Archive for the ‘College costs’ Category

Year-end letter from Chancellor Martin

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

The following message was broadcast to the campus community by Chancellor “Biddy” Martin on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.  It is reproduced (with minor reformatting) in its entirety here for reference and comment by S&W readers.     The letter consists of several sections, each of which may be accessed directly via the links below.

A Year-End Letter: Opportunities, Challenges, Impressions
By Chancellor Biddy Martin

  1. Preamble
  2. The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates
  3. Great People Scholarship Campaign
  4. Research Administration and Funding
  5. Graduate Student Funding
  6. UW Foundation Presidential Search
  7. Global Health and Sustainability
  8. Diversity
  9. Faculty and Academic Staff Salaries
  10. Collaboration with WAA and UWF
  11. University Relations/Communications
  12. Looking Forward

- Eds.
(more…)

Posted in College costs, Compensation, Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus, The University Budget | 1 Comment »

Video: First Campus Forum on Financing Public Higher Education

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

On Tuesday, February 23, 2010, the first Campus Forum on Financing Public Higher Education took place in the Memorial Union, hosted by PROFS, CAPE, and UFAS.  As summarized in greater detail in a previous article in S&W, the purpose of this first forum was to identify and explain the current fiscal challenges facing the University of Wisconsin.  Future planned forums in the series will dissect proposed solutions.  Members of the local press as well as interested faculty, staff, and students were in attendance.

For the benefit of those who could not attend, we are now belatedly posting (courtesy of CAPE) a link to the complete video record (157 MB) of the presentations by the three distinguished speakers: Noel Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE); Andrew Reschovsky, professor at the La Follette School of Public Affairs;  and Kevin Reilly, President of the University of Wisconsin System.

All three presentations made clear that the budget problems facing the state of Wisconsin, and therefore the University, will be with us for some time to come and will require difficult choices.

Planning for the second forum in the series, which will likely take place in early Fall 2010, is now underway.

Campus Forum On Financing Public Higher Education video link (157 MB)

Posted in College costs, Compensation, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus, The University Budget, The University System | 1 Comment »

Mark your calendars: Campus Forum on Financing Public Higher Education

Friday, February 19th, 2010

How will we pay for public higher education in Wisconsin and at UW-Madison in the years to come? Metaphorically speaking, we have entered a dark fiscal tunnel of unknown length, and that glimmer of light up ahead just might be an oncoming train.  According to former UW System President Kathryn Lyall (pers. comm.),

[T]his is the overarching policy issue of the decade (century?) and we need all members of the university community, as well as those in the wider public, to understand the inexorable trends that are driving the university’s future and what it can expect to do for the state in the future.

Three separate campus organizations — PROFS, UFAS, and CAPE — have come together to jointly sponsor the first of a planned series of public forums on the subject, to be held Tuesday, February 23, 4:00-5:30 pm at the Memorial Union (check Today in the Union to confirm the room location; tentatively the Wisconsin Inn). (more…)

Posted in College costs, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus, The University Budget, The University System | 2 Comments »

Textbooks and the Free Market

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Whatever you think of the “magic of the free market”, there are a few situations in which it indisputably breaks down (or would break down) if left entirely to its own devices. Mail delivery to Gnome, Alaska. Medical care for indigents. College textbook prices.

(more…)

Posted in College costs, Instruction | 5 Comments »