Almanac

Recession: Wisconsin feels the pain
Wisconsin workers are still reeling from the impact of the national recession that began in 2001, according to a study released by UW–Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy.

“The State of Working Wisconsin: Update 2003” finds that unemployment is up, the state is losing manufacturing jobs, and wages have been stagnant, says Joel Rogers, director of COWS and co-author of the report.

Among the findings: The state’s unemployment rate jumped from 3.5 to 5.6 percent, effectively the same as the national unemployment rate (5.8 percent); among the state’s male workers, the unemployment rate nearly doubled over the 2000-02 period, rising from 3.6 to 6.5 percent; and more than 19 percent of Wisconsin’s African-American workers were unemployed in 2002 — nearly twice the national figure of 10.3 percent.

The report offers several recommendations, including strengthening work-force education and training programs, and raising the minimum wage to increase earnings for low-income workers.

Kidney Transplant Program ranked #1
For 25 years, the UW Kidney Transplant Program at UW Hospital and Clinics has been recognized as among the best in the United States. Now, it’s been named a leader in the world. Recently released 2002 statistics rank the program first in the country based on the number of transplants performed. Equally impressive, the UW program was ranked second worldwide, coming in behind the Sao Paulo, Brazil, transplant program.

UW performed 341 kidney transplants in 2002 (for a total of 5,531 since the program began), followed by the University of Alabama at Birmingham with 329 and the University of California at San Francisco with 319.

During the past five years, the UW transplant team performed its 6,000th organ transplant (1998), the first islet cell transplant in the state of Wisconsin (2003) and its 500th heart transplant (2003).

Walking naturally
About one-third of the university’s landscape is undeveloped land — woodlands, wetlands, open fields, and a restored prairie and savanna — set aside for the enjoyment and use of students, faculty, staff and the community. Known as Campus Natural Areas, these approximately 325 acres include such popular spots as Picnic Point, Muir Woods, the Class of 1918 Marsh and the Howard Temin Lakeshore Path.

You can walk from Picnic Point to Frautschi Point and back on Friday, Sept. 19, and learn something along the way. The Friends of the Campus Natural Areas is sponsoring a walk with historian and professor emeritus Tom Brock beginning at 4 p.m. at the Picnic Point parking lot along University Bay Drive.

For more information, including a map showing the natural areas, visit http://www.uwalumni.com/fcna/.

Backward glance
From Wisconsin Week, Sept. 15, 1993: For the first time, the Division of Information Technology makes e-mail accounts available to all undergraduates. The division hires an “e-mail coordinator” to encourage faculty and staff to begin to communicate with students through the new method. In other DoIT news, all students are given the ability to connect to the campus network through dial-up modems. … Chancellor David Ward announces the appointment of John Torphy as vice chancellor for administration. … The Faculty Senate approves a policy limiting university participation in athletic competitions with schools with Native American mascots.