Spring 2006 9 Dispatches
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DISPATCHES Getting In ... Again Gaining admission to some UW programs is becoming a major issue. In recent years, UW-Madison’s supply cannot always meet class. Admissions criteria are also admissions standards have the demand,” says Michael up across the School of Educa- become more competitive, Knetter, dean of the business tion, although just how far up forcing students to work harder school, which last fall admitted depends on what students hope in high school to stand out 377 students from a pool of 515 to teach. The elementary-educa- among thousands of applicants. applicants. “We’re not restrict- tion program, for example, However, few students realize ing access because we think you turned away 150 students last that once they are in, they face need to be a rocket scientist to semester, while admitting one another admissions test: getting get a business degree.” hundred. into the major of their choice. Knetter admits that a stu- Jeffrey Hamm, assistant For many students, it’s an dent’s grade point average isn’t dean of the School of Educa- “We thought that chalk would increasingly difficult chal- tion, attributes the be easiest, because if someone lenge, sometimes requiring increased demand to high SPENCER WALTS SPENCER WALTS found something offensive, them to settle on a less- interest in teaching. And they could just rub it off with desired major or to extend the competition isn’t likely their hand.” their time on campus. to ease up anytime soon. In 1998, for example, Budget pressures prevent — UW police officer Heidi the minimum grade point the school from admitting Golbach, explaining the average required for more students — or even decision to put chalkboard admission to the School maintaining the status quo. paint on elevator landings of Business’s BBA degree “We will have to cut our around the art department in program was a 2.9. Today, enrollment next year by the Mosse Humanities Building, even some students who fifty students,” Hamm says. which have often been covered have perfect 4.0s in their “And that is directly related with graffiti. Students are pre-business courses to a resource issue.” now free to leave temporary aren’t guaranteed a spot. Intense competition messages and doodles on the Other majors, especially means that students who walls, which are periodically pre-professional programs don’t get into their first wiped clean. that have built-in career choice have to decide possibilities, are equally whether to try again or forbidding, turning away look elsewhere. Some stu- hundreds of students dents apply two or three each year. always the best gauge of who times to the same program, One reason behind this has the makings of a successful often preventing them from trend is that students and their businessperson, but he knows graduating in four years. parents are more focused on of no other way to manage But selecting a different career options, says Tim Walsh admissions, given the school’s major isn’t always a matter of $44,000,000 MA’84, PhD’93, director of the resources. Before new admis- settling for a second choice. In Approximate value of UW UW Cross-College Advising Ser- sions standards were enforced, education, for example, Hamm System trust funds managed by vice, which counsels undecided Knetter says that too many says there is a national trend students in UW-Madison’s students on possible majors. students were being accepted, of students following less tradi- Applied Securities Analysis He says that during the past straining the school’s resources tional paths into teaching. Program. Students began decade, demand has been on and making it difficult for stu- Walsh also notes that students investing about $10 million of the rise for majors where there dents to graduate in four years. may be underestimating the fixed-income securities in 1998, are clear employment tracks “We need to give a quality versatility of liberal arts majors. and in October, the Board of awaiting graduates. These days, experience to the people we That proved true for Ryan Regents voted to triple the fields such as pharmacy and let in,” says Knetter, adding that Button ‘05, who bypassed the assets under their management. nursing, which have been noted he is optimistic about finding School of Business and majored It’s believed to be the largest in national media coverage as resources to help the school in economics in the College of pool of capital managed by having strong job prospects, are expand. Letters and Science. His friend students at any U.S. university. growing in popularity. Around campus, many Kendall Garrisson x’06 went But without a significant departments are facing similar the B-school route. The result? increase in faculty or classroom issues. At the School of Journal- Both received job offers from space, those majors have little ism and Mass Communication, the prestigious Wall Street firm choice but to watch their stan- 270 students applied last spring Goldman Sachs. dards climb. “Unfortunately, the for one hundred spots in the fall — Joanna Salmen x’06 SPRING 2006 9 DISPATCHES Returning History Sixty years after World War II, the UW sends a German collection home. For more than two decades, a Knowing that Würzburg is shipped the items back to Q AND A cigar box sat on a shelf in UW- also home to one of the oldest Germany in December. Megumi Madison’s Geology Museum. It universities in Europe, West- Frimmel says the university, Lohrentz contained a small collection of phal figured it was a good bet rebuilt after the war, now minerals and artifacts — and a the collection came from there. features “a very nice miner- When warmer weather very large mystery. He sent some labels that were alogical museum, attracting arrives, Library Mall is full The box was given to the loose in the box to the Institute many visitors, students, and of carts serving up worldly museum by Clarence Olm- of Mineralogy at the University school kids, and it is in that cuisines, including Zen Sushi, stead, a former UW-Madison of Würzburg, where professor museum where we intend owned and operated by professor of geography who Hartwig Frimmel was able to to display the repatriated Megumi Lohrentz, who is had plucked it from the rubble match the specimen labels with samples.” originally from Japan. of a German city during the old university records. Westphal — Terry Devitt ‘78, MA’85 Q: How do you get a spot final days of World on Library Mall? War II. But Olm- A: Each year, the Vending stead, who served as JEFF MILLER Oversight Committee [a a U.S. Navy ensign subcommittee of the City for the Office of Council] judges all applicants Strategic Services on thirty criteria, such as cart during the war and appearance, quality of food, was typically among and uniqueness. Only the top the first Americans carts are allowed a spot. to enter German Q: How long have you had cities captured by your cart? Allied forces, could A: I have been making home- not recall exactly made Japanese food for three where he’d found it. years here. “I sat in front of Q: How many customers that box for I don’t do you get on the average know how long,” day? says former museum A: About eighty. Business is director Klaus best in the fall, when the Westphal. “It had students come back. a story to tell.” Q: Do you get claustropho- After retiring as bic in the cart? director in 2004, A: No, actually. I have one of Westphal, a native the biggest carts, and I am of Berlin, set about halfway outside. I love it, to find the origin and I have eight workers who of the collection. never complain. Studying the box, Q: What is the most popu- he noticed a splotch lar item on the menu? of red ink, faded by A: Number four [a traditional, age to an illegible home-style sushi]. Almost all smudge. With the my customers know their help of a magnify- favorites by number. ing glass and a black Q: Do you have plans of light, he was able to starting a restaurant that make out a few let- doesn’t have wheels? ters that identified A: Yes, I am looking into it the box as being now. I just need the right from a cigar shop in location. Würzburg, Germany, an ancient city that Klaus Westphal, retired director of the Geology Museum, holds a prehistoric stone was devastated by knife, one of several artifacts left in an old cigar box at the museum more than Allied bombing twenty years ago. After some detective work to find the minerals’ rightful owner, during the war. Westphal recently returned them to the University of Würzburg in Germany. 10 ON WISCONSIN RESEARCH Tortured Legacy Alfred McCoy’s new book takes on the CIA and its interrogation tactics. The problem with torture, said the Roman jurist Ulpian, is that MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART it usually doesn’t work. The strong have the will to resist it, and the weak will say anything to stop the pain. Thus, Ulpian wrote in the third century, the use of torture to gain informa- tion had to be considered a “delicate, dangerous, and deceptive thing.” Of course, this did not stop the Romans from engaging in torture. Eighteen hundred years later, as another superpower considers its position on tor- ture, Alfred McCoy is sound- ing like a latter-day Ulpian. In his new book, A Question of Torture, the UW professor of history and Southeast Asian studies peers into the dark cor- ners of the United States’s war on terror and concludes that the government, through the covert action of the Central Intelligence Agency, has devel- oped, propagated, and prac- ticed a system of interrogation that he calls “psychological Researching torture has shown historian Alfred McCoy that “humans torture.” are capable of enormous kindness and unfathomable cruelty.” And while the book was published in January — just seem to forbid the kind of that the practice will end.