A Dane County Judge will rule soon in a lawsuit challenging a fund the Governor and legislature created to retain University of Wisconsin faculty.
The lawsuit goes after administrators at the U-W Platteville for the way they divvied up their share of the University’s new faculty recruitment and retention fund. The Governor and legislature created the $10-million fund in 2007, saying it would help campuses hang on to faculty in high-demand fields.
U-W Platteville Foreign Languages Professor Ray Spoto is a past president of the Association of University Professionals. Spoto says he thinks the Governor had good intentions when he created the fund. But in practice, Spoto says it’s been doled out arbitrarily, without faculty input. Spoto says that’s unfair, and it drives down the morale of professors who don’t get a share. (Third item.)