Q AND A
Gary Milhollin

An emeritus professor with the UW Law School, Gary Milhollin has directed the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control since 1986. The project conducts research that monitors the spread of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles.

Q: How has increasing international tension this year affected the project's work?

A: One of our main interests is Iraq. We worked on the first Gulf War, doing live interviews on scud attacks, and we actually tracked a fair amount of equipment and material into Iraq before the war. We've been following Saddam Hussein's efforts since the late eighties. We run a comprehensive Web site called iraqwatch.org, and the result is that we've had a tremendous amount of media interest in our opinions on things and in the Web site. There are days when we spend about a third to half our time just doing media interviews — like this one. So it's slowed down our work some, but it's had the effect of getting our [research] out to more people.

Open for SEVIS

As of the end of January, international students across the nation will face closer monitoring from the U.S. government. By upgrading a program called SEVIS — the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System — the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) intends to keep tabs on every international student's whereabouts. And schools like UW-Madison are responsible for making the system work.

"The U.S. government wants to know where students are studying, what they're studying, the degree they're pursuing, their major, their funding, and where it comes from," says Sheila Spear, UW-Madison's outgoing director of international student services. The UW has been collecting such information on international students for half a century, she says, as it's required before students can receive visas. In the past, the INS received and maintained the data through what Spear calls a "very inefficient" system.

After September 11 and the passage of the Patriot Act, however, scrutiny of students from overseas has increased, and the government is moving to adopt an electronic system that makes SEVIS data management more current and accurate. The agency will require that UW-Madison electronically submit complete data on every international student within ten days of the end of enrollment for each semester, and that it promptly report any change of address.

There are currently about 3,800 international students enrolled at UW-Madison. If the university fails to comply with SEVIS regulations on any of them, it could lose federal funding, and the students would face deportation. UW-Madison receives about $500 million in federal research money.

"The consequences to the university would be severe," says Spear. "For individual students, they would be awful, particularly in terms of their academic careers."

— John Allen

Economy of SCALE

If Andrew Porter MS'65, PhD'67 had to create a word to sum up past efforts to boost math and science education in America's schools, it would be, "boutique-ish." The programs — many of them good ones — have tended to be small, affecting one classroom or one school. They've lacked a certain economy of scale, he says.

That's where SCALE comes in. The letters stand for Systemwide Change for All Learners and Educators, and the program behind the acronym represents one of the larger efforts to bring innovative math and science instruction to a wide number of school children. Coordinated by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, the five-year initiative will be launched in January with a $35 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

"This is a chance for us to make a real difference for children in this country," says Porter, WCER's director.

The program will put new ideas to work in four major metropolitan school districts — Los Angeles; Denver; Providence, Rhode Island; and Madison. At least eighty UW-Madison faculty and staff will participate, along with colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh, which is a partner institution on the grant.

Project director Terrence Millar, a professor of mathematics and an associate dean in the Graduate School, says SCALE will help develop and coordinate curricula, train teachers, and try out new ways to foster excitement about math and science. One approach will be to involve university faculty in setting up long-term immersion projects that students can continue to work on over multiple years.

"Children in the United States today are not receiving the rigorous science and math education they need to become scientifically and mathematically literate adults," says Millar. He hopes that they'll give the subjects more weight once they've been exposed to SCALE.

— Michael Penn

Back in the Dean's Office

When Luoluo Hong was dating her future husband, Christopher Aamodt '88, he used to talk about how her values and personality would be an ideal fit at UW-Madison.

This fall, top UW-Madison administrators agreed, selecting Hong over three other finalists to become the university's new dean of students.

"Christopher spoke so fondly of Madison, and he saw that I'd be the type of person who would thrive here," says Hong, a Baltimore native. "Back then, who would have thought I'd be coming here as dean?"

Hong, who last served as assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, succeeds Alicia Chávez, who left the office in January. A graduate of Amherst College with advanced degrees from Yale and Louisiana State University, she served as the director of wellness education and outreach services at LSU prior to her position at Shepherd.

At UW-Madison, she hopes to connect with students by making both herself and the office accessible, visible, active, and student-friendly. She brings expertise in key issues, such as student engagement, health and social justice issues, and coalition building.

"The history of student activism at UW-Madison excites me," she says, noting her own past work to raise awareness of issues such as HIV/AIDS education and sexual assault. "The dean of students (at Amherst) probably doesn't remember me all that fondly, but I still carry a piece of that activism in my heart."

Now that she's the one in the dean's chair, she knows she faces many challenges. Chief among them is moving from a small campus of 4,800 students to one with more than 40,000, where she is charged with revitalizing student services and fostering a welcoming campus climate. "The toughness of it is not lost on me at all," she says.

Hong, who is thirty-three, is also prepared for the "fish bowl" effect of being a young, high-profile administrator in a town where the dean of students office has to make tough decisions that aren't always popular.

"I want to make the right choices that will benefit students. To be an effective educator, you can't always be wondering if people like you," she says. "In the long run, it's much more important to be respected. I think I have that kind of thick skin."

— John Lucas

Uneasy Riders

So much for legendary stories about hoofing it up Bascom Hill on the darkest, coldest days of the year. An increasing number of UW-Madison students now rely on mopeds for transportation. If you think lack of exercise is the only problem here, think again.

Currently, students can legally park scooters in any bike rack, but the number of mopeds on campus has created a squeeze. The vehicles often block grassy areas, sidewalks, and entrances to many buildings. Campus Transportation Director Lance Lunsway and members of the UW's transportation committee are working to find a solution.

One option is classifying scooters as motorcycles. "While that would mean an increase in fees," says Lunsway, "it also means that the campus might be able to negotiate additional parking for motor vehicles."

In the meantime, Lunsway and others are simply trying to get the word out to students to help them avoid unnecessary traffic citations. "If you approach a bike rack that's full, proceed to the next rack to park," he says. "Spending a few minutes before class could save you $40."

— Christine Lampe '92

Overheard

"In the oral tradition, stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed. They are true." — N. Scott Momaday, the acclaimed Native American poet, playwright, storyteller, painter, and professor, perhaps best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn. Momaday shared his own truth with UW-Madison audiences in October, visiting anthropology and literature classes and delivering the annual Chancellor's Convocation address.

One Number — 3.66

The high school grade point average of a typical member of UW-Madison's Class of 2006. Chosen from a record applicant pool of 21,271, the enrollees continue a recent trend of freshmen showing up with better and better credentials. About 56 percent of this year's newcomers — expected to be about 5,500 when numbers are finalized — graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

Catching Up

Between four thousand and five thousand people, most of them students, carried candles up State Street on the evening of September 11, marking the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States. UW-Madison commemorated the day with a series of events, beginning with a formal remembrance ceremony. Music Hall's bell tolled to mark the time of each plane crash the year before.

UW-Madison's long-term effort to curb high-risk drinking got a new name and new money. Previously called the RWJ Project, the new PACE Coalition has policy, alternatives, community, and education as the pillars of its work, as well as a new four-year, $468,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has funded the campaign since 1996.

The university ranked seventh among national public universities — and thirty-first overall — in U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings issue, published in September. The news yielded the usual cautionary reactions from administrators, who say they're pleased to see UW-Madison stacking up favorably to elite competition, but remain skeptical about how well the rankings assess something as complex as the quality of a university.

Most — but not all — of the ROTC building was demolished in September to make room for a new addition to the growing Biotechnology Center, which sits next door on University Avenue. Contractors saved several porticoes, lintels, and columns from the building, which was constructed in 1926 as a home for the nursing program.

We've Got Mail

The wonderful nature of e-mail, says art history professor Nick Cahill, is that even while he did research in remote eastern Turkey, anyone could contact him. The frustrating nature of e-mail is that anyone can contact him, even when he's in remote eastern Turkey.

For Cahill, like many at UW-Madison, electronic mail is like a vital organ. He needs it to live, but keeping it in good shape is a constant struggle. He averages about sixty messages a day — many from students and colleagues, but a growing number from people he's never heard of. At least one-third of Cahill's in-box is filled by advertising, virus-laden chain letters, and the various unsolicited plugs and ploys known collectively as spam.

Cahill didn't worry about his spam intake too much until he went to Turkey, where Internet time is like water in a desert. There, he discovered that "spending time downloading someone else's junk isn't really a lot of fun," he says. "It got to be a real pain."

Faculty, staff, and students alike are feeling Cahill's pain. Unrelated, unexpected, unwanted spam is putting a squeeze on the university's electronic mailbox, at times accounting for as much as 40 percent of mail traffic. "It has become a serious problem for the university community," says Roger Hanson '72, MA'75 of the UW's Division of Information Technology (DoIT). "It is compromising our network infrastructure and security, and is a hassle for a large share of the campus community."

Less than a decade after the UW created e-mail accounts for all students, the technology has become a crucial part of its operation. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that three-quarters of college students have e-mailed professors with questions about class assignments, and nearly half say that e-mail allows them to express ideas they wouldn't share in class.

But spam clogs those arteries, and beginning this fall, DoIT will offer a technological angioplasty. The unit is rolling out three different flavors of spam reduction software, which will allow students and staff to filter out a few, or a lot, of messages that look suspiciously like spam.

— Michael Penn

Flashback
Sequined Dreams

This year marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the creation of the Wisconsin Singers, the UW's Broadway-style song-and-dance revue. "When the group was formed in the sixties," says director and producer Robin Whitty '74, MMusic'90, "it was meant to show the best of the UW, to contrast the image of liberal war protesters. But we've evolved with pop music itself, and now we reflect a more contemporary style."

Style isn't all that's changed. When the group began, it had only five microphones, each at the end of a long cord, complicating choreography. Now the group uses headset mikes, and they have enough for everyone.

Though the singers have only twenty-five performers — sixteen singer/dancers and nine in the band — Whitty says that as many as two hundred students try out every year. The group's ranks have included such performers as actor Tom Wopat x'74, opera singer Kitt Reuter-Foss '79, and top-selling choral arranger Mac Huff '77. And the singers still pack 'em in, entertaining as many as fifty thousand people each year.

— John Allen

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