Sifting and Winnowing has been sent the following press release, which we dutifully print in its entirety, though with uninvited annotations:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Jon Alfuth and Drew Lake – studentsfornbp@gmail.com
UW–Madison Students Come Together to Support the New Badger Partnership
Students from across the UW-Madison campus have banded together to support Chancellor Martin’s vision for leading the University of Wisconsin–Madison forward. Calling themselves the Students for the New Badger Partnership, this group is committed to promoting the ideas proposed by the New Badger Partnership and to encouraging thoughtful debate regarding the proposal.
A recurring theme in both this press release and the associated website is that there is this “group” of students who have “banded together” to promote the NBP. But only two names appear. It is therefore unclear how large this “group” really is or how its membership is defined. Do they hold meetings? Do they vote? Do they pay dues to cover the cost of designing and hosting a very slick website? Why is there no explicit invitation to other students to participate in this group?
“Each one of us loves this university and we take seriously the challenges that it faces in the current economic climate,” says group coordinator Jon Alfuth, a second year graduate student pursuing a Masters of Public Affairs. “This isn’t just a difficult time for our university; it is a challenge faced by higher education systems across the country. We believe that the New Badger Partnership is a critical step towards strengthening our state’s commitment to teaching future generations of Wisconsin students at a price affordable to all.”
Fair enough. Please elaborate. What is the factual basis for that belief? And be specific: do you mean the old New Badger Partnership, as elucidated by Chancellor Martin last year or the rather new Public Authority as promoted in the governor’s budget bill? And if you’re really interested in winning over the skeptics, what are your responses to the very specific concerns that have been raised by others?
The group is headed by Alfuth and his fellow coordinator Drew Lake, a senior in the school of business.
These are real students (we checked). We would be very interested in the full story behind Alfuth’s and Lake’s decision to take up this cause, to create their website, and to write this press release.
“Some people are trying to characterize the New Badger Partnership as UW–Madison cutting and running from the rest of UW System, but that’s just not the case,” Lake says.
Indeed. Many are instead characterizing it as an attempt to privatize — and corporatize — a tremendously valuable and immensely successful public asset.
“This plan will cut bureaucratic red tape and allow the campus to more effectively carry out its mission while maintaining the strong existing ties between our state’s academic institutions.”
These are the same extremely vague platitudes we’ve been hearing for months, with no new substance to alleviate the major concerns some in the campus community have. Some of those concerns arise from the flawed process by which it was rolled out. Others reflect suspicions regarding the true motives of those who seem to be pushing this so hard, most of whom are not faculty, staff, or students.
The group includes a variety of students from the different backgrounds, majors and ideologies that demonstrates the diversity of UW–Madison’s student body. They call on any and all students who support the New Badger Partnership to publicly support this historic opportunity to strengthen public education in the state of Wisconsin.
There’s that “group” again. We call on students who are thinking about publicly supporting the present proposal to first educate themselves about the arguments on both sides before making up their minds. And to ask hard questions about why outside interests are paying corporate lobbyists to promote something that Governor Scott Walker, of all people, apparently wants very badly for UW-Madison. Why does he want this? Answer: Why does ever he want anything?
The Students for the New Badger Partnership can be contacted by emailing studentsfornbp@gmail.com or by visiting their website at http://www.studentsfornbp.com for more information on the group.
Given that two student names are publicly attached to the above site, and given that they claim to be speaking for a “group” of students motivated simply by love of the University, we find it interesting that the actual domain registrar is neither Mr. Alfuth nor Mr. Lake but rather is concealed in a “whois” search. Many or most web hosting services charge an extra fee to substitute their own name and contact info for that of the true domain owner. It’s not a large fee, but a fee nonetheless. It does seems rather pointless if Alfuth and Lake are the true leaders of this campaign.
In summary, we have a strong hunch that there may be significant involvement by non-students in “Students for the NBP” and that their interest in UW-Madison — irrespective of Alfuth’s and Lake’s — has little to do with support for public education. Are we too cynical? Perhaps. Cynicism is fostered by lack of trust, lack of information, and lack of control over our destiny, all of which are in short supply these days.
Thank you for running our press release, albeit with editorial comments. There are a couple of issues contained in those comments that I would like to address;
First; this press release was simply mean to announce that there is a group of students that supports this issue on the UW Campus, that we love this University, that we are acting in what we believe are the best interests of this University, and how to get in touch with us. More detailed arguments in favor of NBP can be found on our website.
Second; we have a strict policy of not requiring members to release their names publicly if they do not want to. We have this policy for a variety of reasons, chiefly because this is a highly charged issue. We want students to feel free to come and get involved in our organization without fear of being publicly attacked for their support of this issue in the way that some students on this campus have been. That said, we allow students many opportunities to come forward with their support, such as through blog posts and personal statements as to why they support the New Badger Partnership.
I would also like to note that our website contains more members than just Drew and I. Currently it contains a list of 5 members of our leadership team and what they are working on (http://studentsfornbp.com/who-we-are/) and 5 individuals who have blogged on our website (http://studentsfornbp.com/blog/). We will also be rolling out several personal statements from students who have written to us to express their support publicly for the New Badger Partnership in the coming days via our blog. We invite you to check back and read why students have written to us in support of this proposal.
Third; it seems hypocritical to accuse us of a lack of transparency in our choice to not publicly register our names under the domain when your site does the exact same thing (http://www.whois.net/whois/siftingandwinnowing.org). I know that as Professors, you have your reasons for not wanting to release your personal information and so do we as students.
Fourth and finally, by implying that we are a front group, you are asking us to prove a negative. No matter what information we provide or how many names we release as members, we cannot conclusively prove to you or anyone else that we are not a front group, just as you cannot prove conclusively that you are not a front group. Please note that I in no way believe that your blog is a front group. My point is that it would be nearly impossible to prove otherwise if someone made that accusation in the same way that it is for us.
Personally, it both saddens and angers me that some people cannot seem to comprehend that a group of students might come together on their own initiative to support this proposal as what they truly believe to the best course of action for UW-Madison.
Jon: Your reply clarifying some of the issues we raised is very welcome — thank you.
I want to emphasize that nothing about what was written at the top was motivated by lack of acceptance of the idea that “a group of students might come together on their own initiative to support this proposal as what they truly believe to the best course of action for UW-Madison.” If this is indeed what has happened, then our cynicism was misdirected and we applaud your engagement despite any difference of opinion.
Second, thanks for pointing out that there are now more names on your website — last time I checked it, I could only find the two. I should have checked for updates, and for that I apologize.
As for what you call “hypocritical”, we weren’t criticizing the anonymity per se. We just found it odd that two student names were very publicly attached to the site but that the owners of the domain were concealed. And we’re acutely aware of the intense lobbying and PR effort that is going on, including by paid lobbyists who have opened an office downtown, so it didn’t seem too much of a stretch.
Notwithstanding the fact that you have your own web site, I would like to cordially invite you to submit articles for presenting your point of view here. S&W has been dominated by the voices of those who are highly skeptical of the NBP, and those of us who actually run this site would prefer a true debate. But by “debate”, we mean point-by-point factual discussions of specific concerns that have been raised (here and elsewhere), not just generalities.
If you accept this invitation, simply email your contribution to the same address you sent your press release. We will post “as is” — i.e., no annotations.
I really think someone should look into their connections with the Wisconsin Student Lobby (WSL) funded around $50,000 of student segregated fees yearly. Or their connections with the Wisconsin Alumni Association through the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board. Those would be interesting connections to make with the students on the Students for the New Badger Partnership website as well.