Category: UW-Madison Related

Construction crews are shoring up security features at the Kohl Center and Camp Randall Stadium.

The University of Wisconsin will begin construction on a new residence hall today, part of a major project that will change the entire look of the downtown campus over the course of the next 16 years.

MADISON, Wis. )�  About five thousand students and community members turned out to see controversial filmmaker Michael Moore in Madison.

Harvard scientists are seeking permission to conduct therapeutic cloning that would involve the creation and destruction of early stage human embryos to get their stem cells for research. Although this kind of research is anathema to the Bush administration and has been opposed in unusually strong language by the president, it is vitally needed to improve scientific understanding of some of the most daunting diseases that plague human beings.

Finding a new president for the University of Wisconsin System cost state taxpayers more than $115,000, according to information provided by system officials. (Second item in Regional Briefs).

MADISON, Wis. — “Fahrenheit 9/11” director Michael Moore will be on the University of Wisconsin campus Saturday night.

…[includes:] intiative to transform East Washington Avenue into a ”Solar Mile” that would teach the community about energy from the sun. That would include installing solar panels along the street just east of the Capitol.

Madison:Ã?  More conservation and more renewable energy- that’s the edict from Madison ‘s Energy Task Force.

Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio will come to Madison Wednesday to lend his star qualities to the effort to kick George W. Bush out of office. DiCaprio will stump for Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. John Kerry at the Orpheum Theatre at 1:30 p.m. downtown, heating up a politically charged week that will culminate Saturday night with an appearance by “Fahrenheit 9/11” director Michael Moore at the Memorial Union Terrace on the UW campus.

The day after the Rock the Vote tour hits Madison urging people to register to vote, Michael Moore will visit to exhort those voters to kick George W. Bush out of the White House. Moore is scheduled to bring his message to the Memorial Union Terrace stage at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, rain or shine.

Philip Mumm stripped to his boxer shorts and jumped early Saturday from a sailboat into the 57-degree water of Lake Mendota for a swim. It happened in the dark and about 450 yards from the UW-Madison shoreline.

Liberal firebrand Michael Moore will speak outdoors – regardless of the weather – at the Union Terrace on Saturday night.

Who would have thought you could get 500 people to watch radio? That’s what comedian and political commentator Al Franken did Wednesday, when he broadcast live from the Great Hall of the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin campus.

The day his book debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction, “Daily Show” executive producer Ben Karlin was in Madison joking about the book, the show – and, whenever the opportunity arose, President George W. Bush.

Twenty-four-year old Philip Mumm presumably drowned early Saturday morning after he jumped from a sailboat into the 47-degree waters of Lake Mendota.

Search efforts continued throughout the weekend; however, no body has been recovered.

The UW Board of Regents gave the go-ahead Friday to nearly $2 million of UW-Madison building projects.

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz wants to get city employees out of their cars and give them a free ride. The mayor proposes in his recently released 2005 executive operating budget to provide free Madison Metro bus passes to all city employees next year. (UW-Madison bus pass program mentioned.)

MADISON, Wis. — Ralph Nader’s running mate Peter Miguel Camejo will be on the University of Wisconsin campus today.

(Madison) The countdown is on to Halloween and it looks like the plans are finally set and for the most part everyone’s happy.

University police Tuesday arrested two self-described “anarchists” in connection with a vandalism spree that left more than 20 cars and two buildings damaged.
(10/6/04 Capital Times)

Looking a little worn out from his 5 a.m. arrival in Madison today, comedian and political commentator Al Franken landed his Air America radio show at the Memorial Union’s Great Hall. Broadcasting live in front of a morning overflow crowd of more than 500, Franken received a standing ovation when he took the stage… (10/6/04 Capital Times print edition)

MADISON, Wis. — Al Franken is bringing his radio show to Madison today.

“The Al Franken Show” is making stops in eight cities as it hits the campaign trail

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 – Howard University will receive a gift of software and other technology valued at more than $70 million, the largest contribution in its 137-year history, the university announced Tuesday.

When Shiva Bidar-Sielaff was named to Madison’s powerful Police and Fire Commission, workmates had questions. Bidar-Sielaff, manager of minority community relations at UW Hospitals and Clinics, recently was appointed to the five-member commission to break a deadlock in choosing a new police chief.

Members of Madison’s Latino community came together Sunday to unite against what they say is a Republican smear campaign aimed at presidential candidate John Kerry and fellow Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. (Francisco Scarano, a professor of Caribbean and Latin American history, is quoted. )

What is it that sets Madison apart from other cities?…Of course, a lot of it has to do with State Street, (Abdul) Bensaid says. “At one end you’ve got one of the greatest universities in the world. At the other end you’ve got one of the greatest state capitols in the world.

The Joint West Campus Area Committee voted Wednesday night, 10-0 with three abstentions, to recommend the building of the Interdisciplinary Research Center, a $144 million laboratory and research facility.

One block down, five to go.

After the near completion of renovations to the 100 block of State Street, the State Street Design Project proposed the preliminary plans for the renovations to the 200 block Wednesday night.

Nancy Zimpher, whose first anniversary as president of the University of Cincinnati is Friday, has dealt with a variety of issues ranging from producing a new strategic plan to disciplining basketball coach Bob Huggins.

The University of Wisconsin System needs to stop losing its brightest professors, increase the percentage of residents with college degrees and resist a drift toward privatization, new System President Kevin Reilly said Tuesday.

As 27 News first reported Monday at 6PM, Madison Police will shed some light on Halloween Partiers on State Street

Judith Claire Mitchell, author of “The Last Day of the War,” served as the grand judge for this yearââ?¬â?¢s contest.

Mitchell teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Wisconsinââ?¬â??Madison and will also be reading from her new novel on Oct. 7 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre.

The “Dane Train” picked up some steam Monday night thanks to the task force charged with developing a transportation plan for Madison.

Two men face hate crime charges after allegedly harassing an Asian couple downtown and shouting at them to “speak English.”

MORAGA, Calif., Sept. 24 – Looking back, it all seems too good to have been true. But until a few weeks ago, almost everyone here believed it.

Seven years ago, a first-time donor pledged the largest gift in the history of Saint Mary’s College, a small liberal arts school run by Christian Brothers in Moraga, a secluded town in the San Francisco Bay area. The college’s origins date back to the state’s early history.

Chancellor Carlos Santiago on Thursday challenged the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to live up to its status as a public research institution, saying that to do so, the school must “fundamentally enhance” its research and academic profile.

A Wisconsin Alumni Association trip planned to Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) was ââ?¬Å?pulledââ?¬Â following public outcry concerning the countryââ?¬â?¢s human rights abuses, according to Amy Toburen, director of University of Wisconsin communications.

Frustration with the Bush administration’s shortsighted restrictions on embryonic stem cell research has found its most extreme expression in an ambitious ballot measure that will be presented to California voters in the November elections. The measure calls for the state to borrow some $3 billion in the next decade or so to finance stem cell research in the state’s medical schools and other nonprofit research institutions, with priority given to the kind of research that is now barred from receiving federal support under President Bush’s policy. The amount of money is staggering, an order of magnitude as great as what is now spent by the federal government on the limited embryonic stem cell research the president is willing to support.

The Bush administration has studiously looked the other way while well-connected lenders have exploited a loophole in the student loan program that will reap them nearly a billion dollars in undeserved subsidies this year alone. Congress, which rakes in contributions from banks and other lenders, was reluctant to even discuss this problem until a public outcry recently made it impossible to avoid. The Education Department has claimed that it lacks the authority to close the loophole unilaterally. But that position was blown away this week in an unusually caustic report by the Government Accountability Office, which outlined the scope of the problem and urged the Education Department to solve it quickly.

An international/multicultural elementary school that would offer at least one foreign language is being considered thanks to a new partnership between the La Crosse School District and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Today Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, will make a proposal to the Madison City Council, outlining a plan to increase the monetary penalties for drinking-related offenses. These penalties include tickets for throwing objects such as rocks, public urination and disorderly conduct

Despite giving some good grades, a new report card on higher education in Wisconsin sounds alarms the state should heed.

The share of young people who attend college is shrinking in Wisconsin, and faster than in the nation as a whole, according to the analysis, conducted by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, an independent think tank

Someone could have been hurt. And the three 19-year-old college students accused of being involved could face stiffer charges. Instead the three were each charged Thursday with two counts of criminal damage to property, a misdemeanor.

A 1955 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Human Ecology and her husband say they will donate $8 million to help expand and modernize the school’s 90-year-old main building.

At the end of a rousing speech in Madison Wednesday night, independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader turned the podium over to a protege who worked the room with the skill of an auctioneer and the passion of a preacher at a revival meeting. Greg Kafoury managed to raise about $10,000 from a hall filled largely with UW students.

An $8 million gift to the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology is the largest private donation given to the school in its hundred-year-old history, and perhaps the largest given to any Human Ecology school in the country, according to the school�s dean, Robin Douthitt.

Nancy Johnson Nicholas, a 1955 graduate of the school, and her husband, Ab Nicholas of Milwaukee, donated $8 million Wednesday for UW-Madison’s School of Human Ecology. University officials will use it to kick-start a $40 million campaign to expand and modernize the school’s 90-year-old main building at 1300 Linden Drive.

A 63-year-old UW dance instructor was killed on Madison’s east side when he was run down Tuesday by a hit-and-run driver.

Police said John Gesinski was walking from the Sentry grocery store on Cottage Grove Road at about 5 p.m. when he was struck in the crosswalk by a driver turning right on Vernon Avenue. The car continued north.

Brown University announced yesterday that it had received its largest donation ever, $100 million for financial aid, continuing a series of record-breaking gifts to major American universities this year. With the gift, Brown will eliminate loans for its neediest students, much as the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina have committed to doing in the last year.

When asked why he sought and received five deferments to avoid serving in the military during the Vietnam War, Dick Cheney said “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” (Excerpts from “Dick: The Man Who Is President” in the Capital Times 9/14/04 print edition.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, will tour a stem-cell research laboratory in Madison. She also will make stops in Racine and Eau Claire, where she will stress health care issues.

Gov. Jim Doyle joined the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents Friday in recognizing the system�s top educators.

Regent Danae Davis introduced the three award winners in the presentation of the 2004 Regents Teaching excellence awards.

Although Anthony Shadid won the Pulitzer Prize earlier this year for his coverage of the war in Iraq, and even though he’s writing a book on the subject, he likes to tell people he really doesn’t know much about what is going on there.

An eager crowd of students, faculty and community members spilled into the aisles of the Howard Auditorium at the Fluno Center Wednesday night to hear Anthony Shadid, University of Wisconsin graduate and Pulitzer Prize winner, deliver the Ralph O. Nafziger lecture.

The Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity honored Richard Daluge as a “Brother Of The Century” during their 58th annual National Convention and celebration of 100 years as a fraternity. The convention was held last month in Columbus, Ohio.

The University of Michigan has received its largest gift ever, $100 million, from a New York real estate magnate.

The Wisconsin Alumni Association will host a trip to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, despite calls for a boycott on tourism in the country due to the nation�s poor track record on human rights.

It has been nearly 30 years since John Biester strutted his stuff out in front of the UW Marching Band as drum major. Although he has been the announcer for the band’s football halftime shows since 1994, and a member of the alumni band since leaving the UW band in 1978, Biester will get the chance to stand out in front again Saturday.

Wisconsin’s governor has forced the University of Wisconsin to abandon plans for a fiber-optic computer network connecting the system’s 13 campuses and other educational institutions across the state, deciding that they must use a state-government network instead. (Subscription required.)

Anthony Shadid, Islamic affairs correspondent for The Washington Post, has braved bombs and bullets in the pursuit of some brilliant stories. In 2003, Shadid covered the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His articles from that country, distinguished by their many stirring human portraits, won a Pulitzer Prize. Shadid, 35, earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he’s scheduled to deliver the Ralph O. Nafziger Lecture today.