2011.12.08

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THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCO WISCONSIN’S ONSIN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1969 ARTS

Volume XLIII, Issue 65

Thursday, December 8, 2011

www.badgerherald.com

NEWS

| FEATURE

Banzo bonanza New Library Mall food cart offers a fresh, local take on Mediterraneann cuisine with spectacular results. | 9

SPORTS

| RELIGION

| MEN'S BASKETBALL

Badgers back on track

Two religious student orgs went head-tohead in a debate on faith-based issues Wednesday. | 4

After two tough losses, Wisconsin returned to its winnng ways Wednesday in a 70-42 victory over in-state rival Green Bay. | 12

State considers altering Regent body Walker signs bill requiring rep. from each congressional district on board Leah Linscheid Deputy State Editor The composition of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents could be significantly altered after Gov. Scott Walker signed

a law Tuesday requesting the state appoint at least one member from every congressional district to the governing body. According to UW spokesperson David Giroux, the bill, introduced by Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and Rep. Erik Severson, R-Star Prairie, was designed to require the Board of Regents to represent all eight congressional districts in Wisconsin. The Board of Regents is

composed of 18 members, 14 of which are appointed by the governor. According to Giroux, only these 14 members will be affected by the new legislation. “[The law] is a way to ensure that the board will consistently have some sort of geographic diversity,” Giroux said. “If you look at our current board, we have members from all but the sixth congressional district, but historically we’ve had large number of regents

UW evaluates Union impact

from Milwaukee and Madison, the state’s two population centers.” Bill Oemichen, CEO of Cooperative Network, an organization that supports cooperative businesses located across the state, said the new law would address concerns that rural Wisconsin areas have had less representation on the Board of Regents in recent years. “Roughly 40 percent of the state’s population comes from the Milwaukee and Madison

areas, but regents from these areas make up about 70 percent of the board,” Oemichen said. “We believe that with greater geographical diversity, there will be a broader representation on the Board of Regents and that will result in decisions that will reflect all the areas of the state.” Political science professor Donald Downs expressed concerns that the law would negatively affect UW. He said it is important

A BADGER HERALD

INDEPTH | PART 1 OF 2

for the board to consider geographical diversity, because taxpayers across the state help finance the UW System. However, he said this hurts the position UW has on the board. “Geographic diversity on the board is a valid concern, but it should not trump concerns about the board’s dedication to higher education in the system. As a member of [UW], I don’t want to see it compromise any

REGENT, page 2

Renovation plans could provide minimal environmental harm if executed properly Danielle Miller Campus Reporter Upon recommendation by the University of Wisconsin administration, an environmental study group hosted a public meeting Wednesday night to explore the possible green impacts the renovations planned for the Memorial Union could have on the surrounding area. Led by Ben Peotter from Cornerstone Environmental Group, the meeting looked into the elements and environmental impact involved in the revised Memorial Union Renovations, Shoreline Rehabilitation and Alumni Park Project. Peotter said comments received from the public during the scoping period were taken into account

to draft the redesign and create the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment. Phase one of the proposed renovation project, August 2012 to July 2014, concentrates on the Memorial Union Theater area. Renovations include an entirely rebuilt Hoofers area, mechanical modifications, theater loading door relocation, a play circle addition and the theater lounge addition, according to Del Wilson, partner at Uihlein-Wilson Architects and the project architect. The lounge design, which students negatively responded to in this year ’s student government referendum, has been redesigned to cut back the space by 22 feet because of concerns

UNION , page 2

Megan McCormick The Badger Herald

UHS Violence Prevention staff members Shira Phelps and Carmen Hotvedt said the attitude toward sexual assault victims and crimes on campus needs to change to decrease their prevalence.

Campus climate fosters assault Alcohol culture puts UW at risk for increased sex crimes; reported incidents rise Pamela Selman News Content Editor Well before taking their first steps onto a college campus, the majority of women have at some point heard the statistic that one in every four females will be the victim of rape or attempted rape during their college years. Members of the University of Wisconsin community working to combat sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking on campus say the issue is as prevalent as ever at UW and remains an equally dominant concern at other Big 10 universities.

Many of the cases brought to PAVE, O’Reilly said, involve students drinking at a party and being coerced into a situation they are not comfortable with, despite the fact that the circumstances may look different from the outside. As a result of the key role alcohol plays in sexual assault incidents on college campuses,

Empowerment spokesperson Jacqueline O’Reilly said, is that alcohol is the number one drug behind rape. “Often times, students disclose to us and it’s a very similar story often involving alcohol,” O’Reilly said. “If you listen to the language students are using, alcohol is seen as the gateway to consent, but if anything, it inhibits the ability to consent.”

ASSAULT, page 2

Sexual assaults on UW System campuses In 2009, the University of Wisconsin system released its most recent statistics on sexual assault on system campuses. This graphic compares the number of campus-area assaults (blue bars) to the percentage of total assaults in the campus’ county (black line).

45

Campus area assaults Percentage of total assaults in county

30

ALCOHOL AS A DRUG 15

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Tom Zionkowski The Badger Herald

Members of the UW community listen in on a presentation demonstrating the environmental impact the Memorial Union plans could have. Parties were concerned with preserving a 150-year-old oak tree.

From a young age, women are taught to “watch their drinks” and not seriously socialize with individuals they do know well. But, what many women on college campuses fail to realize, Promoting Awareness, Victim

System restructuring team looks to other states for guidance Sean Kirkby State Reporter A task force focused on the University of Wisconsin System convened for the first time Wednesday to consider changes that could be made to the system in order to increase its flexibility. On Wednesday, Aims McGuinness, senior associate of the National Center on Higher Education Management

Systems, presented the task force with lessons he had learned from studying other states’ higher education systems. His lessons included keeping agreements between state and higher education systems simple, decentralizing the higher education system and giving it more flexibility from the state government, and making clear what problems the task force wants to solve.

“If you can really be clear about what problems you’re solving in Wisconsin, you will be way way ahead [of other states],” McGuinness said. “That is fundamental. Working hard and trying to change things with the wrong problems would be the worst disaster.” Last session, when the Joint Finance Committee studied proposals from the governor for the UW System, including

a proposal to break UW from the rest of the system, JFC decided to form a special task force to review those proposals, Rep. Pat Strachota, R-West Bend, said. Members of the task force include UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells, UW-Platteville Chancellor Daniel Shields, Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, and UW Vice Chancellor for

© 2011 BADGER HERALD

Administration Darrell Bazzell. David Olien, Senior Vice President Emeritus of the University of Wisconsin System and task force member, said the biggest problem facing the UW System is a lack of funds. “As I look at long term projections for this state with the demands of Medicaid and other programs, I find it very hard to find how any governor, any legislature,

is going to allocate more money to the UW System than it did this year … unless there’s an economic turnaround that nobody suspects,” Olien said. While agreeing one of the major problems facing public universities throughout the nation was tuition, McGuinness said the real issue is figuring out where the money goes to and demonstrating how

SYSTEM, page 5


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