Badger Herald Photo

NEWS
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2007
Professor suffers
Russian mugging
THE BADGER HERALD, PAGE 3
DO A LITTLE DANCE
Slavic languages department chair becomes
victim of drugging, spends 8 days in hospital
(AP) — A University of
Wisconsin professor has returned
to the United States and is
recovering from being drugged,
robbed
and
dumped in a
remote Russian
park.
David
Bethea,
59,
chairman of
the university’s
Slavic
languages
department,
said he has
Bethea
visited Russia
more than two
dozen times but made mistakes
he hopes other tourists can learn
from.
A cab driver who offered him
a cup of coffee apparently laced
it with a date-rape-like drug, he
said. A stranger found him in
a remote park in St. Petersburg
about 12 hours later.
Bethea’s liver had dangerously
high levels of toxicity. He spent
eight days in a St. Petersburg
hospital before being flown to UW
Hospital on Nov. 1. He spent a
night there and then two weeks in
bed at home. He still tires easily,
he said.
Bethea thinks he was a random
target of a robbery ring. He
vaguely remembers several
people taking his leather jacket,
watch, wedding ring, cell phone
and wallet. They later charged
several thousands of dollars on
his credit cards for items such as
fur coats.
Russian police interviewed him,
but no arrest has been made in the
case, Bethea said.
News of his disappearance sped
through academic blogs after he
failed to show at a conference
the morning after he was robbed.
Colleagues panicked.
“This kind of thing isn’t unheard
of in the Wild West that is the new
Russia,” said Judith Kornblatt, a
Slavic languages professor at UW.
“I thought the worst.”
“This is going to make
me more cautious, but it
hasn’t soured me...”
David Bethea
Department Chair
Slavic Languages
UW-Madison
But Bethea said the experience
hasn’t turned him off Russia.
“This is going to make me more
cautious,” he said, “but it hasn’t
soured me on the people or the
place.”
JAKE NAUGHTON/Herald photo
Chris McIntosh and Petrovnia Charles, left, and Carol Buelow and University of Wisconsin Hebrew professor
Michael Fox dance away as part of the Madison Scottish Country Dancers Sunday night at Memorial Union.
UW examines sick leave concerns
More than $1 million in federal money set
to help projects across Fox Valley district
Committee discusses policy revisions; faculty report less absence than other state employees
Petri secures state
transport funding
CARL JAEGER day if his class is covered by
College Editor another faculty member.
“What
the
committee
A special committee met recommended was ending
earlier this month to address that part of the sick leave
concerns that University of policy so there is still great
Wisconsin System faculty report encouragement for faculty
less sick days than other state to cover each others’ classes
when they’re sick,” Sadler said.
employees.
The University of Wisconsin “When you’re sick, you will
System Board of Regents report … that you were sick,
committee discussed a recent even if you have a colleague
audit by the Legislative Audit cover your course.”
Sadler said he was not sure
Bureau that investigated the
if the current policy caused a
lack of sick day reporting.
UW-Stevens Point professor significant problem, citing that
Chris Sadler, who serves on each year, faculty contracts
the committee, said faculty are cover only the academic year,
not reporting a “significant use which would explain why they
of colleague coverage,” when report fewer sick days.
“I think part of that is that
a professor has another faculty
member cover when he is not more of us are on nine month
contracts, and so if you have to
able to teach.
According to the current have something done where you
policy, Sadler said, a professor need to go to the hospital, you
is not required to report a sick can lots of times schedule that
BY
Kettle, from page 1
often entertain by singing
holiday tunes.
“I have a terrible singing voice;
it would scare people away,” he
said.
The money donated during
the Red Kettle Campaign
funds the Salvation
Army programs run
in Dane County,
Moore said.
“We have 31
separate programs,
like tutoring for
elementaryand
middle
schoolaged students, case
management
for
homeless families, a
food pantry and a family
shelter that can house 150
people a night,” Moore said.
He added the amount of
donations people give during the
bell-ringing campaign has grown
over the years.
Breakthrough, from page 1
could be used to treat diseases
like Parkinson’s, diabetes and
spinal cord injuries.
Terry Devitt, UW director
of research communication,
said the recent developments
certainly have a large political
and ethical significance, but that
shouldn’t take anything away
from the scientific achievement.
“[The
research]
has
tremendous implications for
medicine, for drug discovery
[and]
for
transplantation
therapies,” Devitt said. “It
eliminates the problem of
immune rejection.”
The cells were obtained
by introducing a set of four
genes into human skin cells,
which are easy to obtain and
grow in culture. Through this
method, researchers are able to
manipulate the outcome, and
cells can be custom-generated
for therapeutic purposes.
“When you have a heart
transplant,
you’re
getting
tissues from another person and
your immune system recognizes
those as foreign cells, and it
attacks them,” Devitt said.
“When you receive a heart
transplant, you’re normally
“It’s typical for most locations,
including State Street, to make
between $3,000 and $5,000 each
season,” Moore said.
According to the Salvation
Army, a kettle that is tended by
a bell-ringer brings in an average
of $40 to $100 per hour and in
2006, more than 1,750
volunteers collected
a total of $438,000.
“How
much
money
the
kettles
make
really all rests on
the volunteers,”
Moore said. “A
kettle without a
bell-ringer won’t
get any donations.”
The
Salvation
Army’s
annual
campaign will run
until Dec. 24. Individuals
willing to ring bells around
Dane County can sign up on
the Salvation Army’s website at
www.ringbells.org.
given drugs [and] often you
need to be on those drugs for
life.”
In 2001 President Bush
formulated a policy limiting
the number or stem cell lines
available for research and
funding for labs, and the
procedures to obtain stem cells
were rather expensive.
“Now this brings it into a
situation where these new
cells can be used in just about
any moderately sophisticated
molecular biology laboratory,”
Devitt said.
The
research,
however,
is in its beginnings, and the
cell lines obtained are strictly
experimental. The current
technique may create the
potential for developing cancer,
the Associated Press reported.
“None of them are even close
to what might be considered for
therapy,” Devitt said. “This is
an important step, but there’s
still a lot to be done.”
Devitt
and
Thomson
are
optimistic
and
said
showing these cells could be
reprogrammed is already an
accomplishment.
“I do, nonetheless, think the
world has changed because of
these results,” Thomson said.
over the summer when you’re
not working,” Sadler said.
The new policy will require
faculty to report sick days even
when other faculty members
cover classes.
“We’re simply trying to kind
of have an equitable system for
all the people who work on a
campus so when a nonfaculty
member is sick, they take a
sick day,” Sadler said. “When
a faculty member is sick, they
take a sick day and what this is
going to do is it’s going to more
accurately reflect the number of
sick days.”
UW System spokesperson
David Giroux said with the
new policy clarification, the
UW System will “be in a better
position to preserve these
retirement benefits for all of our
employees.”
“There were valid concerns
raised by people, certainly some
Forum, from page 1
they have always had.”
“The guidelines for making
those
allocable
funding
decisions will be clarified as to
what constitutes a student-run
organization and what doesn’t
and what kind of guidelines are
in place when there is not space
on the campus and we have to
look elsewhere for the space,”
Giroux said.
“These decisions
should be left up to
students at the campus
level to ensure that
each campus can
serve the needs
of its students
as the students
deem necessary.”
David Giroux
Spokesperson
UW System
UW
Student
Rights
Campaign chair Rachel Butler
said students should be
concerned about the segregated
fee policy changes, as they are
the ones providing the funding.
“Students should and do
care about this because we,
as students, determine which
Txt, from page 1
the Cellular Telecommunications
and Internet Association, an
international
organization
of wireless communications
industry
members,
text
messaging has been increasing
with the growing use of cell
phones. In 2006, 158 billion text
messages were sent, almost twice
the number sent in 2005.
And according to Lasee,
a survey of 16- and 17-yearolds conducted by American
Automobile Association and
Seventeen magazine found that
28 percent of young drivers send
text messages while driving.
Lasee said he was inspired to
of our faculty members have
concerns about … their benefits
and impact,” Giroux said.
“What we think we’re doing
here is a means of preserving a
very, very important retirement
benefit in a state where our
compensation lags behind other
states comparing our university
campus to other university
campuses.”
“These kind of fringe benefits
are very valuable and they are
often things the one thing that
makes us competitive in an
otherwise slanted field,” Giroux
added.
The clarification, Giroux said,
will ultimately show the UW
System is accountable for their
policies, while “at the same time
[they] preserve that competitive
benefit package.”
The Board of Regents will
vote on the policy change at its
December meeting.
services we need on this
campus and we pay for them
with our segregated fees,”
Butler said. “It’s our money and
our campus experience, and
we need to be the ones making
these decisions.”
Butler also said she was
worried that the proposed
segregated fee policies could
potentially take segregated fee
decisions from the students
and into “the hands of the
chancellor.”
“This new policy draft, if
passed as is, will have effects
that reach not only UWMadison, but campuses across
the UW System,” Butler said.
“These decisions should be left
up to students at the campus
level to ensure that each
campus can serve the needs
of its students as the students
deem necessary.”
After Tuesday’s meeting,
the Segregated Fee System
Committee’s policy change
recommendations will be
forwarded to UW System
President Kevin Reilly.
“The president will analyze
those recommendations and
then share with the [Board
of Regents] at the December
meeting his decisions,” Giroux
said.
This year, students paid
$429.08 in segregated fees,
which funds various student
organizations
throughout
campus, as well as such
programs as the ASM Bus
Pass and University Health
Services.
write the bill by recent accidents
involving
text
messaging,
including the deaths of five New
York girls who were killed in a
car accident after the driver had
been sending text messages on
the road.
Lasee added the rising
popularity of text messaging
particularly among young
people means it’s just a matter of
time before a tragedy occurs.
“Kids in schools — they all
have cells, they all use text
messaging, they’re growing
up with it,” Lasee said. “To
them it’s an activity that
would be commonplace, to
hop in the car and start driving
and
sending
messages.”
BY
TERESA WELSH yard, people can be stuck
State Reporter at the rail crossing for quite
sometime,”
Wright
said.
Wisconsin
will
receive “That’s both inconvenient for
more than $1 million from the regular citizens and it can be
federal 2008 transportation a tragedy for ambulances and
spending bill for a number of police cars.”
projects in the Fox Valley, a
U.S. representative from Fond
du Lac announced last week.
U.S. Rep.
“We appreciate
Tom Petri,
R-Wisconsin,
anything that the
said
the
money
senators can do to
would
be
used for three
help get transportation
separate
funding...”
projects
in
Petri’s
district.
Mike Goetzman
He is the
former vice
Petri
Office of Public Affairs
chair of the
Wisconsin
Department
Transportation
Committee
of Transportation
and is currently the ranking
Republican on the Aviation
Subcommittee.
“There were a few things
Money will also be used
that needed to be done in
Wisconsin and [Petri] was able to repair part of State
to convince the colleagues that Highway 44 that runs through
Petri
secured
they were a legitimate project,” Oshkosh.
said Petri’s press secretary Niel $400,000 for this project.
The remaining $100,000 will
Wright.
The largest portion of the be used for the Sheboygan
money, $600,000, will be used Development Corporation’s
to conduct an engineering Great Lakes Aerospace Science
study for the construction a and Education Center.
“[The Center] has a lot of
bridge across the North Fond
local support and we see it
du Lac rail yard.
as an opportunity to keep
Wisconsin in the high-tech
game,” Wright said.
The Transportation Bill was
passed by the House but has
“There were a
not yet been passed by the
Senate. According to Wright,
few things that
President Bush is expected to
veto the bill because of the high
needed to be done
number of projects it funds.
Also included in the bill is
in Wisconsin...”
$3.35 million for buses and bus
stations statewide.
Mike Goetzman of the
Niel Wright
Office of Public Affairs at the
Press Secretary Wisconsin Department of
U.S. Rep. Tom Petri Transportation, is very pleased
R-Wisconsin Petri was able to secure funding
in his district and for the entire
state of Wisconsin.
“We appreciate anything that
the senators can do to help get
transportation funding to help
“A bridge there is important support the projects we have
because when a long train is here in the state,” Goetzman
going into or out of the rail said.
Bonnie Sesolak, development
director for drivers’ rights
organization
the
National
Motorists Association, said it
is excessive to ban individual
behaviors that may lead to
inattentive driving.
“There’s certainly a lot of
other distractions out there as
well,” Sesolak said. “You can’t
have laws for every specific
thing. If we have a law against
text messaging, why not outlaw
drinking coffee while driving?”
Text messaging needs its own
law, Lasee said, because it is an
activity that requires drivers
to take their eyes off the road
in order to read messages and
punch keys.
Steve Siglinsky, a recent
University
of
Wisconsin
graduate, said he agrees with
Lasee’s observations, having seen
it a number of times himself.
“I know a handful of
people who can text without
looking at their phone, but
not many, and even if they
can, it still takes attention off
of the road,” Siglinsky said.
Even
though
Siglinsky
occasionally sends text messages
while driving, he said he tries to
minimize the danger.
“I specifically choose not to
text when I can call someone,”
Siglinsky said. “But sometimes
texting gets quicker results with
certain people.”