UW System Clipsheet

UW System Clipsheet - August 24, 2009

August 24, 2009

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On Campus

"Our View: Interim UWSP chancellor looks to future," Editorial, Stevens Point Journal, Aug. 24.

Mark Nook has a history with the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point...At the same time, Nook is working to position UWSP for the future. The university is creating a strategic plan which will consider everything from the optimal size of its student body to the direction of curriculum to future construction projects. That sort of long-range planning is not something the university has undertaken recently, Nook said, and it's worthwhile...

"Students learn the dressed-up art of lobbying," Wisconsin State Journal, Aug. 24.

..."Maybe you’ll come into the Capitol and be under-estimated at first," said Jessica Tormey, a legislative liaison for the University of Wisconsin System, to the group. "If you have a high-caliber, organized lobby, you will have so much influence with legislators who care about higher education and who care about students." Students are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to giving voice to issues. Yes, they’ll raise hell about tuition or sweatshops, but it only lasts a few weeks. And then, spring break hits. Or final exams. Or the leaders graduate, and there’s silence until the next wave of activists rises up...The "lobby day" last week was planned by a new student group on the UW-Madison campus, the Wisconsin Student Lobby. It was formed last year with a dual mission: to lobby for students on state government issues and to train other student groups how to effectively talk to legislators...

"University of Wisconsin Marathon County to offer interactive Web classes," Wausau Daily Herald, Aug. 22.

University of Wisconsin Marathon County students in 2010 could be attending classes in a totally different way. UWMC instructors will have the option of offering their classes through Mediasite, a program that offers interactive and on-demand Webcasting...

"Remodeled UW-Stout dining hall offers more options," Leader-Telegram, Aug. 24.

When UW-Stout students return to classes Sept. 9, they will find a remodeled Merle M. Price Commons dining hall with new styles and flavors...The nearly $4 million project, which began in March and was completed about a week ago, was funded through student fees...

State

"Post-9/11 GI Bill causes some confusion for school officials, students," Green Bay Press-Gazette, Aug. 24.

Area colleges are scrambling to accommodate changes in benefits available for a new generation of military veterans...In addition to the confusion of the new law's complexity, area public colleges also are handling an increasing number of veteran students that could be the result of those returning to school after serving in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the number of veterans who used state GI benefits to cover their tuition increased from 192 in the 2005-2006 school year to 549 in the most recently completed school year. These numbers don't include the number of veterans who may have used other sources of GI funding...

"How to create more Midwest university start-ups: looking to Utah for an example," Column, Wisconsin Technology News, Aug. 24.

Regardless of whether they are called university spinoffs, spinouts, or just plain start-ups, the University of Utah sure has a lot of them: 23 that started just last year— that's second best of all universities in the nation...But, this is the land of the Big 10 and other top universities, whose R&D dollars dwarf those spent at the University of Utah. University of Wisconsin's federal R&D expenditures are consistently in the top three of the country and are more than three times those spent at the University of Utah. It's not just the money spent, either. I'm told that roughly 50% of the world's peer-reviewed nanotech articles come from an institution within a 200-mile radius of Chicago. Midwest universities are responsible for discoveries ranging from nuclear fission to stem cells. So, how can we better translate some of our incredible university-based science and technologies into more start-up companies in the region?..(Author: Matt Storms)

"Doyle's legacy: Health care and tough budgets," Wisconsin State Journal, Aug. 22.    

...Doyle, who announced last week he will not seek a third term, still has a year and a half to complete his legacy. But since taking office in 2003, Doyle built a reputation as a leader who usually failed to inspire but often managed to win. Contending with two recessions and an often hostile Legislature, Doyle didn’t amass the signature achievements and bronze legacy of Thompson, his former rival. But while straining to stay just ahead of fiscal disaster, Doyle made incremental changes that will influence the state for years...

"Wis. AG won't defend domestic partnership law," Associated Press, Aug. 21.

Wisconsin's attorney general said Friday he will not defend a new law that grants same-sex couples spousal benefits such as hospital visitation and inheritance, saying lawmakers went against voters' decision not to extend such privileges...

"Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle's air pollution cleanup policies under scrutiny," Associated Pres, Aug. 24.

Weeks after Gov. Jim Doyle won re-election, two top state air regulators discussed how to give "payback" to environmentalists who supported him during the 2006 campaign, according to notes of the conversation. Department of Natural Resources Air and Waste Division Administrator Al Shea told a colleague the governor "has got to deliver" by reducing pollution at four coal-fired power plants that were a priority of the Sierra Club, according to the notes, which were obtained through an open records request. Nearly three years later, all four plants are moving to reduce pollution with projects costing more than $400 million in response to state air rules and actions. The governor, the DNR and the Sierra Club all denied those actions were politically motivated and said they were sound public policy...Shea said the governor could deliver by cutting pollution at Alliant Energy's Edgewater plant in Sheboygan, We Energies Valley plant in Milwaukee and two state-run plants in Madison that power the University of Wisconsin and the Capitol...

National

"Post-9/11 GI Bill applicants wait for colleges to certify enrollment," Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 23. 

Nearly 200,000 veterans have applied for benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which pays for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to attend in-state public colleges at no cost and out-of-state or private colleges at a reduced rate. But some veterans will not receive their benefits checks until after their tuition payments are due. And it might be the colleges that are to blame...

"Sustainability field booms on campus," New York Times, Aug. 19.

...Mr. Gressens’s trajectory will sound familiar at educational institutions across the country, whose continuing education arms have seen a striking influx of students interested in the relatively new field of sustainability. At Harvard’s extension school, enrollment in environmental courses has soared by more than 70 percent in two years, according to the university, which has responded with new offerings in fast-changing fields like carbon neutrality and environmental economics...

"Privacy concerns arise over student data," USA Today, Aug. 23.

Privacy concerns have touched off a debate this summer about whether schools should change the practice of sharing student contact information with outside sources. School districts and colleges nationwide are allowed to sell or share student lists that contain information such as the names, ages, phone numbers and home addresses of students...

"Universities are preparing for back-to-the-classroom outbreaks of swine flu," New York Times, Aug. 22.

...All across the country, universities are making plans in the expectation that dozens or hundreds of their students will fall ill with the new H1N1 flu as classes start over the next few weeks...While there has been talk of filling gymnasiums with cots and handing out Tamiflu on demand, most are making more modest plans...

"Canada's elite universities propose a national strategy for higher education," Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 17.

Canadians have long held an egalitarian view toward their universities, generally agreeing that none should be treated as more special than any other. But now the presidents of five of the country's largest research institutions -- the Universities of Alberta, British Columbia, Montreal, and Toronto, and McGill University -- are banding together to suggest that perhaps some Canadian universities should be, to use a famous phrase, more equal than others. Canada needs not only to improve its higher-education system as a whole, they say, but also to pay special attention to institutions like theirs. Their argument, essentially, is that if the country hopes to raise the international standing of its universities, then their group must be allowed to focus on graduate education and high-quality research...

"Before the fall," Inside Higher Ed, Aug. 24

It may seem the distant past now, but there was actually a recovery going on in state and local support for higher education until the economy tanked last fall. The State Higher Education Executive Officers on Friday released its annual study on higher education financing, finding that in the 2008 fiscal year, which in most places ended just before the economic mess became fully visible, state and local funding for higher education reached $89.2 billion, a 5.7 percent increase over 2007, in current dollars. Those figures marked the third year of a recovery in state and local support for higher education following the 25-year low in per student public funding that occurred in 2005, when state and local support totaled $72.6 billion. That recovery was almost certainly lost in most states by the current recession and its impact on government support...

"Protection of research in U.S. is patently ridiculous," Column, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug. 22. 

Virtually every strategic plan ever concocted for the United States or Wisconsin economy revolves around innovation as a bastion of competitive advantage. In the same fashion, there are very few strategic plans for corporations that don't hinge on innovation as a way of dealing with fierce global competition. Against that backdrop, the finding by two Journal Sentinel reporters that it takes 3˝ years for the U.S. Patent Office to issue the average patent is unnerving. The 1.2 million patent-applications backlog is an indictment of the government's management of this critical function for maintaining our lead in the rapidly changing world of technology...

"Patent delays harmful to U.S. economy, commerce secretary says," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Aug. 23.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency safeguarding American innovation, is impeding the nation's economic recovery with its unprecedented delays and hurdles in issuing patents, said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. "The length of time it takes to issue patents is unacceptable," Locke, whose department oversees the patent office, told the Journal Sentinel. "This delay causes uncertainty for inventors and entrepreneurs and impedes our economic recovery"...