(1)  A new group will lobby on behalf of UW-Madison in an effort to persuade state legislators to support splitting us from the University of Wisconsin System.  The group includes Pat Richter, former UW student-athlete and athletic director and also a legendary NFL player.

(2)  The major capital project at UW in the upcoming budget is an athletic training center with additional space for computing needs of the College of Engineering and funds to renovate or remodel elsewhere in the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics complex.  This project has been branded the “Badger Performance Center”.  When I first heard about the Center, I assumed that the approval was for the UW School of Music Performance Center, for which fund raising is well along and an architectural firm has been named. Everyone whom I have asked what the Performance Center might be has made the same mistake that I did.

(3)  The other major capital project at UW in the upcoming budget is a new building for the School of Nursing.  This project was recommended for disapproval by the Building Commision but there was an overnight change of heart in between release of the recommendations and the final vote.  The change was reported as being due to the willingness of UW to pay for a larger share of the cost with gift funds.  Some of the funds will be from the $5 admissions fee to the upcoming football game that marks the end of team’s spring practice. Such support is undoubtedly significant symbolically.  Dean of the School of Nursing Katharyn May is quoted as saying, “I do not have to have all of the private funding in hand before we break ground…[and] it is necessary that the state come to the table with the state match. Nurses do not grow up to become wealthy people, by and large, so we are relying on powerful people like [former football] coach and [current athletic director Barry] Alverez to help us get the word out.”

(4) Sections of the draft budget concerning UW contain passages that single out the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics and the football program in ways that are difficult to put into context:

(p. 507)

SECTION 1008. 36.44 (2) of the statutes is renumbered 37.44 (2) and amended to read:  37.44 (2) Notwithstanding sub. (1), the board shall use the fees collected unders. 341.14 (6r) (b) 4. for the University of Wisconsin-Madison university’s scholarship program to provide funds for the University of Wisconsin?Madison university’s division of intercollegiate athletics. When the board determines that the division’s deficit has been eliminated, the board shall use such fees as provided under sub. (1).  [where on p. 562]

37.44 License plate scholarship program. (1) The board shall establish a scholarship program funded by the fees collected under s. 341.14 (6r) (b) 4. for the university. The scholarships shall be awarded by the chancellor according to criteria developed by the chancellor.

(p. 533)

(15m) FOOTBALL COACHES PENSION PLAN. The board may deduct contributions from the salaries of football coaches employed in the university who are eligible and wish to participate in the qualified pension plan for football coaches established as the American football coaches retirement trust, and remit the deductions to the administrator of that plan, if the American football coaches retirement trust or the administrator or agent of the plan indemnifies the board and its employees against, and holds the board and its employees harmless from, all claims and demands associated with the plan.

(pp. 382-3)

(kd) Principal repayment, interest, and rebates. From the revenues credited under par. (g), a sum sufficient to reimburse s. 20.866 (1) (u) for the payment of principal and interest costs incurred in financing the acquisition, construction, development, enlargement, or improvement of self?amortizing university facilities, to make the payments determined by the building commission under s. 13.488 (1) (m) that are attributable to the proceeds of obligations incurred in financing such facilities, and to make payments under an agreement or ancillary arrangement entered into under s. 18.06 (8) (a). For projects authorized by the building commission before July 1, 1998, annually an amount equal to 20% of the principal and interest costs for maintenance of university intercollegiate athletic facilities shall be paid from the appropriation under this paragraph. For projects authorized by the building commission on or after July 1, 1998, but before July 1, 2001, annually an amount equal to 30% of the principal and interest costs for maintenance of university intercollegiate athletic facilities shall be paid from the appropriation under this paragraph. For projects authorized by the building commission on or after July 1, 2001, annually an amount equal to 40% of the principal and interest costs for maintenance of university intercollegiate athletic facilities shall be paid from the appropriation under this paragraph.

We all appreciate how UW is enriched by our talented and dedicated student-athletes.  Many universities have winning teams and mediocre academics.  We strive to be strong academically while allowing our student-athletes to perform, safely, to the best of their capabilities.  We must avoid athletics becoming the “tail that wags the dog” because the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics is UW’s most visible and publicity-savvy unit and behind its most effective lobbying efforts.

Deane Mosher
Professor, Biomolecular Chemistry and Medicine
School of Medicine and Public Health

Never in my life have I witnessed such a vast beehive of cranes, cement trucks, earth moving equipment, and, of course,  thousands of construction workers, all swarming over vast tracts of excavated urban real estate and dozens of steel building frames in various stages of completion. In one massive effort,  21st century architectural wonders were springing up everywhere to evict, once and for all, the lingering ghosts of 1945.

Yesterday, I walked once again (as I do almost daily) through another construction zone that never fails to remind me of Potsdamer Platz, albeit on a much smaller scale: the UW-Madison campus. And on that occasion the same questions occurred to me that always do:

• Where, in this time of fiscal stress for the University, did all the money for this construction come from?
• And more importantly perhaps, how much will the new construction continue to cost the University after it’s all built?

I realized that I had never consciously run across any document, official or otherwise, that directly addressed these questions, especially the latter one.   I surmised that if I had these questions, lots of other campus citizens might too, especially students facing tuition hikes and faculty and staff experiencing pay rescissions and mandatory furloughs (that’s pretty much everyone, isn’t it?).

So I did some digging and found the following:

First:  In case you never manage to get out of your own particular corner of campus and therefore can’t appreciate the full scale of what’s going on, here’s a birds-eye overview of ongoing major construction projects.  Swing by each of the listed sites sometime and persuade yourself that these are not mere renovations of existing buildings.

And from this quarterly report from Facilities Planning & Management, we learn that

“The University of Wisconsin – Madison currently has approximately $1.5 billion worth of capital projects at various phases of planning, design, and construction. Since 2005, 39 major projects at a total cost of $738 million have been completed. Currently, 5 major projects budgeted at $44 million total are in planning, 17 major projects budgeted at $624 million total are in design, 30 major projects budgeted at $822 million total are in construction, and 10 major projects budgeted at $253 million total are enumerated in the campus six year plan.”

Folks, that is real money.

As to where all this money comes from, we get a partial picture from this September 2009 article from UW-Madison News and this May 2009 article from Wisconsin State Journal.   In the latter, for example, we learn that “[b]oth the Chazen and Education projects are fully funded by gifts, while the biochemistry building will get about half of its funding — roughly $50 million — through gifts.”

Not discussed in any document I could find (in an admittedly cursory search) is the question of recurring costs associated with new building space:

For every new office or lab space, for every new square foot of floor space, the University presumably must have plans to staff those spaces and to provide janitorial and maintenance support.  As far as I know, private donations for new construction rarely include provisions for those expenses.

So who is hiring the new people and paying for the maintenance resources that all these new buildings presumably imply, and what will be the impact, if any, on future University budgets?

A related question:  Is it always in the University’s best (fiscal) interest to accept private donations for new construction, or are there situations in which accepting a multi-million dollar building donation might actually mean a net negative for the University’s bottom line?

If any reader has information relevant to any of the above questions, please use the “reply” space below to educate the rest of us.

View of the construction site of the Union South and the new Discovery Center (May 2009).