Archive for the ‘Shared governance’ Category
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
Do UW employees need a representative organization in addition to the existing governance institutions? What would be the primary objectives of the organization? How would this organization evolve?
A group of faculty and staff met last Saturday afternoon to discuss these questions. The individuals represented a reasonable cross-section of academic staff and faculty (in length of service) and most of the employee organizations such as PROFS, UFAS and academic staff governance groups. The meeting was organized by Wisconsin University Union (WUU) for the purpose of assessing interest in a campus-wide organization and figuring out what that organization would do.
There was a unanimous opinion that an employee organization is needed. Many of the discussion participants were members/leaders of the staff and faculty governance organizations and spoke to the limitations of those organizations. Academic staff discussed the inability of the Academic Staff Assembly to address most of the major issues facing the staff e.g. layoffs, promotions, pay inequities. And noted the low level of participation and interaction with those they purport to represent. Faculty noted that the Senate failed to take a strong position on the Public Authority proposal until it was effectively dead. Given the structural ties between the Faculty Senate and PROFS, that organization is often hamstrung from positions that most members of PROFS endorse. (more…)
Posted in Collective bargaining, Compensation, Shared governance, State worker benefits | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 19th, 2011
Biddy is moving on. We have to move on.
Higher education is changing. We see this in how students approach learning, the infusion of technologies into our everyday work habits and the financial stresses on our organization. Biddy is a strong leader who is future focused, she recognizes that changes are needed and fights to make them happen. There is no question that our leadership and administration must be vigilant and continually examine whether changes should be made that would enhance our endeavors. But, running a university is a people business. You must take into account the people of the organization or risk becoming irrelevant. (more…)
Posted in Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
Biddy Martin has a great many admirers on the UW-Madison campus. This is no surprise, as her public persona is very appealing: she is exceptionally intelligent, articulate, diplomatic — all the qualities, in fact, cited in the Amherst press release announcing her hiring.
I was among those faculty who greeted with enthusiasm her arrival as our new chancellor in September 2008, a scant three years ago. And a bit like those for whom the Obama administration failed to live up to (possibly unrealistic) expectations, I am among the most disappointed today. (more…)
Posted in Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | 19 Comments »
Friday, May 13th, 2011
The latest issue of The Nation brings us the following article
Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education
In addition to the other issues raised, many of which have been well-covered, I find the following excerpt interesting:
As Gaye Tuchman explains in Wannabe U (2009), a case study in the sorrows of academic corporatization, deans, provosts and presidents are no longer professors who cycle through administrative duties and then return to teaching and research. Instead, they have become a separate stratum of managerial careerists, jumping from job to job and organization to organization like any other executive: isolated from the faculty and its values, loyal to an ethos of short-term expansion, and trading in the business blather of measurability, revenue streams, mission statements and the like. They do not have the long-term health of their institutions at heart. They want to pump up the stock price (i.e., U.S. News and World Report ranking) and move on to the next fat post.
Posted in Academic freedom, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 13th, 2011
As noted in a recent post, Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch asserts that Public Authority would bring “a free-market approach to the university system similar to that of a corporate business.”
Ideologically, Huebsch is (by his own admission) joined at the hip with Scott Walker, so we can safely take this as an authoritative statement of what the governor’s office really wants for UW-Madison.
The Public Authority may be legislatively dead (or at least on ice), but we would do well to keep Scott Walker’s ultimate objectives in mind as we contemplate any “gifts” offered to UW-Madison and/or the UW System by the GOP-controlled state government.
And we would do especially well to study the example of Texas, where the struggle for ideological control of two university systems is coming to a head, as described in an exceptionally disturbing report by the Chronicle of Higher Education (more…)
Posted in Academic freedom, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
Just when we’re fretting about the apparent dismantling of academic freedom and shared governance at Florida State and other universities as these institutions openly sell their curricula to wealthy corporate donors, Sara Goldrick-Rab over at Education Optimists tips us off to recent comments by Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch.
Here’s the key passage:
… Mike Huebsch says he and Gov. Scott Walker remain hopeful that the guv’s proposed split of UW-Madison from the rest of the university system will pass.
Speaking in Brookfield Wednesday at a gathering of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, he told the group it would bring a free-market approach to the university system similar to that of a corporate business. [emphasis added]
I now have two burning questions for Chancellor Biddy Martin, for our Faculty Senate, and for other prominent and enthusiastic supporters of the public authority plan:
- Do you have any plausible basis whatsoever for doubting Huebsch’s characterization of the public authority plan as regards the actual intentions of those who inserted it into the budget bill?
- Do you support this vision for UW-Madison?
If you answer “no” to both questions, then the most obvious interpretation is that your endorsement of Scott Walker’s public authority plan reflected a grave lapse in judgment and due diligence on your part.
I look forward to hearing the arguments for a more generous interpretation.
-GP
Posted in Academic freedom, Instruction, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 3 Comments »
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Cynics here in Badgerland have been cracking jokes for months that UW-Madison could become “Koch University” if and when some of Governor Walker’s policies take effect, including (some allege) the public authority status that is part of his budget bill.
But who knew that the first branch campus of Koch University already opened in Tallahassee, Florida, way back in 2008? Only now, in May 10th’s St. Petersburg Times, is the arrangement finally getting wider attention: (more…)
Posted in Academic freedom, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus | 14 Comments »
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
Daniel Bush, an alumnus of both UW-Madison and UW-Oshkosh, has written a guest editorial for today’s issue of the Wisconsin State Journal:
Vague argument, elitist attitude hurt UW-Madison autonomy plan
It seems unlikely that Mr. Bush reads Sifting and Winnowing, yet he concisely and eloquently raises many of the same concerns about both the goals of the NBP, and the process by which it is being sold, that have been voiced by a variety of contributors to this page and elsewhere (e.g., Education Optimists) over the past few weeks.
In his closing remarks, he appropriately takes NBP advocates/salespersons/lobbyists to task for both their politically tone-deaf elitism and their failure to promote a healthier and more balanced discussion of UW-Madison’s options: (more…)
Posted in Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 21 Comments »
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
One of the cornerstones of the public authority proposal that Chancellor Biddy Martin has been pushing with all her might (in contrast to, say, her non-existent campaign for greater public support of the university) is the assumption that we would be able to count on greater donor contributions to patch holes in the budget.
This Bloomberg article documents how that model has worked out for other universities, and it’s not a pretty picture:
Schools Find Ayn Rand Can’t Be Shrugged as Donors Build Courses
If you support the public authority and believe that private donations will be an important source of new revenue, please explain to the rest of us how we will avoid the same fate. Or at least explain why we should embrace that fate.
Either way, it’s past time for more honesty, more facts, more figures, less wishful thinking, and fewer empty platitudes.
- GP
Posted in College costs, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 3 Comments »