Sifting and Winnowing

The Capital Times Campus Connection has just reported that David Ward will be named the interim chancellor.

The full story is here

.

Update:  WISC-TV has tweeted that the start date will be July 18.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education (June 19):
Its Leader Under Fire, UMass Flagship Has No Clear Route to Elite Status

Excerpt:

When chancellors appear to work back channels without buy-in from a system, they often undermine their own causes, says Aims C. McGuinness Jr., a senior analyst at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a nonprofit consulting group. He equated Mr. Holub’s medical-school move with recent efforts to gain autonomy by Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin, the departing chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was criticized by system officials when they learned of her quiet pursuit of a plan to break away from the system.

“That is exactly Biddy Martin behavior, going around the system, ignoring the need to work and play effectively with others,” Mr. McGuinness says. “Playing politics is prescription No. 1 for creating major governance problems,” and can mean the failure of a chancellorship or a presidency.

Between the new state budget, the end of collective bargaining rights for public workers, the implementation of painful new policies on fringe benefits, and the imminent departure of Chancellor Biddy Martin, the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds itself in the midst of a “perfect storm” of political, economic, and administrative challenges. As tempting as it might be to continue focusing exclusively on one’s own teaching, research, and/or support responsibilities and assume that the future of this great university is in good hands,  icebergs abound, and they demand our full attention and active participation. (more…)

At the American Law Institute Annual Meeting in San Francisco last Tuesday (May 17), the keynote speech was given by Mark G. Yudof,  President of the University of California.

In his speech, he addresses changing perceptions of the role of the University as a “public good” and the consequences of those changes for higher education.  Among his closing remarks, he says

…state governments should rededicate themselves to supporting these universities’ core functions, not least because core functions will probably never get enough from private sources. In so doing, state governments demonstrate a public commitment to, and understanding of, the universities’ societal value.

Here in Wisconsin, we have heard disappointingly little from our leaders in higher education and in government on “universities’ societal value.”   It is the opposite of  leadership to point helplessly at political and cultural trends and to argue for meek acceptance of “inevitable” cuts in State support.

Dr. Yudof’s entire speech may be viewed here (jump to minute 5:30 if you wish to skip the introduction by his host).

A DRAFT of his prepared remarks is reproduced below for reference (the actual speech differed in minor details but not in substance): (more…)

The General Agreement on Trades and Services (GATS) is considered among the crown achievements of the Uruguay Round of the negotiations and talks of the World Trade Organization, entered into force in January 1995. I am not expert in international trade, but to my understanding, GATS aims to bring the benefits of globalization to the service sector of our economy. For a quick overview, see http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/gatsqa_e.htm (more…)

Sifting and Winnowing has been sent the following press release, which we dutifully print in its entirety, though with uninvited annotations:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Jon Alfuth and Drew Lake – studentsfornbp@gmail.com

UW–Madison Students Come Together to Support the New Badger Partnership (more…)

A respected UW-Madison historian, Prof. William Cronon, has just published a thoughtful  op-ed piece in the New York Times regretting the loss of civility and clean government in Wisconsin.    A few days prior to that, he had posted an article on his private blog analyzing the role of a shadowy advocacy organization in setting the legislative agenda for Republican governors and legislators across the nation. (more…)

Charles Kendall Adams, born in my home town of what is now Newport, Vermont, and a European scholar, became President of the University of Wisconsin in 1892 and served in that position until 1901.

Like our current chancellor, Adams had an important leadership position (he was President) at Cornell before coming to Wisconsin.  Most of the documents related to his time at Wisconsin were lost in a fire at Bascom Hall.  A Wisconsin colleague wrote what he considered to be an inadequate biography of Adams (Charles Foster Smith, Charles Kendall Adams: A Life-Sketch, University of Wisconsin Press, 1925).  (more…)