The New Yorker College Tour will visit the University of Wisconsin March 8 through March 10 to present material from The New Yorker magazine to promote the publication by reaching a wider variety of people and places.

“Our thought immediately was to take arts and give opportunity to faculty and students of college cities,” Rhonda Sherman, director of the tour, said.

Several guest speakers and staff members of The New Yorker will be along with the tour to entertain, inform and present material from the magazine to the audience. The hope is to gain the interest of the audience and — aside from encouraging them to read the magazine — to get students interested in the arts, Sherman said.

“The idea is to bring The New Yorker to college campuses where students would be likely to read it,” Andy Borowitz, a humor writer at the magazine, said.

The tour kicks off Tuesday at noon with presentations from The New Yorker fiction writers Aleksander Hemon and George Saunders. They will read some of their work and also talk with the Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman.

The second event held Tuesday, titled The Next Four Years, will be a discussion of the upcoming term with George W. Bush as president. The talk will center on New Yorker Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg and Donald Nichols, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs.

Wednesday’s events start at noon with Everyone’s a Critic, where film critic David Denby, television critic Nancy Franklin and pop-music critic Sasha Frere-Jones will speak. UW journalism professor James L. Baughman, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, will moderate this event.

Thursday’s lunchtime event starts at noon with standup comedy by Borowitz, who doubles as a CNN commentator. Cartoonists Roz Chast and Matthe Diffee will talk with the cartoon editor Robert Mankoff and show the audience their work at 5:30 p.m.

Along with the guest speakers, the 80 Years of New Yorker Political Cartoons exhibit will be shown at Memorial Union from March 8 through April 1.

Sherman had a difficult time picking one specific highlight of this week’s tour. She said each event holds equal interest and importance during the tour.

“I think that for me, one of the biggest highlights is having Hertzberg talk about politics,” Sherman said.

Hertzberg should be of particular interest to students so soon after the presidential election, because he will speak about President Bush and his next four years in office, she said, adding a majority of the audience will have participated during November’s balloting.

Borowitz has been on the college tour for every visit. The tour has visited three schools, and Borowitz said he found the previous audiences to be great. He added the turnout has been pretty impressive.

Each event remains available on a first come, first seated basis, and every happening of the tour is free with everyone welcome.