Voter IDs and manatees
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Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Obama’s campus stop could galvanize voters President Barack Obama’s visit to campus Thursday will bring the president off the television screen and onto Bascom Hill, where he will attempt to lock in support from the liberal capital of a swing state. The gates to Obama’s Bascom Mall stage open at noon. Gillian Morris, the press secretary for the Obama campaign in Wisconsin, said in a release that Obama will encourage voter registration and early voting during his speech. In particular, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Michael Wagner said Obama’s visit to a liberal area can “ignite his strongest base of supporters” and lock in votes by reminding constituents their vote is needed for him to win the election. Obama’s visit comes the day after the first presidential debate
against Republican candidate Mitt Romney, which leads to major television coverage for the president the next day according to Wagner. “For President Obama, a college campus like ours … guarantees a throng of excited supporters to be in the background of the video,” he said. However, the outcome of the Wisconsin vote as a whole is uncertain. Wagner said the state has been trending in Obama’s favor, but the race will likely become closer as Nov. 6 approaches. Wagner added reinforcing “strong support in states that he can’t yet put in the win column” is a top priority for Obama and his campaign. “They want to win Wisconsin, and they don’t have all that long left,” he said. —Meghan Chua
SSFC denies student lobby group funding eligibility Student Services Finance Committee denied Wisconsin Student Lobby funding eligibility in a meeting Monday, saying the group had showed a lack of fiscal responsibility in recent years. An organization must undergo eligibility hearings every two years and if the group received funding through SSFC in previous years, it must also demonstrate a history of fiscal responsibility. In the past two years, WSL, a student organization focused on advocating for student issues and resources, returned more than half of the funding SSFC granted them. The returned funds go directly into Associated
tyler galaszewski/the daily cardinal
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor David Ward delivers his State of the University speech to the Faculty Senate Monday, saying the university should seek more flexibilities.
Ward: UW must adapt to less state support
Students of Madison reserve funds and cannot be reused by another student organization. SSFC Vice Chair Joseph Vanden Avond, who voted against granting the group eligibility, said the group’s repeated request for too much money showed fiscal irresponsibility. “They had a chance to adjust this and they still asked for twice as much as they needed,” Vanden Avond said. “That money was meant for us to have in a particular cycle and now it is gone forever.” SSFC members in favor of approving WSL cited the educa-
University of WisconsinMadison Chancellor David Ward told the Faculty Senate Monday the university must prepare to take action and develop a new vision to adapt to the current climate of higher education. In his State of the University speech, Ward said the university is in a “fundamentally different” social compact now compared to the past due to decreased state support for higher education through last year’s budget lapse. To offset diminishing state support, Ward said the university
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By Cheyenne Langkamp The Daily Cardinal
Faculty address HR redesign The Human Resources redesign team presented a condensed version of the new personnel plan to the University of WisconsinMadison’s Faculty Senate Monday. Senate members were most concerned with the plan’s proposal to pay faculty and staff based on performance. University Committee Chair Mark Cook said in working out the details for the compensation plan it is important for the university to ensure the new form of compensation is equitable. According to Director of Human Resources and redesign
project leader Bob Lavigna, a study evaluating job title and compensation at the university will be conducted this summer. Following the study, faculty, staff and students will decide through shared governance the criteria that would count toward a change in an employee’s compensation based on his or her performance. Cook said despite feelings of apprehension over changes to compensation benefits, he believes the senate will approve the plan in its Nov. 5 meeting. Cheyenne langkamp
Student group denounces alleged Palermo’s violations
Abigail Waldo/the daily cardinal
Student Labor Action Coalition members hope to draw attention to the ongoing dispute between Palermo’s Pizza and its workers.
Members of the Student Labor Action Coalition delivered a letter and a pizza spelling “No Justice, No Pizza!” to Chancellor David Ward Monday to protest alleged poor working conditions at Palermo’s Pizza factories. According to SLAC member Rachel Gerry, the workers’ struggle should concern University of WisconsinMadison students because Palermo’s pizza is sold at sporting events and in Madison grocery stores including Fresh Madison Market. Workers for Palermo’s have
been on strike for four months, protesting unsafe working conditions. Employees from the Milwaukee area factory were also allegedly fired after attempting to unionize to improve their job environment. SLAC members used the protest to inform Ward of the issue and encourage him to take action against the pizza company, according to Gerry. “[The protest] was pretty much just to get [Ward’s] attention in the hopes that he will be willing to talk to us, so we can go further with this issue to cut ties with Palermo’s until
the workers’ demands are met,” Gerry said. Additionally, Palermo’s pizza sold at Fresh Madison Market is packaged with a Bucky Badger logo on the wrapper, which represents the university negatively, according to SLAC member Emily Baer. “Roundy’s, which produces Palermo’s, has the licensing permission to put Bucky Badger on their things and we want that to end if they don’t make fair labor practices,” Baer said. —Sam Cusick
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”