Archive for the ‘The UW-Madison Campus’ Category
Friday, May 20th, 2011
[The following article was provided to legislators this week by Dr. Harry Peterson. It is reproduced here with his permission. - Ed.]
I understand that there is no significant legislative support to break away the UW-Madison from the UW System and provide the UW-Madison its own governing board. I have been told that a “compromise” approach would provide a governing board for the UW-Madison and have that university remain in the UW System.
I do not know with whom such a “compromise” would be struck, but, this idea fails badly and is seriously flawed. (more…)
Posted in State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011
Act One of what appears to be a very long drama will soon be over. It began with the presentation of a Rorschach-like document, New Badger Partnership Plan, to which audience members, somewhat magically, were able to project whatever values, aspirations and ambitions- including pay increases- that they desired. Later, a new more ominous character, the Public Authority, entered the scene, played by the Governor with (or without depending on who is recounting the story) the collaboration of the Chancellor. This character had an inherent element of villainy and was less well-liked by many observers. (more…)
Posted in State-University Relations, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 3 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 »
Monday, May 9th, 2011
Some of the recent statements for support for NBP come from stars among our faculty. It is no secret that the major reason to seek more flexibility is to meet the challenges in keeping the stars from moving to greener pastures. The competitive compensation plans to stay in the market for stars puts an upward pressure on the salaries of stars, while simultaneously exerting a downward pressure on the salaries of others, particularly exacerbated when you bring in equity considerations.
Let us not forget that while excellence and scholarship among our stars is beyond question, there is large segment among us who are silently sifting and winnowing for truth outside the limelight, working on unpopular ideas. It is the freedom to pursue such efforts that our tenure is supposed to guarantee. (more…)
Posted in Compensation, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 3 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 »
Saturday, May 7th, 2011
Am I the only one who’s noticed how the twisted logical foundation of the campaign for public authority? If you press people, it goes like this:
The state is steadily defunding us and that’s simply inevitable, so the only thing we can do is accept even more draconian cuts in exchange for some modest leeway in managing our own resources. That’s the best we can do and we have to fight for it.
Smart, engaged people on campus are arguing vigorously and explicitly for just this position, if mostly only in the echo chamber of the campus. And the chancellor is spending most of her time and a ton of resources and staff time to push this, not to mention the help of the mysteriously-funded Badger Advocates. She and her staff are incessantly begging us to do the same. (more…)
Posted in College costs, Shared governance, State-University Relations, The University Budget, The University System, The UW-Madison Campus | 2 Comments »