Introduction

The Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) has spent the recent weeks reviewing the Preliminary Recommendations of the HR Design Phase I work groups. For the purpose of this review, we primarily concentrated on issues that would affect academic staff but also commented on other issues that we found in the documents. Before we go into individual work team recommendations, we have some overarching comments. These concern the lack of data upon which recommendations were based, the considerable investment of money and other resources that implementation of the recommendations would take, and the effects of the recommendations on academic staff.

First, many of the reports do not include data upon which the teams’ recommendations were based. While data will likely play a larger role as we begin to decide on the details, even at this stage we were often wondering what data drove many of the conclusions and resulting recommendations. For instance, how did the Benefits Team decide on the number of hours of vacation they recommend for new employees? Did the Employee Categories Team identify the types of employee categories at our peer institutions? Why did the Titling Team suggest that only four promotional levels would be sufficient? How many waivers of open recruitment are granted each year? Data that supports or lends a historical background to these recommendations would be very useful. Such data would help audiences understand the recommendations that have been proposed, which in turn would help us better evaluate the rationale or justification for those recommendations. Finally, such data also would help the university evaluate the effects of implementing the current recommendations.

When looking at the report recommendations in total, it is clear that implementing these recommendations would take an extremely large resource investment by the UW-Madison. This investment must take the form of additional personnel in human resources offices as well as other new resources to support these offices. Furthermore, several of the changes will need oversight by various governance groups, including ASEC and others. In order for many of the recommendations to succeed, they have to be fully implemented with fully staffed offices to handle the additional workload. For instance, if we want to have a market-based salary system, then we need a fully staffed and supported office to create and maintain the market data for both classified and academic staff as currently defined. Without this, only those titles with easy comparables through CUPA or other resources will have market-driven salaries, while the rest would be left out.

ASEC is extremely concerned about the sacrifices that academic staff are being asked to make, as compared to other employee groups, in these recommendations. If fully implemented, the proposed recommendations would provide new academic staff with a smaller compensation package than new academic staff receive today. Current academic staff will lose out as well: they will be adversely affected by less vacation carry-over and a diluted voice in governance. While there are certainly items that will benefit academic staff, such as the ability to bank vacation earlier and a slight increase in sick leave, the overall package does not give as much to academic staff (both current and future) as it asks them to give up. In an era when academic staff have been waiting for more than four years to receive any type of raise, and when annual incomes for academic staff continue to decline, ASEC believes that it is unfair to ask academic staff to give up much more of what they are currently earning. On balance, this set of recommendations is asking for just that.

Last but not least, many of the reports reference the so-called “caste” system on campus. ASEC is concerned about this choice of words, which appears to have been made without regard for the cultural meaning of the term “caste,” which refers to structural inequalities and a system in which people are born into a certain level from which they cannot move. We suggest the use of another, more appropriate term to describe the UW-Madison climate, such as “classism” or “behavioral hierarchy.” ASEC recognizes that serious climate issues exist on this campus in this regard, and that these issues daily affect how people feel about their jobs and about the UW. We do not seek to minimize the impact of these behaviors and attitudes. However, we do urge the work teams to use other words to describe this aspect of climate and perhaps even to review ways that their proposals can address these underlying class-related climate issues.

In addition to the comments we have offered each work team below, you are welcome to browse the Academic Staff Assembly listserv (https://lists.wisc.edu/read/?forum=assembly) where there has been much discussion about some of these issues.

Benefits

1. Benefits are part of a compensation package. The recommendations put forth by the Benefits Team will reduce total compensation, which includes salary/wages and benefits. All full-time, 12-month employees should start with 212 hours (176 vacation hours + 36 hours of personal holiday), and vacation amounts should be amplified from this point. The current proposal creates negative equity for all employees.
2. Our benefit package is a recruitment tool, particularly in difficult times; sometimes benefits speak more to potential hires, and even to continuing employees, than money. ASEC would like to see the data upon which the Benefits Team based its recommendations that reduce the benefit package for many new and continuing employees. It should be noted that newly employed academic staff will lose nearly 52 hours of vacation/personal time under this proposal. Children attending MMSD have 16 days of vacation that do not coincide with the UW’s current holiday schedule, which means a single parent would have four days of vacation left (after caring for her/his child when local schools are not in session).
3. Please provide more explanation of the following:
   • Regarding the phrase “end the ability to ‘cash out’ vacation,” it is not clear to whom this would apply. Is this for classified or unclassified staff, and what are the financial implications?
   • Why is the team recommending changing the basis for unclassified staff leave
     reporting from two-hour increments to 60-minute increments? The ramifications, both positive and negative, of recommending a change in the current policy are unclear. Given that the change from hourly reporting to the current structure occurred just a few years ago, why is the team recommending the UW change back?
   • Why has a cap on banking leave been recommended? Such caps penalize employees for doing their work—work obligations do not always allow people to use their allotted vacation time, and one should not lose out on benefits for being a conscientious employee or for working in a role that severely constrains the use of vacation time. In addition, the current lack of a cap allows employees to have flexibility for dealing with life events such as birth/adoption, health issues, and family care.
4. Academic staff are strongly in favor of tuition benefits for employees and dependents as well as paid parental leave, and we would like to see tuition benefits and parental leave addressed in the final draft. Sabbatical leave also needs to be addressed for academic staff. Many academic staff positions require the same level of renewal as that needed by faculty to reflect the current knowledge in their work.

Compensation

1. ASEC recommends that a board/committee appointed by governance and comprised of academic staff, faculty, and other stakeholders be created to advise campus leadership regarding policies of the proposed compensation analysis office. While ASEC understands that market factors may weigh similar jobs in different disciplines differently (i.e., arts vs. sciences), ASEC recommends that a reasonable basement rate be established that may differ from the market for that particular job.
2. The report is unclear regarding which markets could or would be considered in a market-based compensation structure. These markets need to be carefully defined. ASEC recommends that campus have a discussion regarding how much this market would include private sector employment as compared to other institutions of higher education.
3. A correction is required on page 13 regarding Compensation Drivers listed under Time Limited Pay Adjustments: Current federal law prohibits giving a pay adjustment for “winning an extramural grant.”
4. A correction is required on page 10 in the seventh bullet: By current state statute, academic staff and faculty are prevented from being compensated based upon performance.
5. Years of experience with satisfactory or better performance should be taken into consideration for compensation.

Competencies

The Competencies Team’s recommendations are generally creative and represent an approach that seems to be mindful of a variety of considerations, including attracting and retaining the best possible staff, academic and classified. However, there are significant issues with the report, including some basic, foundational information, such as definitions. On page two of its draft report, the team defines competencies as the following:

Competencies are identified knowledge, skills, abilities, and mindsets, evaluated through demonstrated behaviors, which directly and positively contribute to the success of the organization and to the success of employees in their job role, position, and function.

• Knowledge: what you are aware of; information known within a content area typically from facts or experience
• Skills: the how-to’s of a role; doing physical or mental tasks; capabilities that can be transferred from one person to another
• Ability: being able to or having the potential to perform; sometimes used interchangeably with talent
• Mindset: attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc. that are demonstrated in behavior

ASEC has identified the following issues with this definition:

1. Postsecondary education is neither a consideration nor is it even explicitly stated as a foundation for any of the competencies required to do one’s job at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Even the definition of “knowledge” does not seem to allow for the fact that a postsecondary education may have provided a person with at least some of the knowledge and skills needed to do a job at UW–Madison.
2. Related to this, there are no references to certifications, credentials and/or degrees that are required of many UW–Madison employees. Should competencies be used as a complement to other achievements of the best-qualified staff (e.g., degrees, certifications and credentials)?
3. The use of the term “mindsets” is problematic in that an employer in general can only require certain behaviors of its employees and cannot require employees to have particular “attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc.” that may affect those behaviors. ASEC is concerned that use of this term could lead to hiring and retaining only those who are “like us” (“us” being the hiring and evaluative authorities), thereby potentially reducing campus diversity and reinforcing power and privilege structures/systems. We also are concerned that this competency could lead to inappropriate questions during the interview process.
4. In general, ASEC found the definition of “competencies” to be rather vague and is concerned the lack of widespread and consistent understanding of competencies may therefore lead to different applications among different groups of university employees. Information on the source of the design team’s definitions would be useful to campus understanding.
5. A competencies-based approach to all stages of the employee life cycle is a laudable goal, but the report does not indicate where this should begin or what a logical set of steps is for getting to this goal. ASEC suggests beginning with annual performance assessments for all faculty and staff that incorporate “core competencies that reflect the mission, vision, and values of the UW–Madison and which apply to all employees.”
6. The report uses the word “employees,” but it is unclear whether this includes faculty as well. The report should be more explicit about the inclusion of faculty in its recommendations.

Diverse Workforce

1. Include a specific recommendation—either on its own or stated more prominently within the text of Recommendation #4—that resources and staff be dedicated to the assessment of diversity and climate efforts. The report alludes to this but does not make it prominent. Millions of dollars are spent on diversity efforts on this campus but, as the team’s report indicates, little evidence is gathered as to their effectiveness. We would add that efforts to implement assessment are often met with resistance and viewed as threats to diversity initiatives rather than attempts at improvement. A true focus on assessment is needed to inform the most efficient use of resources in enhancing the diversity of UW’s workforce. This recommendation could refer to the examples of the different types of data that need to be collected (already listed under Open Questions on p.13).
2. Consider whether to recommend improvements in the coordination of all campus units listed on p.4. While efforts have been made to consolidate these units under the umbrella of one division, decentralization still is identified as a problem in achieving diversity goals. An examination of ways to enhance the coordination of all units, whether under or outside of the divisional umbrella, is a potential solution.
3. Specify whether the team recommends that climate training be mandatory for employees and supervisors or just available (see p.9).
4. Be more specific as to what constitutes “accountability.” It is unclear whether the team views accountability as the use of actual goals and metrics, the documentation of success and progress, or some other set of measures. Without clarification as to how efforts will be measured, the mention of “sanctions” and “negative consequences in terms of compensation” for unit leaders who fail to promote a good campus climate are difficult to interpret.
5. Regarding the team’s definition of diversity:
   • ASEC recommends replacing “psychosocial” with “cognitive.” It is our understanding that the inclusion of “psychosocial” is intended to reflect the need for intellectual diversity on our campus; however, “cognitive” diversity more accurately describes this need and leaves less room for falling into the trap of hiring “those who think like us.”
   • Appendix 1: “Elements of Diversity” is an admirable, comprehensive effort. We ask the team to also reference and consider adding elements discussed in the Provost’s Office document entitled “Faculty Diversity and Excellence: A Compelling University Interest” [PDF], as it represents a foundation for defining diversity on campus.

Employee Categories

Executive Summary

ASEC has a wide variety of detailed comments and suggestions for this work team (see Detailed Summary). ASEC’s primary response, however, is to strongly recommend that the work team abandon their initial primary recommendation of “Collapsing all Classified staff into a single large category of Academic Staff” in favor of advocating a modified Alternative #1 (as referenced in HR Design DRAFT Recommendations). ASEC would support Alternative #1 as presented in the draft if the following six conditions were met:

1. Consult with current classified staff regarding a new name for their group.
2. Current classified staff with exempt status must be consulted and provided the choice of joining the academic staff or remaining within the newly defined classified staff category.
3. Ensure that members of the current classified staff employee category are eventually provided statutory governance rights equal to those currently extended to faculty, academic staff, and students at the university. While statutory rights should be the final goal, change of statute is not a necessary precondition for such rights to be extended; it could be accomplished by changing institutional policy and practice.
4. Should full collective bargaining rights be restored in Wisconsin, ensure that all employees, whether academic or former classified staff, have the option of union or governance representation in matters related to personnel policies and procedures— but not both.
5. Use suggestions from the Titling, Compensation and Benefits teams to address current inequities and barriers to advancement.
6. Make a documented effort to obtain, analyze, and assess data that would predict the likely intended and unintended consequences of structural changes in employee categories at the university.

Detailed Summary

Following a thorough review and consultation with a range of individuals and governance groups on campus, ASEC concluded that it cannot support the primary recommendation from the Employee Categories Team to combine all current classified staff and academic staff into a single, large category of “academic staff.” Rather than providing a point-by-point response to the draft recommendation and overall report, ASEC determined the best course of action is to forward support for an alternate recommendation—either for a modest restructuring of the university’s current employee category structure or for no change in the employee category structure at all. It is likely that a number of the concerns and workplace/climate issues raised in the report could actually be addressed outside of any need to modify the employee category structure at the institution. The bullet points below briefly review ASEC’s major concerns with the team’s initial recommendation and outline those specific modifications we believe would create a more data-driven employee categories recommendation that most campus parties could support.

Our primary objection to the Employee Categories Team’s draft report can be summarized as a concern about the lack of empirical evidence (data) for the existence, scope, or strength of campus support for the “issues” it presents and a similar lack of evidence for how the recommendation (a major structural change to the employee categories at the institution) would solve or ameliorate those issues. A concerted and systematic effort should be made to obtain, analyze, and assess data that could predict both the intended and potentially unintended consequences of any structural changes in employee classification at the university, including the alternative recommendation proposed below. Other concerns with this proposal are as follows:

• ASEC is greatly concerned with the implication of the report’s proposed recommendation, that currently represented classified staff would lose, without consultation and without consent, their collective bargaining rights. Academic staff currently do not have collective bargaining rights, and state law would have to be changed for academic staff to get these rights. While the collective bargaining rights of classified staff have been curtailed by current state law, those rights still exist and, in fact, courts have recently ruled against the parts of that law that require annual recertification and prohibit employers from withholding union dues from paychecks. ASEC members also worry that the Employee Categories Team underplayed or perhaps did not consider what we believe to be potential major political and cultural consequences of their recommendation; that is, the political, media, and public good- will ramifications of even appearing to further disempower or alienate current represented classified staff by effectively removing their future ability to collectively bargain.
• In 2010 some unions initiated efforts of unit clarification for an array of academic staff positions throughout the UW System. (This means that those academic staff could have been put into a union without their having had the opportunity to vote on union representation.) Due to this history, ASEC is concerned that, should current classified staff and academic staff be fully merged and state law to be changed in the future to give academic staff collective bargaining rights, the labor unions could once again initiate calls for unit clarification, and academic staff could be put into a labor union without their consultation and without their consent. Furthermore, ASEC is concerned that creating one employee category could lead to a single bargaining unit created for all academic staff, leading to the possibility of current academic staff becoming unionized even though there has historically been little interest in this. These concerns are not unfounded given the recent unit clarification effort noted above by some unions. Until better evidence becomes available and is presented, and given the acknowledged and unknown issues almost certainly entailed by the current draft recommendation, ASEC strongly urges that the primary Employee Categories Team draft recommendation be withdrawn. While a close reading of the current report might suggest the best course was to “change nothing,” ASEC believes that the report already contains the outline of a middle course.

ASEC Alternative Recommendation

Given the concerns and issues outlined above, ASEC proposes an alternative employee categories recommendation. This recommendation builds upon “Alternative #1,” which, as described in the Employee Categories Team’s report, would maintain the academic staff as currently configured and bring into the academic staff category those classified staff at the institution who are currently exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

ASEC recommends that classified staff who are currently non-exempt could form a new employee category. Current classified staff should decide on the name for this new employee category. Current exempt classified staff must be consulted and provided the choice of joining the academic staff (and losing collective bargaining rights) or remaining within the former classified staff category. Members of the former classified staff employee category must be provided statutory governance rights equal to those currently extended to faculty, academic staff, and students at the university. Change of statute is not a necessary precondition for such rights to be extended prior to statutory change, it could be done directly by changing institutional policy and practice. Should full collective bargaining rights be restored in the state, former classified and academic staff would be given the choice of either governance or union/collective bargaining representation and voice (not both), thereby ensuring that all employees (whether academic or former classified staff) have the option of union/collective bargaining or governance representation.

ASEC believes the Alternative #1 Employee Category recommendation would

• Provide maximum flexibility for employees should collective bargaining be restored in the future;
• Allow for extension of governance rights to all employees at the institution;
• Minimize the impact on and disruption of current academic staff governance practices, policies, and procedures (which are highly functional and effective and are the result of decades of effort, thought, rigorous debate, and careful consideration);
• Ensure that all employees at the institution are provided voice through either governance processes or collective bargaining (should collective bargaining be restored to fuller form in the future);
• Reduce class distinctions among employee groups by ensuring governance rights are extended to all employees and that governance bodies reflect the nature of the work, the nature of the work experience, and workplace challenges/issues for the staff members represented by their respective governance bodies;
• Allow use of suggestions from the Titling, Compensation, Benefits, and Performance Management Teams to address current inequities and barriers to advancement; and
• Ensure that a concerted and systematic effort would be made to obtain, analyze, and assess data that would predict both the intended and potentially unintended consequences of any structural changes in employee categorization at the university, including but not limited to the alternative recommendation proposed here.

ASEC would be glad to meet with university administrators, HR Design Work Teams and staff, and the Employee Categories Team leadership to share and discuss their review of this draft recommendation if desired. ASEC encourages the HR Design Project leadership and Employee Categories Team to obtain and utilize data from the institution to provide support and justification for any subsequent employee categories recommendations that may be made, including the one we have proposed.

Recruitment and Assessment

1. An online application system is a great tool for the majority of our applicants. However, there are still significant numbers of people who may not have easy access to the Internet. We must provide alternatives for those without this access.
2. Recruitment represents the primary way to increase employee diversity on campus, but diversity did not appear to be seriously addressed in this report. UW–Madison needs to take steps to ensure we make every attempt to find, hire, and retain candidates who bring a range of experiences and identities to the university community. There are many ways to work towards increasing our diversity. For example, PVLs should be carefully crafted to include elements such as “demonstrated experience working with diverse groups of people” or “demonstrated capacity to work with people from a variety of countries and cultures.”
3. ASEC recommends mandatory training for all members of hiring committees. This would include guidance on asking appropriate interview questions, steering away from our internal biases, etc. For instance, Dean Gary Sandefur requires that those serving on interview committees in the College of Letters and Science attend WISELI training for search committees.
4. While ASEC is not opposed to all internal hiring and recruitment, we do believe that it should be used sparingly and only in specific instances. The following areas need careful consideration because of their possible impact on our community:
   • Diversity: As a historically white-dominated campus, the internal hire option promotes hiring from within an organization that will not increase the diversity of our staff.
   • Other institutional models: The MATC model and other institutional models should be examined to determine how this practice impacts their community and whether there are lessons that UW–Madison can learn from their internal hiring experiences.
   • Cronyism: Often, internal recruiting supports hiring one’s friends instead of hiring the best candidates.
   • Eligibility: The report states that those who were terminated or whose position was eliminated are eligible for an internal hire for one year. Employees who were terminated for performance issues and employees who do not pass their probation should not be considered for internal hire. Only employees whose position was eliminated due to budgetary constraints or program redirection and not for performance issues should be considered for internal hire.
   • University service: University service of not less than three to five years should be an eligibility requirement for internal recruiting. Internal hiring should be used for employees with a track record of at least acceptable or at best excellent performance reviews.
5. In regard to references to “competencies,” the use of the term “mindsets” is problematic in that an employer in general can only require certain behaviors of its employees and cannot require employees to have particular “attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, etc.” that may affect those behaviors. The use of “mindsets” in a competency-based system could also lead to hiring and retaining only those who are “like us” (“us” being the hiring and evaluative authorities), thereby potentially reducing campus diversity and reinforcing power and privilege structures/systems at the institution. We also are concerned that the use of the mindset as a competency could lead to inappropriate questions during the interview process.
6. For direct hiring (page 7), “Other” is listed as an eligibility category. This should be more clearly defined or, more likely, eliminated. Additional legitimate exceptions can be added in the future should the need arise. In addition, the category of rehired annuitants should be annotated to conform with the current rehired annuitant policy.
7. While the recruitment recommendations are extremely fleshed out and detailed, the assessment recommendations are less so. ASEC would like to see more details in the assessment piece.

Titling

1. ASEC supports the recommendation that the university undertake a job classification study structured around functional areas (“job families”), and ASEC stresses that many of the acknowledged issues, questions and grey areas reported in the draft could be much more fully addressed with empirical data.
2. ASEC believes the draft is uneven and confusing in its explanation of how flexibility would solve current titling, compensation, and advancement issues. The draft needs more clarification and on how we could institute flexibility in compensation while at the same time building a unified, campus-wide set of rules and categories (job families, levels, and working descriptions). Further, no evidence was offered as to why broad- banding would not work except that it might promote variability (that is, flexibility), which paradoxically is the team’s most desired quality in a new system.
3. ASEC believes the draft recommendations purposefully avoid the important “job title” issue of the direct overlap between duties and responsibilities (research, teaching and grant acquisition, management and fulfillment) by faculty and Category B staff such as scientists, researchers, and lecturers.
4. ASEC believes the draft fails to address the reality that, by design, the current and recommended HR system embraces titling limits. Critically, those limits create compensation limits, which in turn lead to compensation stagnation (i.e., situations in which individuals have no compensation-related promotional opportunities available). Stagnation occurs internally when talent and high performance demand early career promotion and when market competition requires top-of-the-range compensation to retain or recruit top talent. In both cases structural limits to compensation create an environment that limits the university’s ability to retain or recruit seasoned, talented individuals with significant stores of intellectual and/or institutional capital in favor of early and mid-career employees.

Last year, I wrote extensively about efforts led by former Chancellor Biddy Martin and her administration, donors, and alumni to privatize (or at least semi-privatize) the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  That effort was partially successful, for while Martin and colleagues failed to separate Madison from the rest of the UW System, or gain authority over tuition setting, they did succeed in getting Madison the authority to redesign its human resources system.  This new “flexibility” was praised by many on campus, including staff, faculty, and students, who recognize that the current bureaucracy is not working, especially for those outside of administration.

So, this year the Human Resource Design Project has been advertised as a tremendous opportunity, hard won, and far better than the alternative — the status quo.  Perhaps.  But few reforms are without consequence, and the recommendations recently offered by the working teams in HR Design suggest this case is no exception.  In fact, the potential long-term effects of this redesign process may result in an very different university culture, one that is far less progressive than Madison has historically been known for.  Instead, the recommendations will likely aggressively speed-up Madison’s transformation (I’d say descent) into a market-driven institution focused first and foremost on serving its paying customers.

Some specifics of the recommendations have been discussed over at Sifting and Winnowing and so I direct you to read the details there.  For example, the recommendations include combining the currently unionized classified staff and academic staff into one.  As severals members of the HR working teams point out, this has significant implications for the protections held by unionized workers: “If the state legislature does not amend these statutes, the combining formerly classified staff–the custodians, the office secretaries, financial specialists–into the employee category academic staff will take away the few remaining collective bargaining rights that they have fought and bargained for about 50 years.”  Both the classified staff and the academic staff object to this recommendation.

Another recommendation focuses on the distribution of employee pay based on labor market analyses. As members of the Wisconsin University Union point out, this can mean many things– some resulting in even lower pay for UW-Madison workers.  ”There is no standard labor market for any group or individual occupations (with the exception of building trades). There are often valid arguments to be made for or against choosing one group over another. However, choice of a particular labor market as the standard will frequently determine the result.”  Crucially, the current recommendations say nothing about providing cost of living increases to all employees, nor is there any consideration of years of experience with good performance.

Furthermore, the proper implementation of these recommendations will likely grow the size of central administration — not reduce it.  National studies indicate that growth in central administrations are the source of much of the increasing costs of college attendance, so we need to pay special attention here.  According to Joel Rogers, professor of Sociology, “Done properly, the task of specifying the real human capital requirements of hundreds of UW job titles; identifying jobs with the same requirements in external labor markets; collecting all relevant data on their compensation from private employers; and doing all this continuously enough to capture relevant changes, job titles, compensation practices, and labor market boundaries and participants is a massive amount of work.”

Finally, despite promises to the contrary, these recommendations involve cuts to employee compensation.  Specifically, academic staff will see their vacation benefits reduced.  As ASEC has pointed out, “newly employed academic staff will lose nearly 52 hours of vacation/personal time under this proposal. Children attending MMSD have 16 days of vacation that do not coincide with the UW’s current holiday schedule, which means a single parent would have four days of vacation left (after caring for her/his child when local schools are not in session).”  And yet UW claims that employees will not move backwards under the Redesign?

Now, to UW’s credit, this has been a somewhat transparent process.  Many public forums have been held, and there are many ways to provide input.  The 11 working groups on this effort involved many people– however, a closer look indicates that the vast majority (perhaps 2/3) are people currently in HR in the administration– there were not many faculty or union-represented workers involved.  Participation even among those on the work groups has been reportedly hampered by meeting times occurring early in the morning (e.g. before childcare begins) and during work hours.

Moreover, there has also been a continuation of last spring’s approach to talking to campus members– with administrators telling us what is “important” and “smart” without providing hard facts about the evidence on why.  Where does this proposed structure of titles come from? Where is the data regarding the effects of this sort of market-driven approach versus alternatives?  There is very little data given anywhere to back up the contentions in the recommendations, despite the very expensive contributions made by the Huron Consulting firm, hired under Martin to assist with this work.  The rhetorical approach is led by Robert Lavigna, who speaks about the importance of ensuring that the new system can attract and retain “the best talent.”  He utilizes the language of “flexibility”, “efficiency,” “effective.”  He promises a “greater connection between compensation and performance.”  In other words he talks a  lot like Biddy Martin, and others like her who are bringing business practices to education.

Thus, one key thing that the HR Redesign highlights is that the neoliberal politics embodied in Biddy Martin are not hers alone, and that she is indicative of a broader market-driven culture amongst those who surrounded and hired her, which continues to prevail in today’s UW-Madison (and indeed globally).  This recommendations were issued, and are being systematically advanced, despite her departure.  That is something we all must pay close attention to, as these political maneuverings will likely continue to shape the next stages in Madison’s development- especially the upcoming chancellor search.  Who will be in charge there? What “facts” will we be provided? What role will faculty, staff, and students play, relative to the roles played by WARF, donors, alumni, and administrators?

A thoughtful approach to considering the desirability of the marketization of Madison requires our community think about (1) What are the full set of alternative options under consideration? (2) What evidence is being presented about the likely intended and unintended consequences of each option? and (3) Who exactly stands to benefit, and in what ways, from each option?

Notably, these are not the kinds of questions Huron (our highly-paid consultant) is known for asking and answering. Instead, Huron emphasizes a one-directional model in which administration directs the activities of faculty and staff.  Laura Yaeger, VP at Huron, has said that “universities are getting a better understanding of what activities add value to students and stakeholders while  providing clearer guidelines for staff and faculty about which programs and activities should be supported.”   Does that sound like shared governance to you?  Who are those stakeholders?

We are told that once again, this is our only choice. Don’t listen.  This Redesign is neoliberalism at its finest, justifying marketization as a form of self-defense, redefining all interactions within the educational institution as essentially business relationships. We, the faculty and staff and our traditional protections, are being identified as the obstacle to market-based efficiencies.  The goal is to make UW-Madison less dependent on us.  This gives private investors greater opportunities to profit from state expenditure, while influencing the form and content of education. And it makes business and university administrators the main partnership, redefining student-professor relations.

It is imperative that educators across UW-Madison begin to understand and draw attention to how funding priorities, public-private partnerships, tuition and fees, cost-benefit analysis, performance indicators, curriculum changes, and new technologies change the content of academic work and learning, and how they collectively arise from global efforts to discipline academic labor for capital. The changes to Madison’s human resources system, and to its operations more broadly, are intimately linked to employment opportunities in Dane County and elsewhere, and to the kinds of education and services we deliver to the state.  If we are going to be market-driven in how we educate and serve Wisconsin, what we provide will be undoubtedly more unequally distributed.  Everyone should have something to say about that. As Lavigna has said “This system will affect everyone on this campus.”  He’s serious. You need to pay attention.

PLEASE: Send your feedback on HR Design to hrdesign@news.wisc.edu

Sara Goldrick-Rab
Associate Professor,
Educational Policy Studies

In the 2011-2013 state biennial budget, the Joint Finance Committee granted UW-Madison the authority to create a new personnel system in Human Resources. This legislation implicitly acceded to the creation of a public authority model that had sparked contentious debate about the relationship between UW-Madison and the state in the past year. Currently, eleven work teams are drafting recommendations for a new human resources system through the HR Design Project.

To ensure that readers understand what is occurring, it is essential to define a few key terms about employment on campus. Classified staff, or public employees hired through the civil service system, include blue-collar workers, technical workers, clerical workers, and the trades. Many classified staff were unionized before the implementation of Act 10. Academic staff are also public employees in UW System but are “unique to higher education” as defined in state statute. They include non-faculty lecturers, researchers, many administrators, and academic advisors. Academic staff are not subject to the same civil service system rules as classified staff and have been protected under statutory governance rights since the mid-1980s.

One noteworthy and perhaps soon-to-be notorious recommendation comes from the Employee Categories Work Team. This group has proposed to dissolve classified staff status and combine those workers with academic staff. What does this mean? Not only did Act 10 and the 2011-2013 biennial budget reduce the scope of collective bargaining rights to one compensation issue, wages, it also stripped faculty and staff in UW System of the statutory right to collectively bargain. If the state legislature does not amend these statutes, the combining formerly classified staff–the custodians, the office secretaries, financial specialists–into the employee category academic staff will take away the few remaining collective bargaining rights that they have fought and bargained for about 50 years.

The Employee Categories Work Team voted to explore this proposal because of two perceived benefits. First, it extends statutory governance rights to formerly classified staff. However, a proposal that retains a “classified staff” category and expands governance through university policy to this category can still allow for collective bargaining. The expansion of governance rights through university policy also may strengthen the diversity on many campus committees. Furthermore, governance rights are inherently weaker than bargaining rights because governance lacks contractual rights and are even perceived to be advisory by faculty and staff leadership. (ASM, however, disagrees.)

Second, the Employee Categories Work Team sought to improve workplace climate by reducing the “caste system” that currently exists between classified and academic staff, but disparities in recruitment, compensation, and benefits based on category primarily contribute to the caste system, rather than which category is marked on employee files. We do not believe that the dissolution of the classified category will mend historical issues in disparities in compensation and benefits. Furthermore, erecting barriers to collective bargaining for 5,500 employees who have already taken a pay cut this year because of Act 10’s hike in benefits contributions certainly will not improve workplace climate. The preservation of a civil service system, which prevents favoritism and the caste system that arises from favoritism, does in fact improve workplace climate by promoting a more fair workplace.

As student appointees to HR Design Work Teams, we do not support the combining of classified staff and academic staff. We realize that collective bargaining rights, as they currently stand after Act 10, are incredibly weak, and that “advisory” shared governance rights are, at best, a temporary solution to diminished bargaining rights and do not constitute a long-term answer to restoring their strength. But we also hope that the state’s mistake of greatly reducing collective bargaining rights will be reversed in the near future.

How do we ensure that classified staff, formerly protected by bargaining rights, have rights in the workplace right now and can regain their bargaining rights in the shortest possible amount of time after statutory change? How do we protect the current and future bargaining rights of university employees? We urge the Employee Categories Work Team pursue their mission to protect the current and future bargaining rights by preserving an employee category for workers represented by unions. To diminish the presence of a “caste system,” we recommend extending governance through university policy as well as reforming policy barriers to moving between classified and academic staff, rather than eliminating “classified staff” as well as their bargaining rights. While students want to end the caste system and improve workplace culture, the recommendation of the Employee Categories Work Team is not the solution.

Kevin Walters, member of HR Design Advisory Committee
Beth Huang, member of HR Design Employee Categories Work Team
Joshua Brazee, member of HR Design Benefits Work Team
Michael Mirer, member of HR Design Compensation Work Team
Allie Gardner, former chair of the Associated Students of Madison
Adrienne Pagac, Co-President of the Teaching Assistants Association
Alex Hanna, Co-President of the Teaching Assistants Association
Leland Pan, Dane County Board Supervisor, former member of HR Design Advisory Committee

The Human Resource (HR) Design Project has completed the first phase of its process. The initial work team draft recommendations can be found here. Many of the reports are lengthy and discuss very detailed issues related to personnel policies and have a fairly limited effect on the careers of most employees. The most notable exception is the report of the compensation work team. If the recommendations of this work team were enacted, every employee on campus would be affected.

For this reason, the Wisconsin University Union (WUU) prepared this analysis. We are interested in your comments on the work team recommendations and our review. We can be reached at wiununion@gmail.com, www.wuu.info and on Facebook.

Review of Primary Recommendations

A.   Determining Compensation through Analysis of Labor Markets

The compensation work team recommends that labor market analyses form the basis of the UW compensation plan. Defining the labor market of an occupation, however, can for all practical purposes merely give the desired result. Some examples:

A food service worker  can be compared to similar positions in a range of other labor markets, such as: 1) Big Ten Schools, 2) other large campuses, 3) local public employers, 4) local large corporations, and 5) all local employers-small and large, public and private. If 4 and 5 are chosen as the labor market for comparison, the analysis would most likely show that the compensation (the sum of pay and benefits) of UW employees is greater than the compensation within that other labor market. This is despite the fact that UW is institutionally different than a small restaurant with different needs, resources, and purposes. Alternately, comparison with employees within labor markets 1, 2 and #3, would likely indicate largely equivalent levels of compensation.

UW faculty had established a set of 11 comparable peer institutions as the basis for determining its relative compensation (Gov. Commission on Faculty Compensation, 1984). However, a recent legislative analysis used a different set of peer institutions that yielded reduced inequities between the UW and other universities (Compensation for faculty and academic staff. LFB, 2011). Similarly, a 2012 UW System report on compensation systems used three universities as a comparison group (Personnel Issues for Reorganization Taskforce, 2012)

A research specialist performing complex laboratory activities can also be compared to the same five labor markets. Unlike in the case of the food service worker, there are more likely to be large differences within each market. For example, local employers may have substantially different pay practices (profit sharing, stock options or alternately high pay and few benefits). However, there may be fewer differences between the groups, such as overall compensation between Big Ten schools and local large corporations.

Summary: There is no standard labor market for any group or individual occupations (with the exception of building trades). There are often valid arguments to be made for or against choosing one group over another. However, choice of a particular labor market as the standard will frequently determine the result.

B.    Labor Markets and Discrimination

To better understand some of the problems in simply adopting labor markets as a single guide think back to 40 years ago. Women were largely locked out of the labor market. When they did work, their options were limited: clerical, education, food service, nursing, etc. Women who held jobs that required higher education were paid only a fraction of what men made in similar jobs (nurses vs. engineers). African-American and Hispanic workers were also segregated into very limited occupations, which were largely unskilled and were paid at lower rates than similar occupations held by whites.

While there have been improvements in the labor market in terms of race and sex integration, most occupational fields are still largely segregated. Women make on average about 80% of the salaries of men. Men are overwhelmingly employed in skilled trades, women in health care, and black men are unemployed at three times the rate of the overall population. Discrimination and job segregation always results in lower wages and worse working conditions for the group subject to the bias.

Summary: There is no “natural” or market-based reason why nurses are paid less than plumbers or teachers are paid less than computer operators. These are the effects of long-term discrimination and job segregation. Thus, when the “labor market” is used as the basis for establishing wages and benefits, the discriminatory patterns of compensation in other institutions may be copied into our own.

C.    “Segmented” Labor Markets

As noted above there are many forms of labor markets for a specific occupation. One type has large employers, is usually unionized, and has higher pay and benefits and better working conditions. Another type is composed of small employers, is non-union, and tends toward unstable employment. In addition to these two traditional markets, there is a large labor market for self-employment for some occupations.

Many studies have shown that the three labor markets operate fairly separately. Employees who work for small employers with lower pay tend to stay in these jobs and do not move into large employment situation or self-employment. It also means that changes in compensation in one market has little effect on other labor markets located in the same geographic area.

Summary: Owners of an oil change station opening on University Avenue would not ask UW OHR for the pay/benefits for techs as a means of setting up their pay plan. They would ask a similarly-sized business to determine a comparable wage. UW should not base its pay plan on other institutions solely because they both employ similar occupations. The size, resources, and purpose (such as public or private) of organizations are critical factors in determining employee compensation.

D.   Performance Evaluation

UW-Madison has an inconsistent track record in regard to the use of job performance evaluations. Some units in the University use it as a means of awarding merit pay and others make only the most pro forma use of it or not at all.

The recommendations propose the use of performance evaluation to “adjust” pay on a periodic basis after an initial rate is established through examination of the labor market. In the use of the word “adjust,” the committee is recommending that pay can be lowered as a result of the performance evaluation. This is a highly unusual practice in most employing organizations; even more so in public institutions.

A number of questions present themselves in regard to this proposal:  How would the standards or metrics for evaluation be established? How often would evaluations be conducted that might affect employee pay? What safeguards would be instituted to reduce discrimination, favoritism and bias? What procedures would be in place to dispute an evaluation that affects an employee’s pay status?

Summary: There are neither the trained staff nor job-related evaluation instruments necessary to implement such a complex and potentially, highly contentious operation. Nor is there an institutional tradition that is ready to embrace the use of these processes for the purpose of “adjusting” (potentially lowering) compensation. As such, it is likely to be unpopular both among supervisors and subordinates.

Defining Total Compensation:

What factors should be taken in consideration when calculating compensation? Should we use the start rate or the maximum rate? Or, should we use the average or median wage of all people in a classification? Should we compare health insurance costs by premiums co-pays or the total costs paid by the employer? How do we calculate various levels of deductibles and co-pays? How many vacation days on average do employees in a particular classification earn? Some jobs have more people with fewer years of service than others which often results in fewer benefits.

Summary: There are over 500 titles in the unclassified service. There are hundreds more in for classified employees. Even if a sample of benchmark employee classes are used, the tasks of comparing jobs with similar qualifications and duties and accurately determining total compensation is a very complex undertaking which can result in the exclusion of important factors.

II. Features that should be Included in Recommendations

A.   Cost-of-living increase

The compensation work team does not recommend that compensation be adjusted due to changes in the cost-of-living. Until 2008-09, when UW employees stopped receiving pay increases, an annual across-the-board pay increase was, by an overwhelming measure, the means by which employees received pay raises. Without a cost-of-living increase, inflation will erode the real value of the wages of most employees. Inflation increased 4% in 2008, 2% in 2010, 3% in 2011, and about 1% thus far this year. Thus, in addition to the losses due to the changes in WRS and insurance, UW employees lost 10% in real income as a result of the lack of a cost-of-living increase in the last four years.

Summary: A cost-of-living increase in compensation for all employees is a basic principle of compensation management. It is unlikely that the University will allocate as much funds for “merit” and adjustments due to labor market corrections as they would in an across-the-board increase. Failure to use the cost-of-living adjustment as the basis of a pay plan will increase inequities and reduce job satisfaction.

1. Collective bargaining:

Until July 2012, the compensation package of most UW and state employees was determined through negotiations between equal parties- the state and employee unions. The compensation of employees that were not directly covered by the labor agreements were heavily affected by the negotiated agreements. These agreements were voluntarily entered into and democratically ratified by both parties. This process is opposite from the top-down, “scientific” method recommended by the Compensation Committee. Compensation plans that do not have the support or “buy-in” from the affected employees will result in job dissatisfaction.

Neither UW-Madison nor UW-System supported the repeal collectively bargain rights. The Work Group Principles adopted as underlying this process stressed that, as much as possible, the existing collective bargaining agreements should be integrated into this process. The work team recommendations do not reflect the position of UW or the precedent advisory groups in understanding the importance of this process for the last forty years.

III.  Administrative Additions to Implement work team’s recommendations

As noted above, there are over 500 titles in use in the unclassified staff. There are hundreds more classified titles. To implement the recommendations of the compensation work team, at a minimum, the following operations must be implemented:

1. Review all classification titles of the 15,000 job incumbents to ascertain if the title and position description are correct. OHR staff would conduct a statistically significant sample of job analyses within all large and selected benchmark classes to determine congruity of incumbent to class.
2. Organize and train teams to develop job related performance evaluation instruments. Develop or contract to build internal capacity for training, development and evaluation of instruments including metrics. Instruments should be subject to tests of reliability and validity.
3. Create a Center for Labor Market Analysis within OHR. Hire labor economists and compensation analysts to organize and maintain analytic system. Collect data from cohorts of empirically identified similarly-sized institutions on total compensation of all major occupational groups. Annually update data of selected groups and all classes in three-year cycles.
4. Create an Office of Performance Evaluation within OHR. Hire job analysts, training specialists and survey research specialist to oversee program. Develop and implement training program in performance evaluation for all supervisors. This is an initial intensive training and followed by periodic reviews. The Office will oversee quality assurance program in areas such as studies of discriminatory impact and other statistical analyses of evaluations for anomalies. The Office will serve as the initial “step” in disputes related to validity of instruments and individual reviews.
5. All supervisors with responsibility for performance reviews will participate and successfully complete training program in use of performance evaluation instruments. Performance evaluation will be conducted quarterly with an annual comprehensive review that is linked to pay.

Recently, the Associated Students of Madison used segregated fees from the Internal Travel budget to send four UW-Madison students to Washington D.C. for the United States Student Association’s (USSA) Annual Legislative Conference.  The foci of the conference were student loan debt and student voter access.  Wisconsin students are extremely familiar with these issues.  Graduates from the state rank above the national average with student loan debt at $27,000.  Students throughout the UW system have worked diligently to ensure student access to the polls in the face of restrictive Voter ID laws (though that may have been taken care of).

To address the threat of doubling student loan interest rates this summer, never-ending tuition increases, and a student loan default rate of 20%, the USSA conference included workshops, trainings, strategy sessions, and direct actions. Conference programming covered the TRIO, SEOG & Pell grants, HR 4170 (the Student Loan Forgiveness Act), and the 2012 Get Out the Vote campaigns to name a few.

Back home in Wisconsin, the Associated Students of Madison recently participated in a Lobby Day organized by United Council at our state capitol on February 6^th to lobby for increased financial aid funding for the Wisconsin Higher Education Grant, and adherence to shared governance through the Task Force on UW Restructuring decisions.  We took to the state capital because we knew that if we didn’t, legislators would make decisions without us—decisions that affect our families, our wallets, and us.

Decision-making without proper information or experience—the kind that takes place daily in the state legislature—also occurs in the halls of Congress. While a number of influential non-student voices advocate for increased tuition in our state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, thousands more lobby for the same issues in our nation’s capitol in Washington D.C. And they are much more per$ua$ive.

I agree with those who say that we are not doing enough on the local level, and that a reinvestment of our time and energy in our own state and in our communities is long overdue.    However, we must also be pragmatic about the forces that are against us.  To clarify, when I say “us,” I mean students, in Wisconsin and across the country, and our families, who are paying too much for a college education that we hope and expect will get us a job in this economy.  Whether or not our education prepares us for that job is another story.

Those who are successful at legitimizing issues do so through lobbying, media, grassroots organizing efforts, and money.   For example, Sallie Mae spent over $3 million on lobbying in 2011. One way that groups with more energy than money can bring attention to the student loan bubble is through direct action and civil disobedience on the national stage.  These actions build the pressure and attention necessary to publicize the issues. We must also continue lobbying efforts at home, creating K-12 community programs to ensure students have the educational resources they need to financially prepare for college, and holding Financial Resource Fairs on campus to educate our peers.

If we accept that the money students pay is money that can be used to serve the greater interests of the students, then it’s perfectly legitimate to use those funds to bring attention to the issues that most affect students, such as the debt load. Without the large resources of lobbying firms and big corporations, the most judicious use of student monies is to fund actions that garner the most publicity and have the highest impact at home and in Washington.

There are too many myths about students and our college experiences that are being presented to our decision-makers.  I have heard all too many times that college students don’t work hard enough, and that all we do is party on Spring Break.  We cannot let this be the prevailing rhetoric, nor can we allow these misinformed anecdotes to form the opinions of our decision-makers or our nation. Instead, let’s tell them that 300 of us from Florida, Michigan, Virginia, California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, Colorado, and Wisconsin gathered during Spring Break at our nation’s capital because student loan debt has exceeded 1 trillion dollars.

We’re fired up, and we won’t take it anymore.

Allie Gardner
Chair of Associated Students of Madison

For decades, the price of higher education has been rising at colleges and universities nationwide, and relatively few students and families have done so much as sniff.  While occasional concerns about affordability have been expressed, that message has been quite soft when compared to the loud statement uttered by the millions who walk onto college campuses every year, despite rising tuition and fees.  In other words, actions speak louder than words.  Colleges and universities are able to say: if we are truly charging more than you want to pay, why do you keep buying it?

Times are changing, as some students are informing themselves about why college costs so much– and where the money is actually spent. Some are aware that part of the costs are offloaded onto students in the form of student fees, fees which in many places students have no choice but to pay, and have no control over.

UW-Madison is a bit unusual– it has segregated fees, but it also has a renowned shared governance structure which gives students strong input into how those fees are spent.  This is a model that has helped shape the character of the institution and is among its finest attributes.

Unfortunately, a challenge to shared governance may be upon us.  Recently, the Student Services Finances Committee of the Associated Students of Madison voted to reject a request to increase spending of the Wisconsin Union and Recreational Sports.  Before approving the request, the SSFC wanted more information about how those funds would be spent.  In other words, students demanded transparency and accountability, beyond the high-level look at spending they are typically provided.  Absent that information, they declined the request.

On Tuesday, Interim Chancellor David Ward, a chancellor who has been demonstrably sensitive to issues of affordability and the cost-effective use of resources, overruled that veto.  I admit, I have not spoken to Ward to ascertain his reasons. But whether I would agree or disagree with his reasons are beside the point, which is fundamentally about process.  Shared governance leans heavily on adherence to process — it is time-consuming but is essentially what the concept is all about. And according to the written process, Ward was to consult with SSFC before overruling their decision — according to both Sarah Neibart (head of SSFC) and Allie Gardner (head of ASM) he did not.

Given a climate in which faculty, staff, and students have good reason to be concerned about allocation of scarce resources (since every day many of us observe it being allocated in inequitable and ineffective ways), and given the generally low morale due to stagnant and declining compensation, it is more important than ever to preserve the aspects of this university which make it special to its constituents. Shared governance is exactly that. Strong protection of shared governance is an inexpensive way to keeping the University’s laborers integrated, involved, and effective. It is essential.

A positive result of this action would be a renewed discussion about the types of reporting that students, faculty, and staff can expect to receive from the administration regarding the allocation of monies generated from tuition dollars. Rigorous assessment of the impacts (the delta) resulting from spending (not the outcomes), can help move this institution through hard times– and we should all be supportive of that.

I do think that higher education research and teaching, even with a  500+ year tradition of the small class college instruction, 150+ year tradition of the German research university model and the 100+ year mission of US land grant schools, is going to change radically whether we like it or not in the next 50 years, and we should be thinking about the 50-year horizon as much as we do about the 5 year, if we think there still will be a UW as we know it. So I caution anyone approaching innovation to think about the long road as we move forward in new experiments in higher education and making sure we articulate what we value in our existing models.

I’m not sure we should change a lot of what we value (direct instruction, campus culture, research excellent, faculty governance), but we do have to face the statistics. The majority of faculty in US are no longer tenure track and the majority of students are at community colleges, the bachelor’s degree is starting to be seen as essential as a high school diploma used to be, and tuition at brick and mortar schools will rise faster than inflation regardless of where we end up in state support (consider private university tuition) because we continue to be a labor intensive industry (like healthcare).

And oh, Sputnik is over; US federal investment in science R&D is never going to be what it was in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of buzz lately over massively online open courses (MOOCs), which appear to be here to stay.

Whether online education is a panacea or snake oil is yet to be settled;  it is probably some of both. But for those not following the MOOCs, it’s worth figuring out what they’re all about.

Consider how Khan Academy is revolutionizing math education. Or last year, how a former Stanford professor and a Google executive teamed up to offer a free graduate-level course on Artificial Intelligence (AI), that led to 160,000 enrollees from all over the world – AI was used to handle grading and moderate discussion forums. Students created social tools and networks to work on problems and learn material from each other. 23,000 people finished the course – 23,000 more people who now know what Bayes’ theorem and B-tree searching are!  The team has now formed a company (with venture capital and Google resources) called Udacity to offer more courses in sciences and math. Others are working with Universities to offer “badges” instead of degrees to facilitate piecemeal credentials for these courses; other schools are jumping on.

I don’t know if this is the future or just another fad. I’m not into doomsday talk or denigrating the value of the knowledge, creativity, and economic engine that we are as UW. But it’s worth asking, in this arena, what do we have to offer? Imagine if we could reach 100,000 people in one year to think about a topic of importance to you! What would you do?

But you may argue, there is value in small classes, labs, in-depth discussion, the in-person live lecture, written feedback, experts who conduct research who also teach. We serve to create knowledge and transmit this. What do we lose? The counterargument is that these are temporary roadblocks and technology may catch up. I don’t know the answer.

But I do know that taking the long road shouldn’t limit us from experimentation.

Maybe MOOCs will turn out to be nothing and we’ll stop blabbering about “disruptive technologies” and other cute buzzwords, but Silicon Valley is going nuts about higher ed (maybe they all got tired of the languishing for-profit charter schools) and if we’re not there in some form, even as critics, we will lose out.

Ankur Desai

He was a professer at the elite private university Stanford.  But Sebastian Thrun, expert in artificial intelligence, had enough of the old university ways.  In this interview, he explains why he now only wants to teach via the Web and what universities have in common with ex-girlfriends

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Thrun, you have given up your professorship at Stanford and now want change higher education with the online university Udacity . How do you explain that to your colleagues?

Thrun: Many of my colleagues would also like to teach online, but would not necessarily want to leave the university.  To be a Stanford professor is nice. But it’s like being a mountain climber: The climbing is always more fun than standing on the summit.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You are opposed to education only for the elite, opposed to expensive tuition fees and consider grades to be a flaw in the education system. Why does someone like you go to an elite university like Stanford?

Thrun: Because I too came to this realization only recently. For me it was a learning process. After all, I have long participated in this system. My course this past year has changed me rather strongly.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You mean your world lecture, in which you, together with your colleagues, have conducted your Stanford lecture on artificial intelligence online, including testing. Anyone in the world could enroll free of charge. What have you learned?

Thrun: Through the Internet Instruction project I’ve realized what incredible power this medium has. When we got 160 000 applications, we were asked by Stanford to accept no more students. 23,000 students took an exam at the end and passed.   I literally got thousands of thank you e-mails. With this one lecture I have influenced more people than ever before in my entire academic career.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you miss about the real university?

Thrun: That’s like falling in love with a new woman and being asked, what do you miss about your ex? Basically, nothing. Although the work with my graduate students at Stanford was always very good. But for me it’s not about one or the other. My goal is to reach people who cannot be reached otherwise.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You have taught 20 years at universities. How should students learn today?

Thrun: Students learn best when they have to solve a problem themselves. What really works are not the traditional lectures. For most people they are too fast or difficult to understand. I myself  remember a German professor who a few years ago held an introductory lecture on artificial intelligence – that is, in my own field – and I did not understand anything!

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why has virtual learning not been able to get more traction to date?

Thrun: I’m stumped. In spite of modern media, we still use teaching methods developed 1,000 years ago. Instruction should work like a good movie. It must be so exciting that you just can’t turn it off until it’s over. I think universities are often less innovative than they would like.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What are the disadvantages of online teaching?

Thrun: Musicianship involves the hands; that can be taught online only to a limited degree. In addition, direct interaction with people is missing. If they are pursuing a Ph.D. or are research active, then meeting in person is very important.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: With two other robotics researchers, you have now founded the company Udacity. What can one learn from you?

Thrun: You can participate in two lecture courses. My colleague teaches programming, and by the end of seven weeks, you can create your own search engine. I show my students how to program a self-propelled car. We explain these things not in the abstract; rather, as part of the training you have to build something yourself.  That has a very unique value.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Not everything is free. How has the response been?

Thrun: We have over 80,000 students, which I consider a very viable number.  But we have also learned from our experience so far, and we now use better recording equipment and have a good system for receiving feedback.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are these online students only Americans and Europeans?

Thrun: No, those account for two-thirds, but a third also comes from emerging and developing countries.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What about people who have no access to the necessary technology?

Thrun: There are those. But in today’s traditional colleges there are also those living in the wrong country, who are too old, too young or sick, and those living in the U.S who can’t pay $ 10,000 tuition. I think it’s about giving more people access to education, even if you cannot immediately reach all people.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You also work for Google. What is the influence of that company on  Udacity?

Thrun: By day I work at Google, at night I record my video podcasts for Udacity. There are three founders and a company that joined more recently for financing. Google owns none of it and has no influence.

Interview by Jonas Leppin

Translation by G. Petty

This is what I and several other students heard as we sat in the spectator gallery of a state Capitol hearing room. We were floored by the disconnect from reality that Mohs displayed. What’s worse is that it was not an isolated incident. It accurately reflects the task force’s primary mode of action: charting a course via anecdote.

As college students, we’ve been trained to back up our arguments so we waited to hear the statistics, data and research that members of the task force would use to argue for major changes in state law, not the least concerning of which is the flexibility to increase tuition, which threatens access to a college degree for all Wisconsinites.

Unfortunately, I cannot relay any statistics, data or research presented by the members. None was provided. However, at least 10 different anecdotes were given by task force members that day. Who do these anecdotes come from? Where did Mohs get his ideas of what students are like these days? They’re not from any study I’ve seen.

The studies I have seen show that more than three-quarters of students say they can’t afford to go to school without working. Another study documents how students paying their way through school would need to work 70 hours a week just to make ends meet.

At UW-Madison, Wisconsinites are paying tuition that has doubled since 2001. The average amount of debt that students graduate with has increased by 30% in the past decade. The average master’s student in 2010 graduated with nearly $40,000 in debt.

Administrators argue that increasing tuition is the only means to deal with severe state budget cuts that threaten the quality of education. They claim that increasing tuition will allow for increased financial aid, but even as financial aid has gone up, student debt has continued to skyrocket and middle-class families have been cut out of the university. Graduation rates and retention rates continue to be average. Increasing tuition, especially at a time when families can’t afford to pay more, will result in sticker shock that keeps away those who need a college degree the most.

The Task Force on UW Restructuring should be using its time to refocus the state and UW on the needs of Wisconsin students and families. It should be working to open the university doors to all Wisconsinites, instead of protecting the prestige of UW. It should be focused on rebuilding the relationship between our communities and the universities in them and reprioritizing public investment in UW.

We need structures in place to solicit involvement (not just feedback) from students, faculty, staff and community members from small business owners to farmers and middle school teachers. Administrators should only be granted the ability to increase tuition if they can demonstrate it won’t destroy our ability to build a competitive 21st-century workforce.

Access is the priority, which means we need to set measurable criteria to even consider allowing for tuition increases. Tuition should not be allowed to increase unless it can be linked to a decrease in average student debt and an increase in the amount of low- and middle-income students being admitted and graduated.

There is plenty of work to do. The task force needs to stop offering anecdotes and starting doing its homework.

Clearly, the task force members don’t understand what our needs are in Wisconsin. Give the task force members your recommendation by writing to your state legislators about what they need to be doing to ensure that UW is serving its students and the state.

Allie Gardner, originally from Sun Prairie, is a junior at UW-Madison and is chair of the Associated Students of Madison.  This article, which originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel,  was reprinted here with her permission.