News in brief

News in Brief

ISSUES

Would-be contestants for the Fox Network’s game show “Greed” filled out applications before auditions on campus March 9. Network scouts came to campus in search of students to appear on a college edition of the show later this spring; no word yet if any Madisonians made the cut. After final approval by the show’s executive producer in Los Angeles, up to four students may be flown to Los Angeles to appear on “College Greed” as part of a Big Ten team. Contestants could win $2 million. Photo: Stephanie Judge

University presses for disclosure

The university is warning a handful of licensed manufacturers that they must disclose the locations of their factories soon or their contracts with the university will be terminated.

So far, more than 90 percent of the 445 companies licensed to produce UW–Madison apparel and other merchandise have identified where their goods are manufactured.

The remaining 39 licensees were notified last week that they have until March 27 to comply, says Cindy Van Matre, director of the UW–Madison Office of Trademark Licensing.

Disclosure information to date indicates that about 70 percent of factory locations are in the United States. The remaining 30 percent are spread out among 37 countries. China has the largest number of factory locations, with 56 companies manufacturing UW–Madison-licensed goods within Chinese borders.

University officials say disclosure is an important first step in the process to monitor factory locations for possible sweatshop abuses. UW–Madison is currently monitoring factories in Costa Rica, Korea and Mexico as part of a pilot project with four other universities and is exploring other avenues for regular monitoring as well.

Student wages to increase
To address the competitive labor market, the university is increasing the minimum wage for student workers to $6.50 per hour.

Vice Chancellor for Administration John Torphy approved the 75-cent increase in late February following a recommendation from the Student Wage Plan Committee. The previous minimum wage was $5.75 per hour. The new wage will take effect in August, just prior to the start of the fall semester. The higher wage will affect about 20 percent of student workers on campus.

NOTABLE

Campus joins accessibility program
UW–Madison and Madison Area Technical College have been invited to join a select national program that aims to increase the success of disabled students on campuses.

The Division of Information Technology’s Learning Technology and Distance Education group, working with the McBurney Disability Resource Center, is part of a program called Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology, based at the University of Washington.

The program works to increase the representation of individuals with disabilities in post-secondary education and employment by working directly with disabled students; organizing professional development for faculty, staff and employers; and disseminating information.

The DoIT group and its partners will develop ways to implement a comprehensive professional development program for faculty across the nation. Locally, DoIT will focus on implementing a professional development program for UW System campuses.

“We’re excited about the opportunity,” says Alice Anderson, who coordinates DoIT’s disability-awareness efforts. “Although various campuses around the country have developed fragmented programs to increase faculty awareness, no one has created a comprehensive program using the multimodal delivery mechanisms that will be utilized in this project.”

For more details: http://www.washington.edu/doit/Prof/abstract.html.

ON CAMPUS

Latin music superstar to visit campus
Ruben Blades, a Panamanian activist, actor and Grammy award-winning musician, will speak and perform next month at the university. Two events are planned on Saturday, April 8, in Music Hall, 925 Bascom Mall:

2:30 p.m., a lecture, “The Future of the Panama Canal.”
4:15 p.m., a musical workshop, “The Music of Ruben Blades.”

Each event is free, but will require separate tickets. Tickets will be available at the Wisconsin Union Theater Box Office on Wednesday, March 29, to UW students, faculty, staff and Union members. They are available to the general public April 3.

Blades, a three-time Grammy Award winner and former Panamanian presidential candidate, will cap Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Week April 1-8.

A graduate of Harvard University in international law, Blades formed the Mother Earth political party and finished third in the 1994 presidential race.

Curti Lectures scheduled
The spring Curti Lectures will be delivered March 27-29 by David A. Hollinger, professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley and current fellow of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton.

The lectures will be at 4 p.m. in the auditorium of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street. Topics are:

“The New Cosmopolitanism and the Old Enlightenment,” Monday, March 27.
“Solidarity with Whom? The Case of the United States in the Era of Transnationalism,” Tuesday, March 28.
“Solidarity with Whom? The Case of Universities Amid the Force Fields of Capital,” Wednesday, March 29.

The Curti Lectures honor Merle Curti (1897-1996), a distinguished American intellectual historian who taught for many years at UW–Madison.

Singerman to discuss ‘conflict of the faculties’
What should artists be taught? It is no longer clear what skills are needed to become an artist. Are those skills the same as learning to pull prints or cast metal or blow glass, or in the university and in an increasingly professionalized art world, are the skills of art not more theoretical or critical? Howard Singerman, assistant professor of art history at the University of Virginia, will offer an archeology of the art department in the contemporary university in his talk Tuesday, March 28, 5:30 p.m., 160 Elvehjem Museum of Art.

Brittingham spring lecture spotlights theorist of rhetoric
Steve Mailloux, a nationally recognized literary scholar and prominent advocate for rhetoric and cultural studies, will deliver a public lecture Thursday, March 30, titled “What do Rhetoric and Hermeneutics Have to Teach Us?” The event is planned in the Lenehan Conference Room, 6191 Helen C. White, at 3:30 p.m. Mailloux’s visit is sponsored by the Brittingham Visiting Scholars fund.

Forest service chief to focus on ‘Largest water company’
Michael Dombeck, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, will give a free public talk Tuesday, March 28, about “The Forest Service: The World’s Largest Water Company,” beginning at 5 p.m. in 145 Birge Hall.

Dombeck, the agency’s top administrator since 1997, has called watershed restoration and maintenance the “oldest and highest calling of the Forest Service.”

National forests are the largest single source of fresh water in the United States, according to a new Forest Service report. Information: 263-5599.

Library sale offers 15,000 books
A fund-raiser for the Friends of the Libraries, March 22-25, will be held in room 124, Memorial Library. The regular sale will be 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Thursday and Friday, March 23-24. On Saturday, March 25, from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m., bring your own bag and fill it for $2.

You may donate books to the libraries by simply leaving them in the “Open Return” book drops. They will be added to campus library collections, sold through the Friends book sale to benefit the libraries, or recycled. All gifts of materials support the mission of libraries and are greatly appreciated. Hundreds of titles new to the collections and within the libraries’ collecting scope are added through gifts annually.

COMMUNITY

Athletes on a roll
Athletics officials say the new century is off to an unprecedented start with so many university athletes and teams in the national limelight.

The men’s basketball team is advancing to the “Sweet 16” in the NCAA tournament; women’s basketball continues to advance in the WNIT tourney; hockey captain Steve Reinprecht leads the country in scoring; and the hockey team has won the MacNaughton Cup.

Panel approves TAA contract
The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations on March 20 approved the 1999-2001 contract for the Teaching Assistants Association. It now goes to the full Legislature for approval.

The new contract provides pay raises for teaching assistants and program assistants and creates three categories for TAs – inexperienced, experienced and senior.

Salaries for inexperienced TAs will increase from $19,749 this spring to $20,341 this fall and $20,951 next spring. Pay for experienced TAs will increase from $21,141 this spring to $21,844 this fall and $22,541 next spring.

The “inexperienced dissertator” title will be eliminated this fall. TAs paid at that rate will continue to receive that pay until they qualify for senior TA status, which will pay $27,355 this fall and $27,629 next spring, up from $27,084 this spring.

Other changes to the TAA contract include paying PAs no less than the experienced TA rate when they move from a PA to a TA position, and requiring departments to provide eight hours of training for new TAs. Two hours of training must be provided after the semester starts.

The contract also specifies that departments cannot force employees to pay for resources necessary for teaching, research or other mandatory work. And in departments where workload committees do not exist, the TAA can request mandatory union-management meetings to address workload concerns.

Regents, state endorse Thai pavilion
The only Thai pavilion of its kind in the United States will be constructed at UW–Madison this fall, thanks to a gift from Thailand.

The 40-foot by 22-foot wood pavilion is being given to the university as a gesture of thanks from Thailand for educating numerous Thai students, according to campus planning officials. There are only two other Thai pavilions in the world located outside Thailand: in Germany and Norway.

The Thai Alumni Association, one of the university’s largest international alumni groups, is responsible for the gift, which required approval from the King of Thailand. The structure will be built in Thailand before being disassembled and shipped to UW–Madison. Thai craftspeople will reconstruct the pavilion between Lake Mendota and the Natatorium.

The Board of Regents and the State Building Commission earlier this month approved $457,000 to build the structure’s foundation. Groundbreaking is slated for this spring, and a member from the Thai royal family may attend.

“The pavilion will provide Thai students with a significant symbol of their homeland,” explains a summary of the proposal.

Building plans advance
The UW System Board of Regents and the State Building Commission earlier this month also approved several UW–Madison construction funding requests:

$2 million for the Biochemistry Building’s 1985 Wing Renovation for X-Ray Crystallography project and $400,000 to upgrade a Biochemistry Building lecture hall and security system.
$3 million to extend campus utilities for the new Engineering Centers facility and future development in the area.
$300,000 in additional funding for maintenance and renovation at Barnard, Bradley and Chadbourne halls, for a total project cost of $3.9 million.

A request for $750,000 to renovate Memorial Library Room 124 was approved by the regents this month and will come before the building commission in April.

MILESTONES

Renk named WARF patents head
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, has named Bryan Z. Renk as its new director of patents and licensing.

He replaces Carl Gulbrandsen, who was recently named WARF’s managing director. A Wisconsin native and graduate of UW–Madison, Renk has performed superbly, said Gulbrandsen. “As director of patents and licensing, Bryan’s experience and leadership qualities will help WARF maintain and enhance its position as one of the world’s leading university licensing organizations.”

Dairy scientist dies at 75
An undergraduate scholarship has been established in the name of Anton G. “Tony” Sendelbach, 75, emeritus professor of dairy science, who died Jan. 26 of a heart attack. Sendelbach, who grew up on a dairy farm near Waumandee, spent more than three decades helping to lay the groundwork for computerized dairy-herd management. Sendelbach was recognized throughout the nation. Contributions to the scholarship fund may be made to the UW Foundation – Sendelbach Scholarship, Dairy Science Department, 1675 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706.

Auditor dies at 53
Campus travel auditor Mary Walker died Friday, March 3, in Madison.

She started with the university in 1976 at the School of Education, then transferred to the pre-audit section in Accounting Services in 1989. As a travel auditor she worked with many people on campus and thought of many as friends.

Planner Jakobson dies
A memorial fund has been established at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning for Leo Jakobson, 80, a professor who died Feb. 22.

Jakobson came to the UW–Madison in 1957. He was one of the interdisciplinary founding faculty members of Urban and Regional Planning. He had done international consulting in more recent years. For information on the memorial: 262-1005.