A trial date of April 8 and 9 has been set in the case of Brothers Bar and Grill versus the university. Brothers' owners Eric and Marc Fortney sued the UW Board of Regents in October in an attempt to prevent UW-Madison from taking their bar, 704 University Ave. The university wants the land to build a new School of Music building. The Regents exercised condemnation powers to take the property last summer, which they are allowed to do if the land's use is in the public interest...

Student Senate voted 13-12 against recalling last semester's vote that approved a resolution in favor of the Blugold Commitment. In order to pass the recall, a two-thirds vote was needed, which would have required at least 17 senators to vote in favor of rescinding the resolution. According to a Dec. 10 Spectator article, the resolution supported increasing tuition $1,200 over four years with 40 percent of that going to financial aid. The Blugold Commitment will go before the Board of Regents this Thursday and Friday for final approval...

A University of Wisconsin-Madison student is in critical condition with bacterial meningitis, UW Hospital spokesman Aaron Conklin said Monday. The student, a senior, is at UW Hospital. Several students who were in close contact with her have been given a course of antibiotics to ward off infection, said Sarah Van Orman, director of UW Health Services...Though meningitis can be associated with outbreaks, this case does not appear to be one, Van Orman said...

The Whitewater University Technology Park has signed a 10-year lease with the state’s largest Cooperative Educational Service Agency to become the park’s first major tenant. The educational service agency for southern Wisconsin, known as CESA 2, currently is based in Milton, but will occupy 10,000 square feet of office and conference room space. Terms of the lease were not disclosed...

UW-Baraboo/Sauk County could be adding a four-year bachelor’s degree geared specifically at adult and nontraditional students in coming years if a proposal by the University of Wisconsin Colleges is accepted by the UW System and the Board of Regents in the coming months. Baraboo is one of six two-year campuses in the UW Colleges system that has been selected to pilot the proposed "applied arts and sciences" degree, and Campus Dean Tom Pleger said the addition would be "a great opportunity" for the campus, as Baraboo's first "in-house" bachelor's degree administered almost entirely locally, using UW-BSC’s staff and resources...

The decision to make the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates Oversight Committee a closed meeting may have violated state open meeting laws Monday at a meeting to review MIU proposals...

The UW-Madison Faculty Senate voted Monday to support a state bill that would exempt non-state-funded university employees from state-imposed furloughs. The existing furlough system, created by an executive order from Gov. Jim Doyle, requires most state employees to take 16 days of unpaid leave in an effort to reduce budget deficits. The Smart Furlough Bill, which was reintroduced into the state budget proposal last year by state Rep. Kelda Helen Roys, D-Madison, aims to increase the state’s savings from the furloughs by exempting university employees who are not paid with state funds, such as researchers funded by federal grants...

The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate voted Monday to support a bill that aims to improve the amount saved through state-mandated furloughs...

The UW-Madison Faculty Senate will take up a resolution this afternoon to support a bill that would exempt state workers from furloughs if their positions are not funded by state dollars. The legislation, proposed by Rep. Kelda Helen Roys (D-Madison), would allow those who are paid by private or federal funds to avoid taking a mandatory 16 unpaid days off during this two-year budget term...

A Wisconsin lawmaker plans to introduce a proposal to improve state tuition benefits for veterans studying at Wisconsin universities and technical colleges. More than a thousand veterans are taking college-level classes throughout Madison. Vets say it's confusing to figure out what tuition benefits they're eligible for: even more so, this semester. When lawmakers passed the state budget this summer, they included a provision that vets have to take federal Post 9/11 Benefits before they're eligible for Wisconsin GI Bill benefits. Student advisors for veterans at both UW-Madison and Madison College say that's creating some confusion. They say when a veteran uses their federal benefits for credits at a Wisconsin public college, their Wisconsin GI Bill credits (vets receive 128 credits, or 8 semesters) are also subtracted at the same time. Here's the loophole: if a student would go to a private school, or an out-of-state school, they wouldn't use their Wisconsin benefits at all: and could potentially withhold that money, to go to grad school on those credits...

The Fox Valley Technical College is rolling out a fast-track version of its E-Seed training program. The program, dubbed E-Seed Express, is an abbreviated form of the intense course for entrepreneurs drawing up business plans. It's been in the making for 18 months and is coming none too soon...

Gov. Jim Doyle considers this year as an opportunity rather than his last hurrah as governor...On Monday afternoon, Doyle sat down to highlight some of those plans with the editorial boards of the Marshfield News-Herald, Stevens Point Journal and Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. He talked about education, jobs and the economy; issues that have been on his plate since his first day in office...Clean energy has huge potential for job growth, said Doyle, who pointed to helping the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point improve possibilities to commercialize research in its forestry department, and his hopes to sign legislation to create hundreds of jobs in central Wisconsin with the building of a wind-turbine blade plant by Energy Composites in Wisconsin Rapids...

As President Obama and his aides unveiled the administration's fiscal 2011 budget with lots of talk about reining in discretionary spending, they largely exempted programs important to higher education from the budget restraint they urged...

President Barack Obama on Monday proposed a $3.8-trillion federal budget for the 2011 fiscal year that includes $77.8-billion in total Education Department spending, a 31-percent increase that is driven largely by a plan to increase the value of Pell Grants faster than inflation...

President Obama on Monday proposed spending increases for both the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation in his budget for the 2011 fiscal year, despite his announcement last week that he would impose a net freeze on discretionary domestic spending...

A tough budget year could have meant big cuts for science research funding, but as mapped out in the Obama administration’s plan for the 2011 fiscal year released Monday, it doesn’t. Though President Obama vowed last week in his State of the Union address to freeze discretionary domestic spending, his $3.8 trillion budget shifts priorities to find increases for science and technology research and education that well outpace the 1.1 percent rate of inflation expected over the next year...

...So demand for bachelor’s programs in nursing stands to rise — more specifically, demand for programs that allow students the flexibility to continue their nursing education without leaving work. “Online is increasingly the option for the student who does not have the ability to get on campus for a traditional course and who needs to balance home, work, and school,” says Linda L. Strong, coordinator of the R.N. to B.S.N program at Sacred Heart University...

Williams College, which two years ago replaced all loans in its student financial aid packages with direct scholarships that did not have to be repaid, is rescinding the policy amid the fallout of the economic downturn...