Dispatches
Phoning Home
When students drink dangerously, parents now get a call.
The university has enlisted a new ally in its long-running struggle against student binge drinking: parents.
Beginning this fall, staff members from University Housing and the Offices of the Dean of Students started contacting parents and guardians of underage students involved in serious drug and alcohol incidents. The change applies only to serious incidents, such as when a student is taken to a detoxification facility or local hospital for an overdose of alcohol or other drugs, or violations that result in campus judicial sanctions. In such cases, staff members meet with the student and explain that parents will be informed. Most often, students are encouraged to make the initial contact.
Some students regard the policy as an invasion of privacy that could discourage dangerously intoxicated students from seeking help. “If a parental notification phone call or letter accomplishes anything at all,” the Daily Cardinal wrote in a staff editorial, “it is to put the most vulnerable students at greater risk.”
The university has enlisted a new ally in its long-running struggle against student binge drinking: parents.
Beginning this fall, staff members from University Housing and the Offices of the Dean of Students started contacting parents and guardians of underage students involved in serious drug and alcohol incidents. The change applies only to serious incidents, such as when a student is taken to a detoxification facility or local hospital for an overdose of alcohol or other drugs, or violations that result in campus judicial sanctions. In such cases, staff members meet with the student and explain that parents will be informed. Most often, students are encouraged to make the initial contact.
Some students regard the policy as an invasion of privacy that could discourage dangerously intoxicated students from seeking help. “If a parental notification phone call or letter accomplishes anything at all,” the Daily Cardinal wrote in a staff editorial, “it is to put the most vulnerable students at greater risk.”
But university officials say that they studied notification policies at other schools before enacting the change, and they are confident the policy protects students and their privacy. Ironically, the new policy comes in the same semester that the university was picked by the Princeton Review as the nation’s top party school, underscoring an image problem that administrators have been working to counter.
“We respect the independence of our students and aim to treat them as adults during their stay here on campus,” says Chancellor John D. Wiley MS’65, PhD’68. “However, university staff members sometimes deal with alcohol and drug overdoses that are, literally, matters of life and death.”
By early October, twenty-two parents had been notified, says Lori Berquam, interim dean of students, and feedback following those interactions has been mostly positive. In several cases, she says, excessive drinking was a manifestation of other troubles, and by involving parents, Berquam’s office was able to put the student in touch with additional help.
— John Lucas
“We respect the independence of our students and aim to treat them as adults during their stay here on campus,” says Chancellor John D. Wiley MS’65, PhD’68. “However, university staff members sometimes deal with alcohol and drug overdoses that are, literally, matters of life and death.”
By early October, twenty-two parents had been notified, says Lori Berquam, interim dean of students, and feedback following those interactions has been mostly positive. In several cases, she says, excessive drinking was a manifestation of other troubles, and by involving parents, Berquam’s office was able to put the student in touch with additional help.
— John Lucas
Halloween Is Again Fright Night
For the fourth consecutive year, Madison’s Halloween party ended in chaos as police used pepper spray to disperse revelers who had massed on State Street. The celebration attracted record crowds, and though it avoided any major violence or property damage, Madison police are hesitant to call the weekend an unqualified success.
At its peak on the night of Saturday, October 29, the unofficial Halloween bash drew seventy thousand to eighty thousand people, according to Madison Police public information officer Mike Hanson. Record attendance contributed to a record 468 arrests, most alcohol related.
There were two more serious incidents away from State Street. Adam Haese ’05, a Chicago man who apparently came to Madison for the holiday weekend, died early Sunday morning. The cause is under investigation, and police are reluctant to say whether it is directly related to Halloween celebrations. Another visitor, nineteen-year-old Nicholas Giancana of St. Charles, Illinois, suffered a serious head injury after falling in a campus-area neighborhood Sunday morning. He remains in critical condition as of press time.
At its peak on the night of Saturday, October 29, the unofficial Halloween bash drew seventy thousand to eighty thousand people, according to Madison Police public information officer Mike Hanson. Record attendance contributed to a record 468 arrests, most alcohol related.
There were two more serious incidents away from State Street. Adam Haese ’05, a Chicago man who apparently came to Madison for the holiday weekend, died early Sunday morning. The cause is under investigation, and police are reluctant to say whether it is directly related to Halloween celebrations. Another visitor, nineteen-year-old Nicholas Giancana of St. Charles, Illinois, suffered a serious head injury after falling in a campus-area neighborhood Sunday morning. He remains in critical condition as of press time.
Police added stadium lighting and snow fences on State Street in hopes of preventing riots, which have taken place the past three years. At two o’clock Sunday morning, a broadcast message instructed partiers to leave the area, but police needed pepper spray to disperse the remaining group of two thousand partiers.
— John Allen
— John Allen
Dollars and Sense
A student group offers newcomers a lesson on passing the buck.
One of the biggest stresses on college students isn’t grades, deciding on a major, or getting into fights with roommates.
It’s money.
Especially now, when students carry their own credit cards and sign apartment leases as early as their freshman year, living away from home can require a level of financial savvy that many students just don’t have. And that’s why members of the Financial Occupations Club for University Students (FOCU$) use free pizza and prizes to lure incoming freshmen to attend two-hour educational sessions on budgeting, renting, and credit cards.
“I think money is more of a taboo in our society than sex is,” says Brandon Peterson ’04, MSx’06, one of the first undergraduate students to lead the Money Talk$ workshops. “More than 50 percent of the students have never even talked to their family about how college is going to be paid for.”
At the workshops, students pass on warnings, such as the fact that making minimum credit card payments usually does nothing to reduce the balance. The sessions also cover how to rent an apartment and choose a roommate, which are critical skills for students living away from home for the first time.
One of the biggest stresses on college students isn’t grades, deciding on a major, or getting into fights with roommates.
It’s money.
Especially now, when students carry their own credit cards and sign apartment leases as early as their freshman year, living away from home can require a level of financial savvy that many students just don’t have. And that’s why members of the Financial Occupations Club for University Students (FOCU$) use free pizza and prizes to lure incoming freshmen to attend two-hour educational sessions on budgeting, renting, and credit cards.
“I think money is more of a taboo in our society than sex is,” says Brandon Peterson ’04, MSx’06, one of the first undergraduate students to lead the Money Talk$ workshops. “More than 50 percent of the students have never even talked to their family about how college is going to be paid for.”
At the workshops, students pass on warnings, such as the fact that making minimum credit card payments usually does nothing to reduce the balance. The sessions also cover how to rent an apartment and choose a roommate, which are critical skills for students living away from home for the first time.
Since the workshops began in 2001, more than four hundred students have attended. Those numbers will increase as the program expands — with financial support from the Direct Selling Education Foundation — to other UW campuses, as well as Madison Area Technical College and St. Xavier University in Chicago. FOCU$ members also staff a counseling center at the Office of Student Financial Services, where they provide one-on-one consultation to fifteen to twenty students each semester.
Michael Gutter, an assistant professor of consumer science, came up with the idea for Money Talk$ after conducting a small survey of students on the UW campus.
“Sixteen percent of just a couple hundred kids that I happened to get to were actually having signs of what we call ‘financial strain,’” he says. “They were emotionally affected by their debt; they were physically affected.”
Money, and particularly credit, is a mystery to many students because most Wisconsin high schools don’t offer any kind of personal-finance instruction, says Gutter. He and the School of Human Ecology are working with the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation to develop a pilot personal finance course to be offered in schools this spring. But parents also need to provide a good example, he says. It’s one thing to tell students to use credit cards responsibly, he says, but “if you’ve seen your own parents go on shopping sprees, what does responsible mean?”
— Jenny Price ’96
Michael Gutter, an assistant professor of consumer science, came up with the idea for Money Talk$ after conducting a small survey of students on the UW campus.
“Sixteen percent of just a couple hundred kids that I happened to get to were actually having signs of what we call ‘financial strain,’” he says. “They were emotionally affected by their debt; they were physically affected.”
Money, and particularly credit, is a mystery to many students because most Wisconsin high schools don’t offer any kind of personal-finance instruction, says Gutter. He and the School of Human Ecology are working with the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation to develop a pilot personal finance course to be offered in schools this spring. But parents also need to provide a good example, he says. It’s one thing to tell students to use credit cards responsibly, he says, but “if you’ve seen your own parents go on shopping sprees, what does responsible mean?”
— Jenny Price ’96
Q AND A - Steven Fosdal
Information technology specialist by day, Argentine tango dancer by night. Such is the life of Steven Fosdal ’93, a computer programmer at the Division of Information Technology and founder of the Madison Tango Society, which performs monthly at Union South.
Q: How did you get started in the tango scene?
A: I first heard some Argentine music near Milwaukee. Eight years ago, I signed up for a class taught by a student, where I learned the dance behind the music. I started to
get my biggest impulses to dance after participating in workshops at the Tango Nada Mas Studios in Chicago.
Q: It takes two to tango. Who is your partner?
A: Krista Bultman, a physical therapist at Meriter Hospital. We didn’t meet through tango. We have been friends for more than ten years and were friends as undergrads. Together we started the Madison Tango Society in 1998.
Q: How often do you practice?
A: On average, two hours a day, three to four times a week. But sometimes five hours a day, five times a week.
Q: Do your colleagues know you tango?
A: Yes, they do. Two of them have even come to some of my tango events.
Q: Do you tango around the office?
A: No. I don’t use any sort of tango at my day job. There really isn’t room.
Q: How did you get started in the tango scene?
A: I first heard some Argentine music near Milwaukee. Eight years ago, I signed up for a class taught by a student, where I learned the dance behind the music. I started to
get my biggest impulses to dance after participating in workshops at the Tango Nada Mas Studios in Chicago.
Q: It takes two to tango. Who is your partner?
A: Krista Bultman, a physical therapist at Meriter Hospital. We didn’t meet through tango. We have been friends for more than ten years and were friends as undergrads. Together we started the Madison Tango Society in 1998.
Q: How often do you practice?
A: On average, two hours a day, three to four times a week. But sometimes five hours a day, five times a week.
Q: Do your colleagues know you tango?
A: Yes, they do. Two of them have even come to some of my tango events.
Q: Do you tango around the office?
A: No. I don’t use any sort of tango at my day job. There really isn’t room.
Silence Broken
A Pakistani rape victim brings her story to UW-Madison.
At seven o’clock on the last Friday in October, Mukhtar Mai sat at a table in the Red Gym and smiled shyly at the standing-room-only crowd. It was an unusual setting for her first visit to an American university, coming so late in the day and at the outset of a festive weekend on campus. But far more improbable was the fact that the thirty-three-year-old Pakistani woman was there at all.
Three years ago, Mukhtar was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council that governs her village in Pakistan. The sentence, part of a justice system still alive in parts of the country, was intended to smear her family’s honor as punishment for an alleged adulterous affair involving her younger brother. But when Mukhtar reported the crime against her, the case became international news and made her a symbol for human-rights activists around the world.
“She is a hero,” says Amna Buttar, a UW-Madison physician who organized Mukhtar’s visit. “When these things happen to [women in Pakistan], they are supposed to be quiet. But she has spoken about it and continues to speak about it. She has changed the history of feminism in Pakistan.”
At seven o’clock on the last Friday in October, Mukhtar Mai sat at a table in the Red Gym and smiled shyly at the standing-room-only crowd. It was an unusual setting for her first visit to an American university, coming so late in the day and at the outset of a festive weekend on campus. But far more improbable was the fact that the thirty-three-year-old Pakistani woman was there at all.
Three years ago, Mukhtar was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council that governs her village in Pakistan. The sentence, part of a justice system still alive in parts of the country, was intended to smear her family’s honor as punishment for an alleged adulterous affair involving her younger brother. But when Mukhtar reported the crime against her, the case became international news and made her a symbol for human-rights activists around the world.
“She is a hero,” says Amna Buttar, a UW-Madison physician who organized Mukhtar’s visit. “When these things happen to [women in Pakistan], they are supposed to be quiet. But she has spoken about it and continues to speak about it. She has changed the history of feminism in Pakistan.”
Buttar, a native of Pakistan, founded the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights (ANAA) in 2002 to draw attention to the oppression of women in her homeland. She originally planned for Mukhtar to speak at an ANAA symposium in June, but Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, fearing Mukhtar’s story would “tarnish” his country’s image, barred her from leaving her home. Under fire from human-rights groups, he later lifted the restriction, clearing the way for Mukhtar’s three-week United States trip, during which she visited four cities and was honored as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year.
At UW-Madison, Mukhtar spoke little about what happened to her, focusing instead on her hope that oppression can be ended through education. Speaking softly in Urdu, with Buttar providing English translation, she described how she used money paid to her by her government to open two schools in her village.
“This is not how Islam says to treat your women,” she told an audience of more than two hundred. “I am not alone in trying to convey this.”
At UW-Madison, Mukhtar spoke little about what happened to her, focusing instead on her hope that oppression can be ended through education. Speaking softly in Urdu, with Buttar providing English translation, she described how she used money paid to her by her government to open two schools in her village.
“This is not how Islam says to treat your women,” she told an audience of more than two hundred. “I am not alone in trying to convey this.”
In Pakistan, thirteen men charged with raping Mukhtar remain on trial, and other women who report abuse continue to face intimidation and scorn, Buttar says. In a September interview with the Washington Post, President Musharraf suggested that women may allege rape as a way to seek money or visas from foreign countries, comments he has since denied.
But at least in one village, women now know where to turn, says Mukhtar. “When men treat women badly in my village, the women say, ‘I’m going to go tell Mukhtar.’ ”
— Michael Penn
Read this article as a PDF document.
But at least in one village, women now know where to turn, says Mukhtar. “When men treat women badly in my village, the women say, ‘I’m going to go tell Mukhtar.’ ”
— Michael Penn
Read this article as a PDF document.
