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+SPORTS, page 8
+PAGE TWO University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Weekend, September 21-23, 2012
New HR plan outlines UW personnel changes By Cheyenne Langkamp The Daily Cardinal
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Human Resources redesign project will be released to the campus community Friday after over a year of development, with a goal of improving university employee recruitment and retainment in response to the recent decline in state support. According to an advanced copy of the plan sent to The
Daily Cardinal by the Wisconsin University Union, the redesign aims to maintain the university’s reputation as a world-class institution by improving employee benefits to attract talented faculty and staff. The plan would allow employees to transfer saved sick days, health insurance eligibility and vacation time if they move to UW-Madison from other UW System campuses. The redesign would also
improve employee compensation, including a recommendation to reward faculty and staff by paying them based on performance. Additionally, the project details a plan to record and analyze workforce demographics to better ensure employment as well as advancement opportunities are fair and include a diverse range of employees. According to Robert Lavigna,
redesign page 3
Higgs boson researcher speaks at UW By Sam Cusick
On Campus
The Daily Cardinal
Rooftop tunes
Musical talent Mike Massey and Francie Phelps provide live music on the Pyle Center rooftop terrace Thursday from 4-7 p.m. for the Third Thursdays event + Photo by Grey Satterfield
College GOP attends Ann Romney rally at Marquette By Jack Casey The Daily Cardinal
Thirty University of Wisconsin-Madison College Republicans travelled to Marquette University and joined hundreds of enthusiastic supporters to hear Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, speak Thursday. The visit is the latest in a recent influx of campaign activity in Wisconsin and underscores the importance of the state in November’s presidential election. During her speech, Romney focused on her husband’s economic plan and how he would improve the economy for women, a crucial voting bloc in the election. “We know that he cares about women,” Romney said, according to video footage of the event. “He knows that these past four years have been the most difficult for women.” Romney said more women are unemployed and below the poverty line now than at the same time four years ago. UW-Madison College Republicans Chair Jeff Snow said these economic problems would cause women to be more attracted to Mitt Romney in November.
“Women have naturally been more liberal in the past but as you look at the economic situation, women are realizing that Obama is not helping their situation,” said Snow, who attended the event. Romney also talked about her husband’s personal side. The Romney campaign has made an effort to reach out to middle class voters after recent polls suggested some voters feel he cannot relate to their financial situation. Snow said Romney succeeded in bringing out a different side of her husband during Thursday’s speech. “Her main point was to bring out his lighter, more personal side and talk about how he empathizes with people and understands them and feels for them,” Snow said. “A lot of people may not see that when they see his successes in his career, but they don’t see his personality.” President Barack Obama currently has a 55 percent approval rating among Wisconsin women, according to recent Marquette Law School polls. Obama is doing particularly well among single women and women under thirty in the state, with 64 percent and 68 percent approval respectively.
The University of WisconsinMadison welcomed one of its own professors to campus Thursday to speak about her role in the discovery of the Higgs boson, also referred to as “the God particle.” Sau Lan Wu, a physics professor at UW-Madison since 1977, told a crown of over 100 people how researchers detected the particle and how the university played a star role in the discovery. The Higgs boson’s existence was first proposed by Peter Higgs in 1964, and the particle is said to give all other particles mass. Wu led a team of UW-Madison researchers who aided in the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator located near Geneva, Switzerland, which
helped prove the existence of the Higgs boson. According to Wu, the machine creates conditions similar to those immediately following the Big Bang, which are necessary to find the particle. The university also contributed to the discovery through its analysis of the data received from the Large Hadron Collider through the United States Open Science Grid, a national collaboration intended to collect and analyze research data from around the world. Interim Chancellor David Ward introduced Wu and congratulated her, as well as everyone involved from UW-Madison, on their success in the discovery. “We are tremendously proud of the dozens of Badgers, including numerous students, involved in the pioneering work of the [Large Hadron Collider],”
Ward said. In order to authenticate the discovery, researchers conducted two independent experiments to prove the results were accurate. UW-Madison was one of the few institutions from the U.S. to have members in both experiments, Wu said. A UW-Madison graduate student was one of two physicists who first obtained data showing the results of the experiment had only a one in 300 million chance of being caused by random fluctuation. The discovery of the Higgs boson was the culmination of almost three decades of work and thousands of physicists from 56 nations around the world, according to Wu. “It was a giant step toward understanding the fundamental laws of nature,” Wu said. “It is the discovery of the century.”
shoaib altaf/the daily cardinal
Sau Lan Wu, a physics professor at UW-Madison, discusses the science behind the discovery of the Higgs boson particle and her role in the breakthrough on campus Thursday.
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”