Archive for the ‘The UW-Madison Campus’ Category

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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 »

Update: Motion to the Faculty Senate to Restructure the Research Enterprise

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Since our previous posting on the subject of the pending motion before the Faculty Senate, a revised motion has been released by the University Committee.  The new version was disseminated via email by the chair of the University Committee, Prof. Bill Tracy.  The following links contain

As before, we urge campus faculty and staff to carefully study all aspects of the motion and to post comments here prior to the Monday (May 3d) meeting of the Faculty Senate.

Posted in Graduate School, Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | 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 »

Motion to the Faculty Senate to Restructure the Research Enterprise

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

The following motion was presented at the April 12 Faculty Senate meeting concerning the proposed restructuring of UW-Madison’s research enterprise. It is reproduced here to encourage comments and discussion by the UW-Madison community prior to a vote at the next meeting of the Faculty Senate.

(more…)

Posted in Graduate School, Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | No Comments »

The other shoe drops: UC Ad Hoc Committee report on the research enterprise.

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

As reported here and elsewhere,  the Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) Ad Hoc Committee on the Research Enterprise already released its report back on January 22.

We had been waiting with bated breath for the counterpart committee appointed by the faculty’s University Committee (UC) to release its own findings on the same issue.  This report was originally due by the end of 2009, but this deadline could not be met.

The following message has just now  (2:50 pm today) been broadcast by the University Committee: (more…)

Posted in Graduate School, Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | 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 »

Press coverage of the restructuring controversy

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

(Last updated Feb. 2, 2010)

Links to all relevant articles in the press, including some recent national coverage, are collected here in chronological order for the convenience of readers.

(more…)

Posted in Graduate School, Restructuring proposal, The UW-Madison Campus | 3 Comments »

The Chronicle mentions ASEC report on restructuring – and a reader replies.

Monday, January 25th, 2010

The Chronicle of Higher Education made brief mention of the Capital Times article on the report from the Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) Ad Hoc committee on the Research Enterprise.  (Unfortunately, the Chronicle misattributed the report to the faculty, which has not yet issued its report on the same subject.)

Of greater interest than the Chronicle posting itself is one reader’s response, a short excerpt of which follows:

The real story here is not the restructuring of research supporting systems but the broader issue of disintegrating research administration infrastructures at Wisconsin, and indeed across the United States. Offices that manage sponsored programs (grants, contracts, research fellowships, etc.) universally have had flat budgets for the past decade, and yet this period saw an unprecedented growth in research funding (e.g., doubling of NIH grants) as well as a torrent of new regulatory requirements governing all aspects of research (electronic submission of proposals, research subjects, animal care, conflict of interest, export controls, accounting, reporting, auditing, technology transfer, etc.).

(continue reading comments)

From our vantage point at S&W at least, this is indeed a new perspective on the restructuring issue.   We hope more  readers will weigh in.

Posted in Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The UW-Madison Campus, The University Budget | No Comments »

The Academic Staff report on Graduate School restructuring

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

The first shoe has dropped.   The Academic  Staff Ad Hoc Committee on the Research Enterprise has returned its white paper.   Their charge was “[t]o assess whether the present UW-Madison Research Enterprise structure is capable of addressing current and future issues, or whether an alternative organizational structure such as that proposed by the Chancellor and the Provost is needed.”

Their unambiguous conclusions:  “yes” to the first question, and “no” to the second. (more…)

Posted in Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus | No Comments »

Encouraging signs concerning the Graduate School restructuring process

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Many of us have been waiting with bated breath for (a) the reports of the faculty and academic staff ad hoc committees on Provost Paul DeLuca’s proposal to divest the Graduate School of research functions, and (b) the administration’s response to those reports.

The reports were originally due at the end of last month.  The Badger Herald now reports that the due dates have been pushed back to January 21 in the case of the ASEC report and to the end of the month for the University Committee report. (more…)

Posted in Graduate School, Restructuring proposal, Shared governance, The UW-Madison Campus, Uncategorized | No Comments »

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