Category: Campus life

After delaying his address by a week due to the upheaval at the Capitol, Gov. Scott Walker will announce the biennial budget Tuesday, and UW-Madison could be one of many state institutions facing drastic cuts and changes.

After the Assembly passed the budget repair bill early Friday morning, tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out at the Capitol, culminating in the largest protest to date Saturday.

Wisconsin union leaders willing to publicly discuss the issue aren?t sure there would be strikes if Gov. Scott Walker is able to enact a law stripping away most collective bargaining rights for public employees, but several said this week that they wouldn?t be surprised if walkouts occurred. Nobody wants to strike, said Peter Rickman, a leader of the 2,800-member Teaching Assistants? Association, American Federation of Teachers Local 3220, but that could change if the bill passes.

Harriet Rowan was among the first to join what has become an almost two-week-long rally at the Wisconsin Capitol, and she said with the arrival of thousands of others, confusion, misinformation and rumors quickly spread. “I came back on Tuesday night and there was absolutely no organization,” Rowan said. The University of Wisconsin senior made a spur-of-the-moment decision to coordinate protest efforts, making signs with media talking points and starting a Twitter feed detailing legislative meeting times, union rally locations and details on day-to-day life in the Capitol.

Last night, after 24 hours of hearing criticism over their first email, the TAA at Madison issues a second email, recanting some of their statements and more clearly outlining their concerns.

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voiced frustrations over a lack of timely details about the New Badger Partnership and the chancellor?s talks with state officials which some regents said lacked transparency at a Friday meeting. 

The New Badger Partnership can be a scary thing when first discussed. There are mountains of misinformation being disseminated about the New Badger Partnership ranging from rising tuition to dismantling the UW System. Corporatization and power grabs are participating in frightening (and frighteningly false) conversation pieces that could lead one to oppose the New Badger Partnership based on nothing but false concepts; unless, of course, you know your facts.

To the Governor and Legislature:We, the undersigned faculty and staff of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s School of Library and Information Studies, oppose the abolition of most collective bargaining rights by the budget repair bill now being pushed through the Wisconsin Legislature by Governor Scott Walker. We believe this will grievously harm the University of Wisconsin, its undergraduates, graduate students, employees, and, not least, all of the people of the state.

Prompted by security concerns forwarded to law enforcement by Republican leadership, a joint committee approved a rule restricting access to certain areas of the Capitol building Wednesday, which could remove some organizations from its headquarters.

Kaja Rebane, a UW-Madison graduate student in environmental studies, is one of the leaders of the South Central Wisconsin Move to Amend chapter. The group is dedicated to fighting the U.S. Supreme Court?s January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which says corporations have free speech rights just like people do and that money spent on political campaigns counts as speech.

….Rebane is also an active member of the Teaching Assistants Association union and protested at the state Capitol for much of last week against Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill, which would strip public employee unions of almost all their bargaining power as well as increase worker contributions for health and retirement benefits.

After six consecutive days without arrests at the protests at the Capitol, members of the Teaching Assistants? Association are preparing for a long-term battle against the governor?s bill and the extended occupation of the building in solidarity with union members and University of Wisconsin students.

Hundreds of UW-Madison professors, lecturers and teaching assistants had a new chant to shout as they made their way down Bascom Hill to State Street Tuesday afternoon: “UW united will never be defeated!”

Life in the Capitol, while spirited and invigorating, also can take its toll, especially as some of the protesters begin their second week of overnights. The lights never go out, making sleep a challenge for some. The restrooms accommodate only so many at a time. Privacy hardly exists, with strangers in pajamas sprawled along the walls and corridors, wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags. As most of the crowd slept, volunteers with the Teaching Assistants? Association, composed of UW-Madison graduate students, sat in a room together working away on laptops, sending calls via Facebook and Twitter to marshal volunteers and help distribute the massive quantities of donated food, water and coffee that have poured in daily.

Amidst all the protesting centered on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker?s Budget Reform Bill, a more heinous act of treachery has been stealthily executed in an attempt to damn the University of Wisconsin ? Madison into the obscurity of bottom-tier education quality.

So, lost in the activity at the capital is the important question of what becomes of UW-Madison and the System with the new budget.  I?ve heard from sources in the Walker camp that Madison will likely have the Public Authority model that UW-System originally asked for. Apparently, the Governor decided that it would be too much for the entire system to go that route without a test case, which led to Madison?s choice. Seeing it from that perspective, it makes perfect sense to have a trial run, and to do it with the school most able to do it, before committing all students down that path.

The UW-Madison Teaching Assistants? Association called for “teach-out” Tuesday to protest Walker?s bill. The teach-out means that teaching assistants will gather at the Capitol, but it?s not a strike.

* Not everyone on the UW-Madison campus is pumped up about all the protesting that?s going on. And one student had the guts to say as much in an opinion piece which appeared in the Daily Cardinal.

** Meanwhile, a group of faculty leaders and the student government at UW-Madison, among others, are urging the campus community to join a rally and march to the Capitol on Tuesday.

Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate, a membership organization consisting of UW-Madison faculty, has scheduled a march to the Capitol Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. in response to the budget repair bill.

Camped out at the Capitol in a room strewn with backpacks and sleeping bags, surrounded by signs with caricatures of Gov. Scott Walker and reminders to keep the peace, the Teaching Assistants? Association called for a general assembly meeting Sunday.

Members of the Teaching Assistants? Association voted to endorse a third teach-out for Tuesday classes and said University of Wisconsin officials cannot provide a guarantee that tuition remission will not be eliminated should the budget repair bill pass.

The UW-Madison Teaching Assistants? Association is calling for a teach-out today ? for all action on campus to cease for a second day. “We are doing it as an act of solidarity with our Democratic senators who have left the state of Wisconsin in order to protect public workers in the state,” said TAA member Magda Konieczna.

The fourth day of protests against Walker?s budget repair bill attracted more people from outside of the Madison area than those earlier in the week. As word spread mid-morning that Democratic senators had fled the state to prevent quorum and delay a vote on Walker?s bill, protesters continued to pile in via school buses, with student groups parading around Capitol Square. Students got creative, with one UW-Madison teaching assistant holding a “Teaching Assistants are Sexier With Benefits” sign. A group of high-school cross-country runners from Madison held a “Runners Against Walker” sign.

UW-Madison could be forced to raise tuition by 20 percent over the next two years if the state cuts $50 million from the university?s budget ? one scenario laid out in a memo from UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin to Gov. Scott Walker?s administration. The memo outlines how UW-Madison could separate from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System, giving the state?s flagship university more freedom from state oversight to set tuition, make personnel decisions, purchase goods and construct buildings. Martin and other System leaders have long sought such flexibility in exchange for something that has become a grim reality for them ? declining state aid.