News in brief
MILESTONES
Howard to retire this summer
Roger Howard, a well-known campus figure and top student services official at the university, will retire in June.
Howard has served as associate dean of students for 28 years, and for the past two years, he has served as interim associate vice chancellor for student affairs. In these roles Howard is involved in most of the top student issues on campus and works closely with Associate Students of Madison, the university’s student government.
Howard has been on campus since 1968, when he enrolled as a graduate student in African studies. He worked as a residence hall adviser from 1969-71, when he was appointed assistant dean of students. He was promoted in 1973 to associate dean of students. From 1979-80 he also served as associate director of the Office of Academic Services.
His duties as associate dean of students include overseeing the development of divisional budgets, personnel policies and program planning; supervising the assistant deans of students and other employees in the office; counseling with students; and advising faculty, staff and the campus administration on student issues and needs.
Howard has received numerous awards and honors during his employment with UW–Madison, and he serves on and consults for a number of important campus committees. He is a regular presenter on student life topics to professional, academic and community groups.
Before coming to UW–Madison, Howard served as a Peace Corps secondary school teacher in Mbeya, Tanzania. He is a graduate of Doane College in Nebraska and has done graduate work at Northwestern University and UW–Madison.
COMMUNITY
Free bus tickets promote alternative transportation
Transportation Services is mailing free Madison Metro tickets and schedules to nearly 900 campus employees who live within a quarter-mile of bus stops with direct, all-day service to the university. The employees were identified using Madison Metro’s geographic information systems technology.
The tickets are paid for out of a Wisconsin Department of Transportation grant designed to entice more faculty and staff to ride the bus, car pool, bike or walk to work.
The Quik-Tix bus tickets mailed to campus employees will be valid through Feb. 28, says Rachel Martin, coordinator of the university’s Transportation Demand Management program. TDM encourages employees to use alternative forms of transportation for their work commute.
“This is the first time we have used GIS technology to target market transit service, and we are very excited to see how many employees take advantage of the free bus tickets,” Martin says.
The university offers many incentives to increase the use of alternative transportation. These include pre-tax savings on city bus passes for employees, a park-and-ride program, flex parking, an emergency ride home program, and bus passes for students funded with segregated fees.
Yet 60 percent of faculty and staff do not use alternative transportation to get to work, according to campus figures. UW–Madison employees driving alone to work significantly contribute to traffic congestion in downtown Madison, as the university is one of the largest employers in Dane County, Martin says.
Hospital sends mission to help children in India
A Children’s HeartLink medical team with seven volunteers from the UW Children’s Hospital will travel to India to help children with heart disease.
The team will visit Madras Medical Mission in Chennai (formerly Madras) to assist with heart surgeries and provide education and training for Indian medical teams, particularly in intensive care nursing and perfusion.
“It is hard to imagine the numbers of children who face a life of misery because of lack of available specialty heart care,” says team leader Dan Cohen, pediatric cardiac surgeon at UW Children’s Hospital. “We have a very capable team in Madison that is thrilled to lend support.”
The UW group will evaluate the site for a future HeartLink partnership. Funded by the Medtronic Foundation, the mission is the first to the Madras hospital for Children’s HeartLink, a program that helps children with heart disease and assists cardiac programs around the world.
For two weeks the UW volunteers will supplement the efforts of the Madras hospital surgical team and hopes to perform up to 30 surgeries. The HeartLink team will provide additional training for the Madras team.
In addition to Cohen, the UW Children’s Hospital volunteers are Tom Brazelton, Greg Hollman, Komal Kamra, Mary McSweeney, Sara Rickerson and Thomas Steffens. Another member is from a hospital in Portland, Maine.
ON CAMPUS
Conference set on academic freedom
A public conference on the rights and responsibilities of academic freedom, including the issues of free speech and intellectual property rights, will convene at the university Thursday and Friday, Feb. 22-23.
The conference is open to the public without charge and will be held in the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St. It is sponsored by the departments of history and educational policy studies.
“Threats to academic freedom continue to come from all directions,” says W. Lee Hansen, professor emeritus of economics and one of the conference organizers. “This conference gives us a chance to reassess those threats at a university noted for its dedication to sifting and winnowing the truth.”
The speakers will include faculty, staff and students from across disciplines, as well as outside presenters. Topics will also include the use of segregated fees by universities, “corporatization” of universities, freedom to publish research results, and disruption of presentations by campus speakers.
Keynoters are Robert O’Neil, professor of law at the University of Virginia and founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, and Alan Kors, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.
O’Neill teaches courses at Virginia in constitutional law of free speech and church and state, the First Amendment and the arts. He is a former president of the UW System and vice president of Indiana University. He will open the conference on Thursday, Feb. 22, at 8:20 a.m. with an address on “Academic Freedom and Intellectual Property: Contentious but Compatible.”
Kors teaches European intellectual history and is editor-in-chief of the Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. He will speak at the conference Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. on “Selective Campus Enforcement and the Betrayal of Liberty.”
For a full schedule, go to the conference web site, http://www.wisc.edu/acadfreeconf/ or call 263-1808.
Wisconsin Idea Seminar seeks nominations
Sponsors of the Wisconsin Idea Seminar, a five-day study tour of the state for new faculty and staff, seek participants for this year’s session May 21-25.
Updating the Wisconsin Idea is a campus priority, and one of the ways for faculty and staff to listen and learn from the citizens throughout the state is through the seminar.
Begun in 1984, the tour is designed to introduce and promote the Wisconsin Idea, the commitment to use university expertise and resources to solve the problems of the state. More than 500 faculty and staff have participated in this traveling seminar.
Nominations may be made by colleagues, department chairs and directors through their dean’s offices until March 16. This program is supported by a generous grant from the Evjue Foundation.
For more information contact Miriam Simmons, Graduate School Partnerships, 262-9970, msimmons@mail.bascom.wisc.edu.
Benefit seminar scheduled
The Benefits Office and the UW TSA Program plan to host a workshop, “Developing an Investment Strategy,” Thursday, Feb. 22, noon-1 p.m. at the Pyle Center.
Some of the topics covered will be:
- Understanding the different risks involved with investing.
- Why diversification and asset allocation are important.
- The relationship between volatility and return.
- The benefits of investing in managed portfolios.
Reserve a spot by e-mailing employee@ bussvc.wisc.edu.
RESEARCH
Center cites potential benefits of minimum-wage increase
A proposed federal minimum wage hike would benefit more than 100,000 Wisconsin workers, or nearly 5 percent of the state’s work force, according to new data from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Economic Policy Institute.
The congressional proposal would raise the minimum wage by $1.50 in three steps, to $6.65 in 2003. The current wage of $5.15 per hour has been eroded by inflation to just 70 percent of its 1968 peak, and 76 percent of its 1979 value, according to COWS and EPI.
If passed, the recommended wage increase would directly benefit 122,641 Wisconsin workers, or 4.9 percent of the Wisconsin work force, says Joel Rogers, professor of sociology and law and founder and director of COWS.
“This $1.50 increase would greatly improve the wages of a significant number of Wisconsin workers, particularly women and minorities,” Rogers says. “And experience shows that a modest phased increase like this shouldn’t hurt their employment prospects. This is sound public policy.”
At the state level, on Feb. 6 the Wisconsin Senate Labor and Agriculture committee approved a bill by state Sen. Dave Hansen, D-Green Bay, to increase the Wisconsin minimum wage to $6.80. That figure is based on the federal poverty level for a family of three, currently set at $14,150. The bill now goes to the full state Senate for consideration.
ISSUES
Meeting results in new ideas to curb binge drinking
The University-Community Forum on Alcohol Issues held Feb. 6 in Grainger Hall produced a spate of new ideas on how to battle student binge drinking.
The forum was sponsored by the campus RWJ Project, which aims to cut the high rate of binge drinking. Students, along with some faculty and staff members, split into discussion groups and came up with several ideas, including:
- The campus and community should work together to encourage the opening of more dance clubs downtown that let anyone 18 and older to enter.
- Open bars to those 18 and older through the use of wristbands, allowing students of different ages to mix socially without breaking any laws.
- Create a service that students can dial to get a ride home when intoxicated.
- Develop a program to allow hosts of off-campus house parties that are spinning out of control to call for help without fear of being busted.
- Schedule more nonalcoholic events without promoting the nonalcoholic angle, since that turns off many students.
- Create an all-night university movie channel to increase late-night alternatives for students.
- Improve the “cold” atmosphere of Union South’s design to increase attendance at its nonalcoholic events.
- Step up education efforts directed at freshmen about binge drinking and nonalcoholic alternatives.
Wiley outlines priorities
In remarks last week, Chancellor John Wiley outlined three top priorities: campus climate, budget issues and strategic planning.
The new chancellor asked the Faculty Senate Feb. 5 to help improve the climate at the university for minority students, and for minority and female faculty and staff. He says there is “unambiguously some issue of campus climate to deal with here.
“It bears thinking about — and I’m soliciting your ideas to make the campus a more comfortable place to work and study,” Wiley says.
On budget issues, Wiley says he hopes the next phase of the Madison Initiative will be as successful as the first. In the 1999-2001 state budget, lawmakers approved $29 million for the initiative, a broad-ranging university plan to strengthen student learning opportunities and improve Wisconsin’s economy.
UW–Madison is seeking the remaining $28 million in public funding in the 2001-03 state budget. That funding would be matched by $20 million in private giving.
Wiley says he has met with top legislative leaders and new Gov. Scott McCallum and all are “supportive of the Madison Initiative and agreed that it is a high priority,” Wiley explains.
In terms of strategic planning, the chancellor says he will form a task force comprised of faculty, staff and student leaders, along with the university’s deans.
The task force will work at turning “Targeting Tomorrow,” the university document that outlines directions for the 21st century, into a “real plan of action,” Wiley says.