BiG oFFenSeS To CLASh in BiG hoUSe BCS hopes on the line as UW faces off against Michigan Saturday
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Overture Center private model moves forward By Maggie DeGroot The Daily Cardinal
In a recent change of events, the Common Council Organization Committee decided to go forward with District 19 Ald. Mark Clear’s recently proposed plan for completely private operation of the Overture Center. Clear’s alternative plan said the Overture could have ownership under the private Overture Development Corporation or 201 State Foundation, the proposed non-profit operator of the Overture Center. In a memo sent Wednesday, Clear said he will offer a substitute resolution that would have the city turn down ownership
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Weekend, November 19-21, Wednesday, January 21, 2010
Muggles at the multiplex
of the center and instead offer a $2 million annual grant. The $2 million was an estimation of the total cost to the city for an operations subsidy, which would provide financial assistance and long-term maintenance if the city had leased the building to a nonprofit organization. This plan is a complete turnaround from the previous plan of city ownership and private operation, which was a condition of the settlement announced in June. Since then, city officials have held meetings and done research in an attempt to find a solution that works best for eliminating the Overture’s overture page 3
UW-Madison soil science professor named U.S. Professor of the Year UW-Madison soil science professor Teri Balser was one of four professors given the U.S. Professor of the Year Award in Washington, D.C., Thursday. Balser, the first Wisconsin professor ever to win the award, won in the “doctoral and research universities” category. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education sponsored the award. The winners were selected based on such criteria as their scholarly approach to teaching and learning, their impact on and involvement with undergraduates and their contributions to undergraduate education in the school. Balser, who has taught at the
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university for 10 years, is the director of the Institute for CrossCollege Biology Education. Balser also received the 2009 USDA and Association of Public and Land-grant Universities Excellence in College and University Teaching Award. Balser said she is a strong promoter of active learning by alternating her teaching techniques frequently through group projects and guest lecturers. “A lot of what I do is about creating an optimal learning environment,” Balser told UW Communications. “I have learned that I can have an important impact on undergraduate learning without necessarily just standing up in front of the classroom talking at them.”
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DannY Marchewka/the daily cardinal
UW senior Anjali Misra spoke Thursday at FaReal Talk, an event organized by multiple student groups to discuss the state of diversity and how to raise awareness around campus.
Ben Pierson/the daily cardinal
Having waited a year and a half for the film’s release, Harry Potter fanatics flocked to Star Cinema in Fitchburg to see the midnight showing of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.”
SLAC speakers discuss global workers’ rights By Jackie Pecquex The Daily Cardinal
Dominican Republic factory worker Yenny Perez and Memorial Union cook Jeremy Belangie spoke about workers’ rights globally and locally at an event held by the Student Labor Action Coalition Thursday. Perez, who worked in a sweatshop in the town of Alta Gracia, Dominican Republic for 18 years, said the working environment was extremely unfair. “There was one occasion where a worker was actually beaten by one of the bosses,” Perez said. “Perhaps the worst experience was when the managers thought that we weren’t doing our work well, and they would just take all of our work and throw it to the floor.” Perez and other factory workers formed a union, but many workers lost their jobs once the factory owners found out. Perez helped to get these jobs back, but the factory closed due to a recession. With the support of the United Students Against Sweatshops and the Worker Rights Consortium, Perez reopened the factory “The Alta Gracia factory was reopened with much consideration to what it actually meant to receive enough pay to actually live a good life,” Perez said. “I personally believe that this is going to serve as a positive example to all other companies so that fair working conditions can be attained globally.” Belangie said it is imperative that students get involved locally because
there is a lack of unionization among food service workers at the new Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. “SLAC understands that a worker being denied a living wage in an apparel factory in the Dominican Republic is no different than a worker being denied to earn not only a living wage, but a career and a future as a blue-collar service worker right here on campus,” Belangie said.
SLAC is pressuring the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the Morgridge family, who provided much of the funding for the WID, to allow unionization of workers. “Privatizing food service workers on a public university campus shows the desires of a profit motive over the values of its workers and the community they serve,” Belangie said.
Ben Pierson/the daily cardinal
The Student Labor Action Coalition held an event on Thursday where workers’ rights globally and locally were discussed.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”