Times.
Later this month, Paul will assume responsibilities for the newspaper’s news content and its many initiatives on our Web edition while I, as editor, will devote more of my time directing The Capital Times’ editorial stands, writing my editorial page columns and working with Paul on the overall direction of the paper.
An overdue and wise change in state law makes it easier to prosecute sexual assaults involving alcohol.
It also serves as a powerful reminder to men and women to act responsibly when drinking.
Two letters regarding Barrett: “UW students too bright to be taken in by Barrett;”
“Barrett’s remarks were a form of hate speech”
Dear Editor: I would just like to say thanks for reporting on Ben Masel’s treatment by police at the Union Terrace. I was sitting within earshot of this embarrassing fiasco involving two UW-Madison police officers and Masel at the Union Terrace last week.
I should think the Wisconsin Muslim community would be embarrassed.
I should think the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and its administration would be embarrassed.
For the second time in three years, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is offering selected U.S. colleges and universities millions of dollars to encourage entrepreneurial education.
Learning lessons is unavoidable. It’s a universal process in life. Some people must learn more lessons than others, and some people have to learn the same lesson more than once, but it’s part of growing as a person or institution.
A 31-year-old UW-Madison graduate student was roughed up and robbed by a pipe- wielding man and a possible accomplice early Thursday on campus.
UW-Madison Police responded to a 911 call about 12:45 a.m. from the victim, whose name was withheld. He told police he was walking in the 1400 block of Observatory Drive when he was hit in the back of the head and knocked to the ground. After a short struggle, the attacker fled with the student’s wallet.
For as long as anyone can remember, candidates for public office have circulated their nominating petitions on the Memorial Union Terrace.
Our reference is to the comments made last Wednesday on a Milwaukee radio talk show by a lecturer, Kevin Barrett, at the University of Wisconsin.
