DESPITE LOSS, ALVAREZ FACE OF UW Nick Korger talks about how the Wisconsin Athletic Director remains the identity of the football program, so many years later SPORTS C3
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Union limits law affirmed
Volume XLIV, Issue 64
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Appellate court upholds controversial 2011 legislation curtailing collective bargaining Polo Rocha Senior Legislative Editor A federal appeals court upheld every provision of the contentious collective bargaining law that brought tens of thousands of protesters to the Capitol in 2011 in a decision released Friday. In a 2-1 decision, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said all parts of the law were constitutional. The decision went against last year’s federal district court decision that struck down two parts of the law, but had upheld the limits on collective bargaining. The court found all three challenged parts constitutional, agreeing with the earlier court that collective bargaining limits were valid. It disagreed with the earlier court, however, by upholding annual recertification elections where public employee unions have to win the majority of votes of all members, not just those who vote in the elections. The appeals court also upheld a restriction for most unions to get their employees’ dues collected from government employees. The reforms, the ruling said, were adequate because unions have proved to be “too costly”
for state budgets. It also said the distinction between some unions, like some public safety unions that were exempted from some of the changes, was valid. The impact the new ruling will have is not yet clear. In the state courts, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Juan Colas ruled in September that the law was unconstitutional in a different case. Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen hinted toward some uncertainty, although he said he hopes this decision will guide future rulings. “While there are no guarantees, it is my hope that this decision will pave the way for resolving any remaining challenges in a manner that supports the legislative decisions made by our elected officials,” Van Hollen said in a statement. The Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s major teachers’ union and a plaintiff in the case, is still evaluating the impacts of the new ruling as well as whether they will appeal this ruling, spokesperson Christina Brey said. WEAC President Mary Bell said in a statement After freezing over earlier this month, ice fishers flocked to Madison’s lakes to enjoy a Wisconsin pastime
UNION LAW, page A3
Jen Small The Badger Herald
MENTAL HEALTH AND GUN CONTROL University responds to recent shootings with new staff, looks to expand resources Colin Kellogg ArtsEtc. Content Editor In line with a series of new gun control laws introduced on the national scale and a
number of mass shootings leaving the country on edge, the University of Wisconsin will bring on two new staff members specifically to aid in threat assessment efforts on campus, but the threat assessment team remains understaffed. Kevin Helmkamp, associate dean of students and co-chair of UW’s Threat Assessment and Response Team, said a potential threat
is reported to his team almost weekly. The team is responsible for processing any potential threats against the university or campus community and responding to them before they reach fruition. With this volume of concerns being brought before the team, Helmkamp said the Dean of Students Office is in the process of hiring two new employees
whose sole role in many respects will be to reach out to students in crisis and students of concern. The new hires, Helmkamp said, will ensure ongoing contact between the at-risk students and the university. The staff additions will also make it easier for the team to see the students are doing what they need to, per the decision of the threat assessment committee.
Despite the addition of these positions, Helmkamp said TART is still understaffed. “I think we have fewer assistant deans to deal with students in crisis and students of concern than we have basketball assistant coaches,” he said. When evaluating a threat, Helmkamp said there are a variety of criteria, including whether the person in
question has a specific plan and if that plan is doable. Additionally, when a violent or threatening Facebook rant is reported, the first step would be to ask the student what they actually meant. “If we intervene and the behavior doesn’t stop or gets worse, well then we know we have a threat situation that’s very real, and we need to have
MENTAL HEALTH, page A6
Group begins final search for chancellor Committee gets 70 applications, begins interview, selection process Lauren Tubbs Megan McCormick The Badger Herald file photo
Wisconsin’s new Legislature will tackle a number of issues likely to be controversial in spite of new promises of bipartisanship. Partisan divisions have plagued the Assembly and the Senate.
Legislature readies to take on income tax cuts, jobs, mining Polo Rocha Alice Coyne Senior Legislative Editor & State Politics Editor Wisconsin’s new Legislature was sworn in the first week of January, and the group has begun to focus on a number of issues early. With Gov. Scott Walker’s
campaign promise of 250,000 private sector jobs created by 2014 not yet complete and the skills gap issue getting more attention, Walker said in his State of the State speech the Legislature’s main priorities should be jobs and education. This semester, the Legislature will largely focus on the 2013-2015 biennial
budget, which, with a $342 million surplus, starts better than the $3.6 billion deficit the last Legislature began with. Walker will release his proposed budget next month, and the Legislature will then work on it and eventually pass it as a regular bill.
LEGISLATURE, page A11
Reporter The process of hiring a new chancellor for the University of Wisconsin will continue into the upcoming semester as the Chancellor Search and Screen Committee moves forward in narrowing the list of candidates. According to committee Chair David McDonald, because the soft Dec. 21 application deadline for the position has passed, the committee is now looking to narrow the number of candidates to a short list to present to the UW System Board of Regents. However, the committee received about
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70 applications, with a few more applications submitted over the holidays. Because the search process began with public forums to involve campus and community members, McDonald said the committee was then able to set its own expectations for the new chancellor based on this information. “From all the discussion, we reached a rough consensus on what we all agreed the campus and community want in a candidate applying to be the next chancellor,” McDonald said. Despite some contention surrounding input from state business leaders in the search process, David McDonald said the business community has been a “strong supporter” of the university and recognizes the key role it plays in the city. McDonald said he
hopes the committee can reach a “long shortlist” of people to interview for the position in the next couple of weeks. Through this process, McDonald said the committee will try to have a list of about five finalists to present to the Board of Regents sometime after the beginning of February. UW System Spokesperson David Giroux said the names of the finalists will be announced to the public once the UW System president and the Board of Regents agree on the candidates chosen by the committee. Giroux said the board and its own committee, the Regent Selection Committee, which is designated to help with the process, will then gather additional insight on each of
CHANCELLOR, page A5