News in brief
LEADERSHIP
 Participants in a candlelight procession thread their way along campus pathways from Memorial Union Terrace to Elizabeth Waters Hall as a consciousness-raising activity for Sexual Assault Awareness Week April 9-15. Many other activities also were organized by health, student services, and men’s and women’s groups on campus. Photo: Stephanie Judge
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Chancellor search starts
The UW System Board of Regents has approved the search for a new chancellor to replace David Ward, who is stepping down at the end of the year. Ward will take a sabbatical in 2001 and then return to the faculty as a geography professor.
UW System President Katharine Lyall says she plans to assemble a search and screen committee by the end of April to conduct the international search, and hire a new chancellor by the end of the year.
The regents will seek a salary for the new chancellor that exceeds the current maximum for Ward’s pay range. The chancellor’s 1999-2000 salary is $193,000, and the regents want to set a salary range for the new chancellor between $244,534 and $298,874.
The maximum salary is frozen for 2000-01, but the UW System’s search request says it is hoped that the Department of Employment Relations secretary and Joint Committee on Employment Relations will reconsider that maximum.
The median salary for Ward’s peer group this year is $275,004. According to UW System figures, Ward is the second-lowest paid chancellor among his peer group.
LEARNING
Agreement makes credit transfer easier
Students will be able to transfer credits more easily between the Wisconsin Technical College System and the UW System as a result of a new agreement between the systems’ boards.
The new principles state that credit transfer supports lifelong learning, offers flexibility for obtaining credentials, reduces duplication and lessens the cost of education, and promotes consistency in the awarding of credit. Specific actions:
- Authorize UW institutions to create “2+2” programs, permitting WTCS students who graduate with a two-year associate degree to transfer as a third-year student into a bachelor of science or applied science degree program in a related field of study, or into a broad-based bachelor of applied arts or sciences degree program.
- Create more baccalaureate degree completion programs in areas where there is course content alignment, starting with pilot agreements in nursing and early childhood education.
- Increase the number of general education, non-occupational credits that students can transfer.
To date, about 380 agreements link WTCS programs to UW System majors, in disciplines ranging from agriculture to biotechnology, marketing to social work. In 1998-99, 2,619 WTCS students transferred to the UW System compared to 1,491 in 1990-91. WTCS students now comprise 18 percent of the 14,802 students who transfer into the UW System.
Grant to boost study of security issues
A recent grant renewal will help the Global Studies Program continue its inquiry into human security issues.
The program has been awarded nearly $1 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Global Studies, a member program of the International Institute, is a partner in the MacArthur Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation. Stanford University and the University of Minnesota received companion grants of similar amounts for a total of $2.98 million.
Leigh Payne, program director and associate professor of political science at UW–Madison, says the consortium has moved beyond studying peace and security from a military and Cold War perspective to examining what Payne calls “human security issues.”
These include such issues as war crimes against particular ethnic and gender groups, environmental justice, poverty and social equality. Payne says these issues are increasingly being played out on an international stage, with implications worldwide.
Since 1993, the Minnesota-Stanford-Wisconsin MacArthur Consortium has helped train outstanding graduate students through scholarly exchanges, classes, conferences and summer institutes.
The consortium provides an environment in which more than 300 graduate students and 100 faculty think creatively about the complexities of change in contemporary global society, the global effects of concentrations of power, and the importance of underlying cultural and institutional continuities. Under the terms of the three-year grant, UW–Madison will receive $977,000; the University of Minnesota, $992,000; and Stanford, $1,006,000.
Information: 262-0646; lbickford@facstaff.wisc.edu.
COMMUNITY
Student wages increasing
Chancellor David Ward has approved a proposal to increase wages for certain student employees at UW–Madison.
The proposal, advanced by Associated Students of Madison, would use segregated fees to increase wages to $7.78 per hour in August for about 80 students employed in student-run programs. These programs include but are not limited to the Campus Women’s Center, Adventure Learning Programs and Greater University Tutoring Service.
Students working for other segregated-fee supported programs such as Recreational Sports, University Health Services and the Wisconsin Union, about 600 total, will earn a minimum of $7 per hour.
The proposal will go to the UW System Board of Regents for approval in June. Earlier this spring, the administration approved a plan to increase the minimum wage for other student hourly employees and work study positions to $6.50 per hour starting this fall.
Students get new insurer
Students will get a better deal on health insurance starting Aug. 15, when a new Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) contract takes effect.
The contract has been awarded to Student Risk Managers/Guardian Life Insurance Company, which specializes in the university student market.
Affordability is the top priority cited by UW–Madison students for their health insurance plan. Faced with proposed 20-30 percent premium increases for next academic year by the current insurance carrier, University Health Services opted to put the SHIP contract up for new bids this fall.
Student Risk Managers/Guardian will provide comparable benefits, utilization of the existing UW Health network of providers, clinics and hospitals, and improved and customized support services – all at the lowest premium levels bid by competing carriers.
SHIP was implemented as a federally mandated program for international students, scholars and their dependents. A voluntary enrollment program was also created for domestic students and their dependents.
MILESTONES
Teaching fellows to be feted
The Teaching Academy, chartered by the Faculty Senate in 1993, will induct and honor eight new fellows Wednesday, April 26, at the University Club.
The new fellows, representing the sixth class of the Teaching Academy, are: John G. Bollinger, industrial engineering; Narra Smith Cox, professional development and applied studies; Theresa Marche, School of Education/Art, Gregory A. Moses, engineering physics; William A. Russin, plant pathology; Rodney Schreiner, chemistry; Lawrence Shapiro, philosophy; and Kevin T. Strang, physiology.
ON CAMPUS
Carlson lecture details study of juvenile crime
The first in a series of lectures underwritten by the Laurie Carlson Memorial Fund will be given at 2 p.m. Friday, April 28, in the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St.
Carlson, who died last year at age 91, was the last Wisconsin political figure to have campaigned with the late U.S. Sen. Robert La Follette.
Carlson’s daughter, Mary, and her husband, Felton Earls, both faculty members at Harvard University’s School of Public Health, will give the inaugural lecture. “Growing Up Alone: From Home to the Streets,” is based on findings from their eight-year interdisciplinary study called the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.
Their study aims to understand the causes and pathways of juvenile delinquency, adult crime, substance abuse and violence. It is funded by several sources, including the MacArthur Foundation, the National Institute of Justice and the National Institute of Mental Health.
The public lecture will be the first event in a weekend conference sponsored by the La Follette Institute that focuses on identifying and preventing teen violence and gang activities.
Ozzello memorial planned
The Department of French and Italian will honor the late Yvonne Ozzello, professor of French and university administrator, Friday, April 28, starting at 3:30 p.m. in the 19th floor Conference Room, Van Hise Hall.
The service will take the form of a song and poetry recital in the languages Yvonne Ozzello knew and/or loved. Participants will include faculty members from several departments: Jim McKeown, Patricia Rosenmeyer, classics; Susan Friedman, English; Nelly Halzen, Chris Kleinhenz, Mary Lydon, Grazia Menechella, Nicholas Rand, Aliko Songolo, Steven Winspur, French and Italian; Klaus Berghahn, German; Gilead Morahg, Hebrew and Semitic Studies; William Farlow, Mimmi Fulmer, music; Ben Rifkin, Slavic Languages; and Juan Temprano, Spanish and Portuguese.
Following the memorial, Professor Gilles Bousquet, chair, Department of French and Italian, and colleagues will dedicate the Yvonne Ozzello Conference Room. Information: 262-3941.
Smith tribute April 28
A tribute to Donald K. Smith symposium and reception will be held Saturday, April 29, to focus on former UW Senior Vice President Donald Smith’s contributions to higher education.
The event is scheduled in the Pyle Center, Lakeshore Room, 1:30-5:30 p.m. Information: Lloyd Bitzer, 845-7876.
Two named librarians of the year
Edie Dixon and Susan Barribeau have been named the 2000 Librarians-of-the-Year by their peers in Librarians’ Assembly.
The annual awards recognize outstanding contributions to campus library services by two unclassified staff members of the General Library System, one who has worked for the system more than 10 years and another who has been on the staff 10 years or less. The assembly created the awards in 1989.
Dixon is a senior academic librarian in the Library Technology Group. Barribeau is the system’s first web site manager.
Gift boosts engineering
A $1 million gift from engineering Professor Emeritus Phillip Myers and his wife, Jean, will help the Department of Mechanical Engineering continue its mission to be one of the top departments of its kind in the United States.
The Myers’ gift establishes the Phil and Jean Myers Professorship, which includes two graduate fellowships. The gift also will provide a cash award to the chosen professor and operating funds for the Myers Automotive Laboratory in the Engineering Centers Building.
A UW–Madison mechanical engineering professor will hold the professorship for five years and select the students who will receive the fellowships. Myers hopes the position will help retain the department’s outstanding faculty and lure other exceptional faculty to the college.