Sifting and Winnowing

Late last night, someone signing as “Elmer Fudd” posted the following reply to this article:

This is just silly.

To anyone who has written and managed research grants at the UW in the past few years, it is clear that there need to be some serious changes. The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (RSP) is seriously overwhelmed, and the Graduate School is just not doing a very good job at crucial research proposal and grants management tasks.

All to often, there have been serious “close calls” of losing a grant, violating terms of grants & contracts, etc. And the burden of these missteps almost always falls on the faculty and staff who bring in research grants.

To those in the University Senate who are complaining about this: give me a break. This is a really good idea, and the only reason people are complaining is the typical knee-jerk reaction to change that always comes out of faculty governance.

Let the Chancellor do her job. Let the Provost do his. A new VP for Research would be tremendously helpful, and align the UW with our peer institutions — finally — in this critical area.

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It has just come to our attention that a resolution has been prepared for presentation at the next meeting of the Faculty Senate on November 2.  The reported wording of the resolution is as follows:

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For all of the passion that the current restructuring issue has been arousing recently (at least among those of us who are following it), we can be thankful that the overall environment at UW-Madison remains relatively congenial, mutually respectful, and universally dedicated to the goal of maintaining the best-possible research and educational programs even in the face of challenges both internal and external.   In order to preserve those qualities, it is essential that there never be a breach of trust and respect between the faculty, staff, and administration of the type that has  afflicted a few of our peer institutions.   In particular, we draw our readers’ attention to the following website, which superficially has a similar function to this one but which apparently emerged from a far more dysfunctional and distrustful environment:  the University of Arizona’s UA Defender.

It is our sincere belief and hope that wiser heads will always prevail at UW-Madison and that both the administration and the faculty and staff will always choose productive collaboration over destructive confrontation.

- the Editors

UW-Madison Provost Paul DeLuca, Jr., has proposed a restructuring of  the graduate school that would split its research function from graduate education. While the details of the proposed changes remain hazy (update: some details are now clarified in the video linked to below), it is clear  that the consequences could be far-reaching in terms of impact on both the research and graduate education missions of the University.  It is essential that faculty and staff pay close attention to this issue and exercise their right to weigh in on this decision under the established UW tradition of shared governance.

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