Tuesday, January 27, 2015 - The Daily Cardinal

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University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

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Professor and PETA respond to lab closure By Phoebe Kiekhofer THE DAILY CARDINAL

GREY SATTERFIELD/CARDINAL FILE PHOTO

MPD Chief Mike Koval announces the creation of liaison Mental Health Officer positions for each police district.

Madison Police Chief Koval introduces mental health plan By Irene Burski THE DAILY CARDINAL

Stressing the need for immediate action in the city, Madison Police Department Chief Mike Koval announced at a press conference Monday his initiative to combat mental health illness. “I can’t wait anymore,” Koval said. “I’m tired of the rhetoric. I’m tired of the political posturing.” The initiative, which creates five liaison Mental Health Officer positions, will assign one officer each to each Madison police district, according to Capt. Kristen Roman.

“We want to do more ... because, frankly I haven’t seen a lot of assistance coming to me from the state or the country or through other means.” Mike Koval police chief MPD

Roman described the five officers as a team that is knowledgeable about available mental health services and support systems in the community. Their role will be to support people from their district with mental illness, or with mental illness in their families. “Each of them brings with them an array of experiences from previous careers and their time in patrol,” Roman said. “This is something that they are

F.Stokes

drawn to.” Koval said he envisions MPD extending upon this type of engagement. “We want to do more … because, quite frankly I haven’t seen a lot of assistance coming to me from the state or the county or through other means,” Koval said. While the Mental Health Officer positions will focus much more concretely on mental illness issues, Koval noted that all police officers were qualified for crisis intervention. “Each and every Madison police officer, detective and command staff has gone through profound and extensive crisis intervention training,” Koval said. “Rest assured, you’re going to have a very capable and caring individual working your case.” According to Koval, the five chosen Mental Health Officers were hand-picked from competing applicants. “They’ve got skin in the game,” Koval said. “This matters a great deal to them as well.” Estimating conservatively that police work more than 2,500 crime incidents pertaining to mental health annually, Koval emphasized the necessity of new Mental Health Officer’s positions. “As a sign of the times, we’re finding more and more people who are either undiagnosed, undertreated, or not getting any treatment at all and it’s creating all kinds of implications for family and for community,” Koval said.

Hip-hop artists bring ‘positivity’

UW-Madison announced the closure of its controversial cat laboratory Friday, citing the retirement of neuroscience professor Tom Yin, 70, as the reason. Yin ran experiments studying cats’ hearing abilities for more than a decade, which included deafening the cats and installing cochlear implants in their ears to test their abilities to localize sound. This drew criticism from animal rights activists. Yin and his faculty hired a professional from the Bionics Institute in Australia to teach them how to surgically install cochlear implants in the cats’ ears. “We essentially got the foremost authority in the world on cat cochlear implants to help us,” Yin said. He added that the lab photographed the process to learn the correct way to do it. The experiments drew allega-

tions of mistreatment of cats, leading to several protests and outcries from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Animal rights activists at PETA now believe their protests against Yin’s work played a substantial role in the closure of the lab, PETA’s director of lab investigations, Justin Goodman, said.

“If anything, I wanted to keep the lab open just so PETA wouldn’t say that.” Tom Yin retired professor UW-Madison

In 2013, PETA protested against Yin’s experiments, including running advertisements on Madison Metro buses depicting photos of the cats during the cochlear implant surgeries. Goodman said he believes the lab closed for several reasons,

including Yin’s retirement, but that public pressure from PETA’s protests contributed to the lab’s closure. Yin said he decided to retire more than a year ago when his National Institutes for Health research grant was up for renewal. He refuted claims that PETA’s actions played a role in the closure of the lab, calling them “absolutely false.” “If anything, I wanted to keep the lab open just so PETA wouldn’t say that,” Yin said. He added PETA has no evidence that they closed his lab. Yin recognizes PETA’s standpoint as a “viable stance,” but says his work’s impact on a small number of animals is worth advancing general understanding and stimulating medical innovation. “We think this information about how the brain works is important to possible future improvements in the human condition,” Yin said.

Legislative Affairs Committee discusses rumors surrounding biennial budget By Laura Grulke THE DAILY CARDINAL

The Legislative Affairs Committee began the semester Monday discussing the upcoming budget and its suggested effects to the UW System’s funding along with rumors of UW-Madison becoming a public entity. Although concerns about system changes branch purely from speculation until Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal is revealed Feb. 3, the Committee expressed fears of a system-wide base budget reduction of $150 million. The Committee voiced particular concern with the possible flexibilities the UW system would be granted if it became a public entity, especially shared governance flexibility. This would limit the amount of shared

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EMILY BUCK/THE DAILY CARDINAL

Legislative Affairs Committee Chair Tom Gierok speaks about the upcoming budget and its speculated effects for UW.

Mayoral hopeful Resnick talks new plans for Madison Democratic mayoral candidate, Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, announced part of his “bold” list of ideas for Madison on his website Monday. According to Resnick, his priorities include making the city a leader in digital innovation and ending homelessness. The young candidate stressed his involvement in Madison’s Digital Technology Committee,

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which recently finalized plans for a city-wide accessible LTE/4G network for all Madison residents. “If our city is committed to promoting equity and economic opportunity, we must … close the digital divide that leaves too many Madisonians without affordable or reliable access to the internet,” Resnick said in his plan. Another focus includes halting chronic homelessness in

Second semester slumpin’?

Madison by the end of 2016, and in the meantime, improving the sheltering system through partnership with the Homeless Services Consortium and Continuum of Care agencies. “Matching resources and supporting projects designed to provide permanent housing to the chronically homeless is in the best interest of all Madisonians,” Resnick said in the release.

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“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”


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