The furor that erupted a year ago over who should control the state?s flagship University of Wisconsin campus has given way to sober realism about how best to fund and manage the state?s universities. That discussion resumes this week in Madison, and this time, with any luck, a reasonable solution will emerge that gives the state?s two largest campuses more freedom to run their own affairs as state funding dwindles.
The shame of last year?s implosion of a plan advanced secretly by former UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin was not that the plan was scotched. It deserved to be scotched. The shame was that cuts to the university system were put in place without giving the campuses the degree of flexibility they needed to manage those cuts.