The Cardinal sex columnist dishes on the different definitions of the dirty deed +PAGE TWO University of Wisconsin-Madison
The beast of bipartisanship Why researching candidates and not simply voting along party lines is important. +OPINION, page 6
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dailycardinal.com
Monday, April 8, 2013
mark kauzlarich/cardinal file photo
Mifflin, Revelry: A battle over tradition Cheyenne Langkamp/cardinal file photo
The UW System Board of Regents unanimously confirmed Dr. Rebecca Blank as UW-Madison’s next leader Friday.
Regents approve Blank as next UW chancellor The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents unanimously confirmed Rebecca Blank as the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Friday, according to a university press release. “I can’t tell you how very proud I am to be joining one of the world’s great universities,” Blank said in a video posted on YouTube. Blank will take over for Chancellor David Ward in midJuly. She will receive an annual salary of $495,000, according to her contract.
“I can’t tell you how very proud I am to be joining one of the world’s great universities.” Rebecca Blank incoming chancellor University of Wisconsin-Madison
Blank received her Bachelor of Science in economics from the University of Minnesota, as well as a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently serv-
ing as secretary of the United States Department of Commerce. The board also discussed the UW Flex Option degree and upcoming implementation of Massive Open Online Courses at Wisconsin universities. According to Chancellor of UW Colleges and UW-Extension Ray Cross, the first Flex Option degrees, which are self-paced and competency-based learning programs, will be available in late fall 2013. The Higher Learning Commission will rule on whether or not the degree program will receive accreditation, which could affect financial aid for the program, in July. UW System President Kevin Reilly said the UW System may make mistakes in implementing the program and will likely receive criticism. However, it is important for the regents to support the program’s implementation, which moves toward more innovative higher education. Regent Tracy Hribar, a nontraditional student, said she is excited to provide adult learners with a new and affordable option for education. — Paige Villiard and Cheyenne Langkamp
Madison Metro bus passenger steals another rider’s iPhone, flees scene A woman riding a Madison Metro Bus Friday had her iPhone stolen by a fellow passenger who then proceeded to run off the bus while it was stopped at a bus stop near the University Avenue and Frances Street intersection, according to a police report. Madison Police Department Lt. Cory Nelson reported a 24-year-old woman was texting someone from her iPhone at approximately 1:47 p.m. when the suspect, who the report describes as a 5-foot-1 African-
American male in his early 20s, grabbed the phone out of the victim’s hands and ran off the bus. The suspect has not yet been arrested and in the report Nelson reminded members of the public to remain aware of their surroundings, especially when they’re distracted by an electronic device. “Please be aware of any suspicious people or circumstances around you,” Nelson said in the statement. “Iphones are a very popular item to steal.”
Planners reject “anti-Mifflin” criticism amidst ongoing debate over May 4 events Story by Sam Garigliano Before The Revelry Arts and Music Festival became the threat to the future of the Mifflin Street Block Party some see it as today, it was a conversation between two friends about college concerts. Talking to a friend who had just attended the annual Dillo Day musical festival at Northwestern University, Revelry Executive Committee Chair Sarah Mathews tried, and failed, to think of a current local equivalent. “It’s kind of surprising that as a major university we don’t really have a banner end-ofthe-year event,” she said. “We wondered why Madison never
had one. And then we realized there was Mifflin.”
“The fact of the matter is there have been traditions that have died out ... Maybe this year is the start of our tradition.” Sarah Mathews executive committee chair Revelry
What started as a peaceful Vietnam War protest broken up by arrests and billy-clubbings in 1969 is now a raucous, alcohol-soaked school year sendoff that in recent years has featured high profile incidents of violence and police crack-
downs, including two stabbings in 2011 and the arrest of Badgers running back Montee Ball last year. Mifflin cost Madison nearly $200,000 to police, a sizeable expense for a single day’s work
in a year when Dane County spent $654 million in “excessive alcohol spending,” described in a March report as healthcare and crime spending associated with alcohol consumption. To Mathews, discussions between university officials and students early in the school year made it clear resources and effort would be put toward providing some sort of Mifflin alternative, regardless of its nature. “There’s really nothing wrong with this, but I heard one administrator say … ‘I love the idea of a bounce castle on Bascom,’” she said. “I thought if [the school] is going to spend money on this, that [students] need to do something.”
The Associated Students of Madison voted to formally support Revelry in December. The process to make the idea a reality further progressed
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Professor Profile: Jost Hermand, former Hitler Youth member stay in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Jost Hermand, a professor The Nazi government in the German department, required Hermand to be a offers a unique perspective member of the Hitler Youth on German history and life organization as a child. In 1942, in Nazi Germany: he lived the government forced him to through it. evacuate his home in Hermand came Berlin to a Hitler Youth to the University of camp in Poland, where Wisconsin-Madison in they held him and other 1958 after receiving his boys his age until 1945. Ph.D. in literature of While standing in the early 19th century front of a train station at a German univerto greet foreign digsity. He has taught at nitaries to Germany, UW-Madison for the HERMAND Hermand shook hands past 55 years as well as with Adolf Hitler. at a university in Berlin in the “I was blonde and had blue fall for the last nine years. eyes and looked extremely Hermand said his inter- Nordic. Therefore, I always had est in the Third Reich stems to stand in the front row and from his first-hand experience Hitler shook our hands as an under the Nazi regime. He also honor as we stood there,” he said. said his parents were antiThe Hitler Youth often fascist and his wife’s father greeted foreign dignitaries “barely survived” a 12-year with displays including trum-
By Alyssa Brenner the daily cardinal
peted music, and Hermand said he was more concerned that day about his trumpet abilities than Hitler’s presence. “I was 12 years old at the time,” he said. “I was only afraid that Hitler would say, ‘Step forward and do a solo.’ And I couldn’t!” Hermand has published over 50 books, including “A Hitler Youth in Poland: The Nazi’s Program for Evacuating Children During World War II,” which documents his experience as in the Hitler Youth. Hermand said he wants to use his experience to educate students about the dangers of fascism in order to prevent another such regime. “I wanted to destroy the myth that fascism was of a communal spirit and fraternity, a form of friendship. It was not,” he said. “It was [the] strong dominating the weak.”
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”