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Category: UW-Madison Related

Crime and termination

Badger Herald

After months of debate and a seemingly endless barrage of verbal barbs from the Legislature, a Board of Regents committee drafted a proposal that would make some much-needed changes to the University of Wisconsin�s faculty disciplinary process.

Chancellor backs right to publish cartoon

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Tuesday defended the right of a campus newspaper to reprint a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed as a terrorist, saying the “university has for more than 100 years championed the cause of free and open debate.”

The cartoon, which depicts Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with an ignited detonator string, was among several cartoons of the religious figure to spark violence across the Muslim world after they were first published in Denmark.

The Badger Herald reprinted the cartoon Monday, saying in an editorial the reaction to the cartoon made it newsworthy.

Size of UW pay raises up for debate

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

How big a pay raise does John Wiley, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, stand to gain under new salary ranges for university administrators approved last week?

It all depends on whom you ask.

Alan Crist, the UW System’s associate vice president for human resources, said Wiley would be eligible for a $1,757 pay increase under the ranges established by the UW Board of Regents on Friday.

Regents President David Walsh said Wiley would be in a position to claim a much higher raise: $56,757.

Board of Regents dismisses jailed professor

Capital Times

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents has dismissed Roberto Coronado, a professor in the Medical School who pleaded no contest last March to sexually assaulting three young girls.

Coronado, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence, had a tenured faculty position in the UW-Madison Department of Physiology paying $137,641 per year.

The Board of Regents terminated Coronado with a unanimous vote in closed session on Friday.

Making manufacturing king again

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

OK, research will increase at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in the worthy vision of Chancellor Carlos Santiago. But in what area of research should the campus specialize to best help the regional economy boom? Santiago has come up with an answer that is superbly apt: advanced manufacturing.

UW Fires Registered Sex Offender

WKOW-TV 27

Members of the UW Board of Regents fired UW-Medical School Professor Roberto Coronado, a registered sex offender, more than five months after he was sent to prison.

Even members of the Board told 27 News, the firing process took way, too long.

There’s now a proposal to deal with UW faculty and staff who’ve committed serious crimes within sixty da

Report eyes UWM-Waukesha merger

Badger Herald

The intensely debated future of the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha could result in a merger with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, UW officials say. This merger was recently reviewed in a Jan. 31 report to the University of Wisconsin System.

UW regents up pay scales, cut out-of-state tuition

Capital Times

University of Wisconsin regents struck a defensive posture today in approving higher salary ranges for 34 top administrators.

The vote effectively guaranteed that 12 chancellors, including UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley, would receive pay raises after the new ranges take effect in July.

It also signaled a change in the way UW will act to raise the actual salaries of its administrators. In the past, the regents approved all merit increases for top administrators at once, sparking a vigorous public debate in recent years.

Regents back big UW raises

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

University of Wisconsin System regents on Thursday approved a proposal that would put UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley in position to receive 22% more than his current yearly salary of $251,000 and set up other top administrators for raises.

Muslim students: ‘Free speech’ defense is a cop-out

Capital Times

Dear Editor: The pen is certainly mightier than the sword, as cartoonist Mike Konopacki said in his response to letter writer Ovamir Anjum on Tuesday, but to simplify the negative reaction to the Prophet Muhammad cartoons as an issue of “free speech” is a shameful cop-out.

The reactions against cartoons vilifying Prophet Muhammad are not protests against the right to free speech or expression; they are protests against the racist rhetoric that demonizes the faith of more than 1.2 billion Muslims in the world….

Muslim Students’ Association, UW-Madison

UWM receives $10 million gift

Badger Herald

Sheldon B. Lubar, Milwaukee business leader and philanthropist, recently gave the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee $10 million, the largest donation in the school�s history.

Former Sudanese slave recounts his plight

Capital Times

While most Americans believe slavery was abolished nearly 150 years ago, a young Sudanese man is touring the country to call attention to the estimated 27 million people worldwide he says are living as slaves today.

Monday night, Francis Bok, 26, told a Madison audience the story of the 10 years he spent in servitude in his native, civil-war-torn Sudan. Bok spoke to a half-filled Union Theater as part of the UW-Madison’s Distinguished Lecture Series and received a standing ovation when he was done.

Unleashed pit bull kills puppy

Capital Times

A UW student watched in horror Sunday as an unleashed pit bull owned by former UW Badger linebacker Dontez Sanders attacked and killed her dachshund-Maltese puppy outside her apartment.

Doug Moe: After a wait of 50 years, elation

Capital Times

WHEN SHIRLEY Robinson was attending UW-Madison half a century ago, she was one of only eight women in the concert band. But what she really longed to do was play with the marching band, and that, in the early 1950s, was not possible.

….As bad as Robinson felt then, she felt elated Thursday, a little before noon, still flush after playing the tambourine with the UW Varsity Band and being introduced to a cheering crowd at the Overture Center by band leader Mike Leckrone.

UWGB finalizes master plan

Badger Herald

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is in the process of finalizing a master plan that officials hope will make it easier for students and visitors to get around campus.

Right-wing pundit brings his truth about Katrina

Capital Times

Conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg called coverage of Hurricane Katrina “probably the biggest media scandal of the last 20 years” during a talk here Wednesday night.

“The first thing you should know about Katrina is that everything you know about it is wrong,” Goldberg, the prolific columnist and National Review Online editor told an audience at Grainger Hall on the UW-Madison campus.

His talk was sponsored by the conservative student group Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow.

Proponents push for UW campus merger

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Proponents of a merger between University of Wisconsin campuses kept up the pressure Tuesday as a state task force prepared its first progress report on the hotly debated concept.

Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas and the Waukesha County Action Network both released statements urging state officials to combine the UW campuses in Milwaukee and Waukesha.

Follow the money? It’s not so simple (AP)

Capital Times

Academics from across the country met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison over the weekend to discuss whether public funding of campaigns could remove the influence of special interests from politics.

But the only thing the scholars seemed to agree on was that it is nearly impossible to measure the influence that campaign contributions have.

Money’s influence is hard to define, campaign finance experts say (AP)

Duluth News

MADISON, Wis. – Against a backdrop of scandal from Madison to Washington, academics from across the country met at the University of Wisconsin to discuss whether public funding of campaigns could remove the influence of special interests from politics.

But the only thing the scholars seemed to agree on was that it is nearly impossible, in a scientific way, to measure the influence that campaign contributions and lobbying efforts have on elected officials’ behavior.

Should The Taxpayers Pay For Campaigns?

NBC-15

Madison: Public financing for elections has been around for quite a while. In Wisconsin you can check off a box on your state income tax returns to put money into a fund.

But a crowd of Professors gathered at the Fluno Center Saturday were skeptical. “It’s pretty clear that the Wisconsin system doesn’t work. The amounts of funding just aren’t enough to make it worthwhile for candidates to take them,” says UW Political Science Professor Ken Mayer.

America’s Most Connected Campuses (Forbes)

Forbes

It wasn’t so long ago when a highly connected campus was one where each dorm room had its own phone line. But in order to remain competitive in the 21st century, a college has to support wireless networking, provide ultra high-speed connections to classrooms and even allow students to take classes online.

UW-Madison is on the list.

UW band performance funds scholarship (Appleton Post-Crescent)

Appleton Post-Crescent

KIMBERLY � A crowd of about 1,300 clapped, shouted, and danced through a performance by 160 members of the University of Wisconsin Varsity Band on Sunday in the Kimberly High School gym.

Band director Craig Gall said Kimberly has hosted the UW band 14 of the last 15 years.

Each show has been sponsored by Gib and Donna Schoen in memory of their daughter Sherry, a Kimberly graduate and four-year member of the UW band who was killed in a car accident in 1990.

Nine colleges join billionaire club (AP)

CNN.com

The number of North American colleges with endowments topping $1 billion has jumped to 56, a new study says, with nine schools joining the elite club in what was an average year for university investments overall.

Included: University of Wisconsin Foundation.

Give Tuition Program A Chance

Wisconsin State Journal

For more than a decade, the Wisconsin Seasonal Residents Association has been fielding questions from nonresident parents looking for a price break on undergraduate tuition, the logic being they supported Wisconsin schools through property taxes for years.

Tax The Rich To Keep College Affordable

Wisconsin State Journal

When I was an undergraduate at UW-Madison 30 years ago, I was surrounded by students from families of modest means who were able to go through four years of college, graduate, and go on to a more prosperous life than that of their parents, with no loan debt.

New Liberian President Spent Time in Madison

NBC-15

As Ellen Johnson Sirleaf begins her first days as president of Liberia, she probably won’t have time to reflect on how far she’s come since her days as a busgirl in Madison.

Sirleaf is the first female leader of an African nation. But before making history, she got an accounting degree from the now defunct Madison College of Business back in 1964.

When she was first elected last year, former UW Dean of L&S Phil Certain looked her up to see if she attended the University of Wisconsin. “Her name was not in the records but her husband’s name was in the records. He was a master’s degree student at the University at the time.”

Reilly Wants Input On Ra Plan

Wisconsin State Journal

University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly wants comments from the public on a developing plan to draw the proper line between resident assistants’ rights as students and their responsibilities as state employees supervising other students in campus dorms.

Doug Moe: Prosecutor Burr calls it a career

Capital Times

….In 1980, the year of one of Burr’s most famous prosecutions – the Barbara Hoffman murder case – he had 25 trials. He has long since stopped counting, but the total must be 500 or more.

….His first jury trial involved four defendants in what became known as the Gordon Commons food riot. “It had anti-war overtones,” Burr said….

Contract with Community Car extends UW’s leadership in transportation (Madison Magazine)

Madison Magazine

Move over, buckyball & biotech: The University of Wisconsin-Madison is about to become famous for, believe it not, cars.

Yup, cars.

The university is leasing three new cars as part of a program that will surely bring, if not fame at least the sincere appreciation of local environmentally conscious types who care about things like energy conservation and global warming and the basic quality of life-as-we-know-it energy issues.

UWM goal: $100 million

Milwaukee Business Journal

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is launching a $100 million fund-raising campaign and has recruited four of Milwaukee’s most prominent businessmen to spearhead it.

Metro talker: UW donors favored Dems

Capital Times

Faculty, administrators and others associated with the University of Wisconsin gave $374,054 to political candidates or parties in last year’s federal election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Ninety-six percent of those contributions went to Democrats, the center says.

King holiday plans in place

Gloria Johnson-Powell, associate dean at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, will be the featured speaker at Madison’s annual commemoration of the life and legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Johnson-Powell was a student of civil rights hero James Lawson, one of several young leaders King trained to carry the struggle for civil rights throughout the country. She later became the first black female full professor at Harvard Medical School.