With public discussion of the New Badger Partnership proposal now picking up steam, we recommend to our readers several non-UW-Madison documents that, whether you embrace their main conclusions or not, shed more light on the political and economic forces shaping the future relationship between the University of Wisconsin and the State. (more…)
Archive for January, 2011
Road maps for the New Badger Partnership?
Monday, January 31st, 2011More questions about the New Badger Partnership
Saturday, January 29th, 2011It’s great to see that Sifting & Winnowing has spoken up about the New Badger Partnership, and the coming discussion at the Senate. As the preface to Faculty Document 2244 makes clear, huge plans about the future of our University are being made and we have no details. I have no inside information of any kind, but have heard repeatedly that the ‘flexibilities’ being pursued by the Chancellor include bedrock changes in our relationship to the state, for example along the lines of the “Virginia Model” or by making the UW a public authority. In the hopes that it will prompt better informed people to speak up, a few comments are below about these options. (more…)
Faculty Senate to debate principles for New Badger Partnership
Friday, January 28th, 2011Most readers will be aware of the Chancellor’s efforts to seek new flexibilities from the State of Wisconsin, as embodied in her New Badger Partnership proposal. The Faculty Senate is now poised to take up a discussion of principles they would like to see preserved as part of any agreement with the State. The document Principles for the New Badger Partnership, reproduced below in its entirety, is on the agenda for New Business on February 7 at 3:30 PM in Bascom Hall 272.
Sifting and Winnowing strongly encourages the campus community to carefully review this document well before the Feb. 7 meeting and to offer comments, critiques, and pertinent questions to be considered by the Faculty Senate and by all those who might be affected by negotiations that we assume are already taking place between the Administration and the State.
We will break the ice by posing the first question here: Has high speed rail come to Madison after all (metaphorically speaking), and are we tied to the tracks?
Will Scott Walker go to bat for higher ed?
Thursday, January 27th, 2011Scott Walker is one of only three governors in the country without a college degree, having attended Marquette University and then dropped out in his senior year with a GPA of 2.59. But the lack of a degree per se is not necessarily cause for concern: America’s success stories include countless talented, influential, and productive citizens, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders for whom a college degree would have been truly superfluous.
Far more troubling is the fact that absolutely nowhere in Scott Walker’s campaign platform, campaign promises, policy pronouncements concerning education or his inaugural address is higher education even mentioned in passing let alone highlighted as a specific concern of his. (more…)