For the Record: May 6, 2009

Wisconsin Week, the newspaper of record for UW–Madison, carries legally required notices for faculty and staff.

Annual pesticide application notification

The Physical Plant has applied fertilizer and herbicides to turf areas and landscape display beds in the general areas of campus and to invasive plants in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve. For a listing of products used on campus and the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, visit Chemical and Environmental Safety.

The departments of Environmental Services and Lakeshore Nature Preserve are sensitive to the community’s concerns regarding the use of herbicides and fertilizers. We emphasize that their use is a tool as part of an integrated plant management program. Promoting healthy turf and landscape displays minimizes pesticide use. Promoting diverse biological communities in natural areas minimizes pesticide use for weed control.

Date set for Entrepreneurial Bootcamp

The 2009 Wisconsin Entrepreneurial Bootcamp (WEB), hosted by the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship and INSITE, is set for July 19–24 at Grainger Hall. Graduate students in the physical and life sciences, engineering or law are encouraged to apply. The program is offered at no cost. Applications are due by May 26 and there are a limited number of spots available.

WEB provides participants with an introduction to entrepreneurship and the tools, skills and issues faced in technology entrepreneurship. Participants will have the opportunity to interact and learn from several high-level professionals; top faculty; and experts in startups, intellectual property and funding.

For more information or to apply for WEB, visit 2009 Wisconsin Entrepreneurial Bootcamp.

Undergraduate research seminar on the impact of Ojibwe treaty rights in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the intertribal natural resource management agency that assists the Ojibwe tribes of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan in their off-reservation harvests, will celebrate its 25th anniversary on July 28 with a symposium titled “Minwaajimo — Telling a Good Story: Preserving Ojibwe Treaty Rights.”

In addition to scholars at other institutions, Patty Loew, associate professor of life sciences communication, and Larry Nesper, associate professor of anthropology and American Indian studies, were invited to chair panels at the four-day event and author articles for a publication of the symposium’s proceedings.

Nesper designed his Indians of Wisconsin course as a seminar that is addressing the question how the eleven Ojibwe communities responded to the affirmation of the treaty rights during the last 25 years. Students have taken one of the communities and completed histories of this time period. They are finding that different ecological, legal and historical factors shape the nature of the exercise of the treaty rights with the tribes located in three different states, both on Lake Superior and well inland, and with proximate access to a different suite of traditionally exploited fish, animals and plant resources. Treaty rights have also refigured the relationship between the Indian communities, as well as between the tribes and the state governments.

In addition to consulting published scholarly sources, students are monitoring the print and electronic media and also contacting tribal officials by phone and e-mail to get information about developments in the communities growing out of the exercise of the off-reservation treaty rights. To complement students’ research efforts, Nesper visited nearly all of the Ojibwe communities that come under these treaties in the upper peninsula of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota and conducted audiotaped interviews with tribal officials who have lived the history of the exercise of treaty rights within their impacts within the communities. The audiotapes were made into transcripts and analyzed in class.

The project evokes the Wisconsin Idea with collaboratively designed research benefiting both students who are learning about the process of producing social scientific knowledge, and the indigenous communities within the state.