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.

A Year-End Letter: Opportunities, Challenges, Impressions

By Chancellor Biddy Martin

Dear Members of the UW-Madison Community,

Before the semester ends and many of you leave for summer jobs and research activities, I want to summarize some of the important issues that have engaged us this year, share some of the impressions I have formed over two academic years, and look to the opportunities and the challenges ahead.

Among the major issues we addressed this year, I include: 1) the implementation of the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, 2) efforts to build support for the Great People Scholarship campaign, 3) studies of the organization and effectiveness of our research administration, 4) the need to increase graduate student funding, 5) the search for a new president of the UW Foundation, 6) Global Health and Sustainability, two university-wide interdisciplinary initiatives, 7) re-dedication to our diversity efforts and to extending our reach internationally, 8 ) the activation of new tools to address salary issues, 9) collaborative efforts with our partners –  the Wisconsin Alumni Association and the UW Foundation — to achieve greater coordination and enhance our alumni and donor base, and 10) changes in university relations/communications to similar ends.

As is always the case with my letters, this one is too long. For that reason, I have divided it into sections. At the end, I will re-emphasize the balance we need to achieve between quality and affordability, and I will share my view of where we need to head. This letter covers some of the important issues that have engaged me as chancellor this academic year, but they are a tiny fraction of the critically important activities, achievements and opportunities in which you are involved. I want to thank all of you for the extraordinary work you do on so many fronts to make this one of the most vibrant universities in the world.

The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates

Let me start by thanking all members of the community who developed proposals for the first two rounds of the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates. We saw a range of impressive ideas aimed not only at enhancing, but also transforming, aspects of undergraduate education and the student experience on campus. We set out not simply to fill gaps or address bottlenecks in courses and majors, as important as those goals are, but also to have an impact on the way students are taught and how they learn, both in and outside the classroom. We also made the diversity of the faculty who teach them a high priority for the initiative.

The student board and the general oversight committee have worked long and hard, reading, assessing, ranking and trying to add value to your proposals. At the end of the first two rounds, we have approved initiatives that take us over the $10 million mark. In the fall, we will call for a third round of proposals and will be able to spend another $4 million. We are on track to add as many as 75 faculty positions. We have funded a range of important student and academic service initiatives, including additional Freshman Interest Groups, new residential learning communities and internship programs. We have set aside well over $1 million in ongoing funding in anticipation of a proposal that takes a holistic and innovative approach to student advising. Money has also been held aside for a promising proposal to establish spaces for technology-assisted teaching and learning.

I regret the fact that we are unable to approve even more proposals. I know it is disappointing to those of you whose proposals were not supported, not only because of the time and energy you gave to the process, but also because you have serious needs for additional funding. There are great needs all over campus. I thank you for caring enough about undergraduate education and the overall quality of the university to do the work you did. I hope we can find other funds over time, private as well as public, to enable the improvements you seek to make. For information on the proposals and our decisions, please visit http://www.madisoninitiative.wisc.edu.

Great People Scholarship Campaign

As you know, $20 million of ongoing funding from the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates is being allocated to need-based financial aid. This year we were able to add $5 million, and next year we will add another $5 million in ongoing funds.

Need-based aid has become our highest university-wide fundraising priority for several reasons. It is absolutely essential that we keep UW-Madison affordable to students from low- and low-to-middle-income backgrounds, for the good of every one of our students and for the sake of the communities we serve. Each student needs to interact and build networks with peers from every conceivable background and the families of this great state need to be able to afford an education for their children at one of the worlds great research universities.

As I have argued since I arrived at UW-Madison, keeping tuition near the bottom of our peer group is not the answer to those needs. Over the long term, balancing quality with affordability will mean marking out a path that puts tuition at the median of our peer group and provides much higher amounts of need-based aid. The desire to keep tuition at the low end is understandable, but it has a number of problematic and often unintended consequences: It ends up subsidizing those who can more easily afford an education at UW-Madison, and it threatens the university with a potential deterioration in quality, putting the value of our students degrees at risk over time.

I do not believe there is anything more important to our long-term success than the appropriate balance between affordability and quality. We will need to establish a new compact with the state of Wisconsin, one that recognizes our reliance on revenues from the private sector, from the federal government and from tuition, and one that, therefore, allows us the flexibility to use our funds in ways that will keep the university strong, for the good of the state, the nation and the world. The new compact with the state would provide us greater freedom to manage our resources and clearer forms of accountability to the state. I expect to spend a significant amount of time working with you, with business leaders, with political and government leaders, and with the general public to develop and promote change of this kind.

Given the importance of financial aid, I want to thank UW-Madison faculty and staff again for your generous contributions to the Great People campaign. You have raised almost $619,000. The match from the UW Foundation brings your contributions to more than $1 million. While the magnitude is impressive, the amount is less important than the number of contributors among our faculty and staff. In my fundraising activities this past year, I have observed the strong impression it makes on our alumni and donors that so many of you would contribute at a time when your own salaries not only are not growing, but also have temporarily shrunk as a result of furloughs.

Research Administration and Funding

UW-Madison, as a research powerhouse, has a significant economic impact on the region and the state as a whole. We are one of only two universities in the United States, including both public and private institutions, to be ranked in the top five in total research expenditures for 20 consecutive years. Over the course of the past two decades, the administration of research has become a much larger and more complicated responsibility, in part because the nature of research has changed, and in part because of unfunded regulatory mandates from the federal government.

During my first year as chancellor, I heard from a large number of faculty members that our infrastructure has failed to keep pace. As you know, the provost presented a plan for the reorganization of research administration early in the fall semester. That plan grew out of a sense of urgency about changes that need to be made in the management of what is both a traditional strength and a major priority for this campus.

The University Committee (UC) was charged by the Faculty Senate with establishing a faculty task force to consider the proposal and make recommendations of its own about the administration of research. At the same time, the Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) charged a committee with a similar task. Both groups have now reported –  one to the UC and the other to ASEC. Both favor the continuing integration of research with graduate education, and reject the proposal that research and graduate training be separate management activities. The ASEC-sponsored report called for more study and offered excellent recommendations for improvements in our processes. The faculty task force made a series of recommendations that became the foundation for the motion offered by the UC for the Faculty Senate.

The university administration has accepted the wisdom of the faculty and staff on the integration of research and graduate education. They will remain under one roof. Provost Paul DeLuca and I worked with the UC on the motion that was approved, overwhelmingly, with minor revision by the Faculty Senate on May 3. I am confident we have emerged from this year’s deliberations with a structure, a set of process improvements and an industry-relations program that, together, will ensure the university’s continued leadership in research, discovery and technology transfer.

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has provided the margin of excellence in research for many years. Despite the hit on its endowment in 2008-09, WARF provided a $53.4 million grant to the Graduate School for 2009-2010 to support research and graduate education. In addition, WARF has made a long-term commitment to the Morgridge Institute for Research, the private partner to the state-funded Wisconsin Institute for Discovery; together, they form the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. WARF has spent the year developing plans for the institutes and for the town center, to which the entire first floor of the building is dedicated. I hope the town center will become a destination not only for faculty, staff and students, but also for a larger public. It has the potential to build community, enliven intellectual exchange and increase interest in science and scientific literacy far beyond the campus.

I have just returned from the spring meeting of the American Association of Universities where we heard from Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and John Holdren, chief science adviser to President Obama. It was clear from both presentations and from subsequent discussions that the current administration understands the importance of scientific research, both basic and applied, and is doing, what it can to find funding in a budget that the president has promised to freeze for the next three years. The president’s budget proposes increases for NIH (3.2 percent), the National Science Foundation (8 percent), the Department of Energy (4.4 percent), the Department of Defense (7 percent), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (11.4 percent), and a decrease of 3.7 percent for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Base funding for the various federal agencies is up, but, as you know, we also face a cliff when American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding ends.

In response to questions about the administration’s top science priorities, John Holdren commented that the U.S. cannot attempt to lead in every domain. He then listed four areas in which it will be important that we do lead: low-carbon economy, life sciences, information and communication technologies, and new materials. It seemed evident that a low-carbon economy is this administration’s highest priority. Our strengths at UW-Madison put us in an excellent position to take advantage of the administration’s focus on energy, environment, and climate change; the life sciences and health; information technologies; and materials.

Graduate Student Funding

Our ability to compete for the best graduate students is critical to our research enterprise, as well as to faculty recruitment and retention. Our offers of support fall short of those of our peers in some fields. In those fields where grant funding is not available and there is no discretionary funding for graduate education, the problem is particularly grave. This year, we found the funds to address the shortfall in NIH training grants. Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration, is working with the University Committee to develop a biennial budget proposal that would allow us to address the problem.

In addition, we have submitted a request for graduate funding and for tuition remissions as part of our contribution to the UW System’s Educational Attainment Initiative. We also will submit a proposal for new graduate student funding as part of our participation in the system’s Research to Jobs Initiative. We are working with the UW System on other possible approaches to the challenge we face. Meanwhile, we continue to educate our donors about the importance of graduate student funding, and we are encouraging them to consider linking graduate fellowships to professorships. The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates also will provide a number of departments with additional teaching assistantships, and the Great People campaign is a good platform for educating our donors about the need for graduate student aid.

I will suggest that the new vice chancellor for research and graduate education undertake a study of the sizes of our graduate programs in relation to faculty research needs, departmental and program teaching needs, the job market in various disciplines and sources of funding.

UW Foundation Presidential Search

As you know, the University of Wisconsin Foundation (UWF) is currently searching for a successor to Sandy Wilcox, UWF’s very successful current president. I consider this to be one of the most important appointments that will be made during my tenure as chancellor. I have been consulting with the search committee and will be fully involved in the process once the search firm (Spencer Stuart) has developed a list of prospects for review by the committee. The committee hopes to present a candidate for the UWF Board’s consideration by the end of the summer. I encourage you to nominate promising candidates. For the position description, visit http://www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu/home/employment/currentpositions/president /president.aspx.

Global Health and Sustainability

We have chosen as two interdisciplinary, university-wide initiatives areas of campus strength and societal need that also integrate research, education, policy and action — Global Health and Sustainability. In each case, we seek to help identify the full breadth of campus capabilities and bring them to bear on pivotal issues. The provost’s office is providing leadership, staff support and funding for these areas.

Jeannette Roberts, dean of the School of Pharmacy, and Jeremi Suri, professor of history, are co-chairing the Global Health Initiative. For Global Health, we anticipate an inclusive initiative that brings together the sciences, social sciences and the humanities to address what is one of the most challenging problems of the new century.

The Sustainability Initiative is co-sponsored by the provost and vice chancellor for administration and will ensure a fusion of academic and functional/administrative initiatives campuswide. Led by Gregg Mitman, interim director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and spearheaded by the institute, this initiative includes faculty, staff and students, and is focused not only on research and education, but also on having our campus serve as a laboratory for best practices. Initial subject-matter retreats for each initiative attracted hundreds of faculty and staff, and generated strong interest and enthusiasm. Both initiatives are open to participation, and we encourage you to get involved.

Diversity

Our efforts to diversify the faculty, staff and student bodies will be aided by the expectations we have set for the use of funds from the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates (MIU). Departments and programs will be held accountable for the proactive recruitment of underrepresented scholars and scientists, as well as for innovations in undergraduate curricula. Funding from the MIU will open up opportunities for students to study and find internships abroad. It will also help us establish exchanges that bring students from other countries to UW-Madison. Each student deserves the opportunity to study with peers from all over the world; we intend to create more of those opportunities.

In an effort to ensure that we are more actively recruiting a diverse student body, we have invested additional funding (from reallocations) to initiatives coordinated by the offices of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate, the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management, and the Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff.

The best students for UW-Madison represent the global marketplace. The Vice Provost for Enrollment Management is working with University Relations to create a new marketing plan for the university that specifically focuses on increasing numbers in each of the following populations: first-generation students, geographically diverse students (urban, rural, in- and out-of-state), economically disadvantaged (in particular, more Pell-eligible students), targeted ethnic minorities, international students, transfer students, Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields and Wisconsin high-achievers.

Building the new marketing and recruitment strategy will involve rethinking how the admissions office handles inquiries, how and when admission decisions are made and communicated, how financial aid plays into our success and how we maintain a close relationship with every applicant at every step of the process.

Our goal is not only to enroll a more diverse student body, but also to ensure that students from every background succeed once they are here. Working together, we can eliminate the achievement gap between majority and minority students –  a commitment we made to one another in our strategic plan and reaccreditation self-study.

Finally, after more than a year of consultation about how best to coordinate and enhance existing diversity programs, we are moving toward a new structure whereby the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate will assume responsibility for the oversight of several key programs that currently report elsewhere.

Faculty and Academic Staff Salaries

Faculty/staff compensation has been a high priority for the provost’s office this year. Under the leadership of Vice Provost Steve Stern, we have made a serious effort to identify, review, revise and use the tools at our disposal to adjust salaries in the absence of a faculty/staff pay plan. The purpose of the initiative was to develop a set of tools that allow frequent review and appropriate adjustments in compensation in response to retention and market pressures. At the same time, we have increased the amount added to faculty salaries at the time of promotion to associate professor and to full professor. We also added a periodic post-full professor review that can lead to salary increases. We would like to be able to do more, but, as you know, we are prohibited by the state from implementing salary increases that would appear “pay-plan-like” when no pay plan exists. I hope that a new understanding with the state will eventually allow us considerably more freedom when it comes to compensation practices.

Vice Provost Stern has also been working with Stephen Lund, director of the Academic Personnel Office, and academic staff on a set of initiatives that could give us tools to reward and enhance excellence, and to introduce clarity about job security among our academic staff. That work is ongoing; we will ensure that any developments are communicated to the community as a whole.

Collaboration with WAA and UWF

The university will be increasingly dependent on private funding. With that in mind, I charged a task force with considering how the university; its schools, colleges and departments; the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) and the University of Wisconsin Foundation (UWF) could be more closely coordinate and enhance our joint efforts to build our alumni and donor base. The task force met for several months and presented a set of recommendations at the end of the fall semester. They included the formation of a steering committee with representation from all three organizations charged with developing “an enterprise-wide approach to development and engagement”; charging a group with the task of recommending new technology platforms that would enable us to reach and communicate with our alumni, friends and donors; and developing a culture of giving among our current students. I expect to get recommendations from the members of three different committees by the end of the summer.

University Relations/Communications

Last year I established a new position, vice chancellor for university relations, and named Vince Sweeney to the position. This position is intended to coordinate the university’s messaging and relationship-building strategies across a broad range of audiences. That’s a tall task, but we are making progress. From a state-relations level, for example, I’m pleased to report that we’ve been in direct dialogue with the three major candidates for governor, and we have had ongoing conversations with Gov. Jim Doyle, legislative leadership and industry lobbyists — all in an effort to share our priorities and nurture those relationships. On the internal and external communications level, you’ll soon see a redesigned front page on our university’s website, with improved functionality and a new and exciting look that will better reflect the excitement and energy of this great university. On a daily basis, I continue to see the benefits of our efforts to articulate and communicate our priorities and goals more effectively and more consistently across a range of different audiences. We are approaching our relationships with a greater degree of intentionality and with more coherent messages.

Looking Forward

As you know, this summer the UW System Board of Regents will discuss our next biennial budget request. At the moment, the UW System is working to develop two initiatives — Educational Attainment and Research to Jobs — for which the regents are expected to ask for new funding. UW-Madison has submitted a report to UW System showing the means by which we could increase the number of graduates. We included an increase in transfer students, elimination of the achievement gap and overall decreases in time to graduation. We also estimated the number of new freshmen we could serve if, and only if, new funding existed to support the increased instructional costs as well as infrastructure. We made graduate student funding a central part of our report and proposal to UW System.

UW System also established a Competitive Workforce Commission to study compensation and make recommendations about the changes that they deem necessary. I was asked to speak to the commission and I gave a presentation several weeks ago, providing comparative data on UW-Madison faculty salaries and establishing the context in which I think that data should be viewed. I believe the commission, which is made up of business leaders and representatives from various campuses, will recommend strong measures to improve faculty and staff salaries in the UW System.

Given the budget deficit in the state of Wisconsin and the slow rate of recovery from the recession, I am not optimistic about increased funding for the UW System for this next biennium. In addition to the cost to continue, I believe a pay plan and graduate student funding should be at the top of our priority list. We will, of course, have time in the fall to discuss priorities and tactics. At the moment, we are considering inviting an outside consultant to study how we might effectively organize some of our administrative functions and services, and realize savings in the process. Should we pursue such a course of action, faculty, staff and students will be involved in the work and in any consideration of recommended changes. All of us should be thinking about how we can manage effectively in the face of ongoing budget challenges and possible cuts. What we have achieved over the past two years under significant budget pressures is remarkable. Though the outlook is beginning to brighten, I anticipate that we will face another two years of pressure.

Let me end with a few observations and a perspective on the longer term. Our trip to China this semester was gratifying for a number of reasons, among them the high regard in which UW-Madison is held there. In addition to historical reasons for the university’s reputation, the Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings of world universities, which place UW-Madison 17th in the world, also contribute to our high standing. The unique attributes of this university attracted attention in China, including not only the talent of our faculty, staff and students, but also our commitment to the Wisconsin Idea. As China considers its goals for higher education, its students, faculty and academic leaders displayed a great deal of interest in the notion that the university could be, at once, preeminent in the quality of its research and education, and also committed to partnerships with people and institutions outside the university dedicated to addressing the state’s, the nation’s and the world’s most vexing problems.

After two academic years as chancellor of this university, I have come to see UW-Madison as a uniquely open and engaged intellectual community. Our faculty, staff and students are deeply engaged with the larger public, fiercely devoted to “sifting and winnowing” and willing to work not only at the cutting edge, but at the heart of things. The larger community, which includes the city of Madison, the surrounding region, the state of Wisconsin and all of our alumni, is involved in the university to a remarkable degree. It is our responsibility to preserve the quality and uniqueness of this great institution and to enhance its impact.

That requires that we find the right economic model for the university — the right balance of quality and affordability. Over time, we will need to establish a new relationship with the state of Wisconsin, one that recognizes how reliant we are on revenues from the private sector, from the federal government and from tuition; one that would, therefore, allow us the flexibility to use our funds in more effective ways that make sense for us, for the larger UW System and for the state. A new compact with the state would provide greater freedom to manage our resources and clearer forms of accountability to the state.

I expect to spend a significant amount of time working with you, with business leaders, with political and government leaders, and with the general public to develop and promote such a compact. I believe the issue of increased flexibilities for the university will become a topic of discussion in the context of the gubernatorial election. It will be important that we be active, informed and thoughtful participants in that discussion. I look forward to working with you toward that end.

The spirit, energy and dedication of our faculty, staff and students make this university worthy of celebration. I celebrate all of you, and I hope you have a wonderful summer.

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.

We encourage S&W readers to become familiar with the “Smart Furlough Bill” and to post comments here.   In addition, those on the faculty should communicate their views on the resolution to their Faculty Senator(s).

The full text of the resolution is reproduced here:

RESOLUTION FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
REGARDING FURLOUGHS OF NON-STATE-FUNDED EMPLOYEES

Background

(1) Research programs at UW-Madison cover a wide range of fundamental and applied problems including energy-environmental challenges, national security concerns, and health issues facing our country and human society in general. For example, UW-Madison researchers are studying the H1N1 virus which poses a near-term threat of a deadly pandemic. Federal taxpayers have a right to expect a timely best effort from funded UW-Madison research teams.

(2) Furloughs of research personnel violate the spirit of more than a thousand Federal grants and contracts providing hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding. Research staff, faculty, and especially principal investigators committed to a best effort when these funds were accepted by UW-Madison. Furthermore, research funding is very competitive. Research funding decisions are based in part on the past performance of researchers.

(3) The University of California, in a state with worse budget problems than Wisconsin, exempted federally funded university employees from furloughs.

(4) Wisconsin state taxpayers will need to make up the lost revenue from income taxes that will not be collected due to furloughs of federally funded employees. This makes little sense in a time of economic distress.

(5) The Smart Furlough Bill proposed by Rep. Kelda Helen Roys would exempt from furloughs those positions (or portions thereof) that are not funded by state dollars.

Resolution

WHEREAS furloughs of federally funded university employees exacerbate the state budget problems through a reduction in state income tax revenue; and
WHEREAS furloughs of federally funded university employees unnecessarily harm the university’s research and service missions and damage the university’s reputation;
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate strongly supports the Smart Furlough Bill currently pending in the Wisconsin legislature.

Please click here for the complete article from the PROFS website.

Please comment either here or on the PROFS page, or both.

Every month we have to fill out and submit a form that lists the specific hours on specific days that we took “sick leave.”  The bureaucratic fiction behind this ritual is that faculty work 9-5 days and 40-hour weeks and that any day missed because of a cold is a day of productivity lost forever.

The reality, of course, is  that most of us continue to work on evenings and weekends when those in many other careers have punched out at 5pm and left their work behind to focus completely on their families, home responsibilities, and maybe even a little recreation.  Most of us faculty simply do what needs to be done to meet our teaching, research and service obligations, regardless of whether that means a 40- or  80-hour week.

Whatever days we’re taken out of action by illness will be made up sooner or later.  Lectures have to be rescheduled; exams and homework assignments have to be written and graded; papers have to be submitted by conference deadlines.  By the end of a typical academic year, the same stuff will have been done — has to be done — with or without any days off for illness in between.

The same is patently true for furlough days as well.  No one is actually taking those days off, even if we aren’t physically in our office.  This long Thanksgiving weekend, I have theses to read, journal papers to revise, and course notes to develop.  And sometime before Monday, I will do all three.

In short, the furlough is really nothing more than a pay cut for equal work, and everyone affected knows this.  Only the state bureaucrats can’t seem to come right out and say it, requiring us instead to go through the ridiculous and meaningless exercise of choosing the dates for our four flexible furlough days  this academic year (today, of course, is a non-flexible one).

We have been instructed not to schedule our personal furlough days in such a way that the University’s functions are actually impaired in any visible way.  Classes must still be taught.  Offices must still be open.  In other words, the same work must get done.

An unfortunate consequence of this policy is that we give credence to the corrosive myth that the faculty have so much idle time on their hands that they can all go fishing for 8 days in a calendar year and no one will miss them.  This myth plays right into the hands of those who are already predisposed to oppose increases in the University’s budget for faculty salaries and retention packages.   Those folks might say, “You faculty bums took off eight days last year and the University kept humming along without even a hiccup.  Say, why don’t you just go ahead and take eight unpaid days off every year?”

For all that, is there anything about the furlough we can be thankful for?   Todd Finkelmeyer of the Cap Times suggests that there is:  the extra day to spend with families that we might not otherwise have. And in that, he’s right.  Though, as I said, the day taken off now will just come out of future time off.   For University faculty, it’s a zero sum exercise.

But here’s what I am thankful for:  the furlough, for all its illogic, is still a temporary pay cut of about 3%.   By default, there will be no more furloughs in two years unless active steps are taken to impose them again.   By contrast, an actual salary cut, labeled honestly as such, would require active steps to reverse it in future years.   I’d much rather be in the first of these two positions.

But ultimately, what will matter for faculty morale (and,  therefore,  for both productivity and retention) is whether we have any hope of returning soon to a fiscal climate in which excellence in teaching and research is  rewarded in any meaningful way.   For readers who are new to this site, here is a piece from two years ago on that topic.   But keep in mind that that article was based on old information — part of the meager raise package referred to then was subsequently revoked.

What is the possible justification for this kind of compensation package? Is it based on results? If so, its implementation here has been a spectacular failure, given the state that we now find ourselves in. Demoralized faculty and staff, continually rising tuition, a deteriorating relationship with legislators, loads of support for biotech but scraps for everything else, spiralling numbers of and pay for administrators, falling support for graduate students, and on and on. And it’s not just the UW – this is happening all over the country, in tandem with these astronomical salaries for university chancellors and presidents.

I always read about these huge salaries and wonder what people do with the money. Our future chancellor will not need to pay for their housing, transportation, or insurance. So they’ll need the $322,000 (or even more) for… their wardrobe? Their art collection? Trips to Dejope? And now we’re being told that it’s not enough. Sorry, but I can’t buy it. We need someone who will take the job because they love the University and want to lead it out of this morass. I think we should actually lower the pay. I believe that there are honest, dedicated people out there who would take the job at or below its current rate, and do something about the fact that this once-great university is crumbling away before our very eyes.

(Read another take on this topic here.)

- MAM

Saving the University (so far) from a far more severe haemorrhage of talent is a surprisingly simple fact: Many of us still love the University of Wisconsin and the city of Madison enough to ignore the lure of higher pay.

Take me, for example. Seven years ago, I was fortunate enough to get an offer from UW-Madison after ten years on the faculty at another Big Ten university. I didn’t have to think twice. I jumped at the chance to move to Madison even though I knew that my net compensation would not change appreciably after allowing for the higher cost of living here.

Of course, I could not have anticipated that most of the next seven years would also bring miserly pay raises in the range of 1 to 2 percent. Had I simply stayed where I was, I would most likely be about 10% further ahead — a significant difference when facing kids’ college expenses. Nevertheless, I still don’t regret my decision to move here.

More to the point, since my hiring, I haven’t submitted a single application for another position. Why not? Well, because (a) I don’t intend to move, and (b) having served on many recruitment committees, I can’t bring myself to waste people’s time at another university in a bid to extract a grudging pay raise from my home institution.

So, from the State of Wisconsin’s perspective at least, where’s the problem? Plenty of folks like me are sticking around despite uncompetitive salaries simply because they like Madison. It makes perfect economic sense for lawmakers to capitalize on that loyalty by keeping pay raises as low as possible.

Or does it?

There’s a not-so-obvious toxic effect of chronically low pay raises that I think most commentators to date have missed: In addition to making our salaries less competitive relative to those offered elsewhere, small pay raises make our annual merit review exercises effectively meaningless. We are being saddled with one of the worst shortcomings of unionization without any of its compensating benefits.

It is not lost on anybody that, in a 2-percent year, the spread in pay hike between the least and most productive members of the department may amount to about that same 2 percent, or between $750 and $1500 in annual take home pay for the majority of academic staff and faculty. That is laughably small compensation for doing the considerable extra work needed to stay at the top of the merit scale in one’s department.

How many hours in extra labor and away from home and family does it take for a scientist to do the research and write the proposals needed to consistently bring in, say, half a million per year in federal research dollars, as compared with the colleague who brings in just enough to cover his/her summer salary? How many hours are spent after dinner reading theses by the faculty member who advises eight students, versus the one who advises only one or two? How many additional hours writing and submitting 5-6 research papers versus one or two?

When the two-percent year is an anomaly, it can be weathered and won’t have a lasting effect on a faculty or staff morale or work ethic. But when it becomes a chronic pattern, as it has been for the last several years, anyone with a modest grasp of the math starts to question his/her priorities. Why should I kill myself for a shot at a few hundred more dollars per year?

Indeed, any reasonably talented and energetic individual begins to uncover far more effective ways of increasing one’s net annual income with far less personal sacrifice. That same $1500 of extra take-home pay can be gotten by way of a mere 1-2 hours per month of outside consulting. Or by starting even the smallest of small businesses on the side. Or by self-publishing a low-level textbook that sells even 100 copies per year.

None of the above outside activities is dishonorable. But wouldn’t the citizens of Wisconsin prefer to see the state’s brightest minds rewarded, not penalized, for devoting those same extra hours to exemplary scholarship, research, and teaching?