UW-Madison, we don?t want you to go. That?s the gist of a letter today to state legislators, signed by all the other chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System, except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
If there was any doubt remaining, it?s now gone: Biddy and Bucky are going it alone.
In an opinion piece sent to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents President Chuck Pruitt and Vice President Michael Spector said chancellors at 12 of the system?s four-year campuses, plus the head of the UW Colleges and Extension, are backing a proposal the regents announced March 10 called the Wisconsin Idea Partnership. This plan would give campuses long-sought freedoms from state oversight but would keep all of the institutions under the umbrella of the UW System.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Teaching Assistants? Association voted Sunday to pass a motion opposing the university being granted public authority status and breaking away from the UW System.
The motion reads: “The TAA opposes the New Badger Partnership, especially the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System, the formation of the public authority model, and the threat to affordability and accessibility it poses to public education and the lack of protection for labor unions on campus. The TAA also objects to the non-transparent and undemocratic process by which the New Badger Partnership was designed.”
….I am certain that to make any major change in the status of the UW-Madison that brings the university under the governance of a board on which the majority of members is appointed by the current governor is irresponsible, and that if Chancellor Biddy Martin believes that Gov. Walker?s influence through such a board will be benign, she has drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid.
….Scrub the Legislature.
Another institution we have depended on ? the most important of all our institutions ? is the University of Wisconsin. UW has educated hundreds of thousands; found solutions to problems through research; brought great minds to Wisconsin, where they could work without looking over their shoulders for Joe McCarthy. Academic freedom and Wisconsin have been synonymous for over a century.
But we are about to lose our flagship campus to the privatizers, who argue that somehow things will be better if corporations can name the Board of Regents. Nonsense.
More than 28,000 students applied to be part of UW-Madison?s freshman class in the fall, a record number and the biggest increase in at least 20 years. It?s a bump of 3,214 students, or 12.6 percent, from last year?s 25,522 applications. Adele Brumfield, UW-Madison?s director of admissions, attributes the increase to a number of factors: an increased presence internationally with UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin?s trips to China, prestigious awards for professors, $1 billion in research expenditures and more recruiting trips.
Catching up on a couple higher education-related items …
** How far would the University of Wisconsin-Madison men?s basketball team advance in the NCAA Tournament if winning was based on outcomes in the classroom? The Badgers would falter in the first round according to results of Inside Higher Education?s annual Academic Performance Tournament.
** A photo of UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin anchors the front page of this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education. The article is headlined: “Flagships Just Want to Be Alone.” The deck headline explains: “Hard times strain relations between big public research universities and their states.”
To date, UW-Milwaukee has been a relatively quiet player in the debate over the future of the UW System. The three loudest voices have been the UW System itself, Gov. Scott Walker and UW-Madison, which the governor?s budget would reestablish as a public authority separate from the system. But Walker also appears to be considering peeling off UWM, and Interim Chancellor Michael Lovell has clearly joined the call to give UWM more autonomy.
They thought they were made for each other.
Hearing today?s higher-education leaders opine about the heady days of the 1800s, when the Morrill Land-Grant Acts created many of the nation?s flagship public universities, is a bit like listening to some tired soul recall a once vibrant romance that has slowly soured. While major public research universities and state governments have always had their differences, observers say they?ve never seen the relationship between the two as strained as it is now.
Frayed tempers. Strained relationships. And the end of an era in Wisconsin public policy.
That?s a fair description of the struggle between Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin?s public employee unions, but it also describes what?s happening these days in the emerging fight over whether the University of Wisconsin-Madison should be granted the freedom to run its own affairs.
The University of Wisconsin System is floating a proposed amendment to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget that would keep UW-Madison in the System and give all 26 campuses flexibility on tuition, purchasing and human resources.
Are you with us or against us? That was the general tone during much of Thursday afternoon?s UW System Board of Regents meeting at the Pyle Center on the UW-Madison campus.
As an initiative to help inform the student body about the possibility of UW Madison splitting from the UW System, students and faculty passed out fliers and buttons that read, “Save My UW.”
Catching up on a couple higher education-related items …** Campus Connection needs to correct a mistake and set the record straight on a budget-related issue.
Maintaining her pledge for transparency as the public continues to deliberate the New Badger Partnership, Chancellor Biddy Martin hosted another forum Tuesday and said improved control in human resources issues will prove beneficial to University of Wisconsin faculty and students.
As I?ve been discussing recently, Gov. Walker?s budget contains some radical changes for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It would separate the Madison campus from the rest of the UW System, making it a public authority, meaning it would operate more independently of the state, similar to the UW Hospitals and Clinics.
Chancellor Biddy Martin took questions about the New Badger Partnership from faculty members at Mondays Faculty Senate meeting.
Some faculty on campus are more willing than others to hitch UW-Madison?s future to a new public authority model spelled out for Wisconsin?s flagship institution in Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed 2011-13 biennial budget.
But after hearing from supporters, listening to concerns and fielding questions on this issue for more than an hour during Monday afternoon?s Faculty Senate meeting at Bascom Hall, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin was generally upbeat with how the campus community is warming to a potential new relationship between the university and state.
Although University of Wisconsin faculty members expressed support for increased flexibility in human resources as a result of the New Badger Partnership during Monday?s Faculty Senate meeting, members raised concerns about the availability of financial aid to help students cope with impending tuition increases.
Education seems to be under attack from all sides these days, both from the state government and from within the University of Wisconsin administration. Gov. Scott Walker has been painted to be an archenemy of schoolteachers, but if you ask me, Chancellor Biddy Martin isn?t any better. Her New Badger Partnership represents the most radical change to the UW model since the merger of Wisconsin schools in the 1970s, and it represents a complete departure from the idea of a public university.
I thought it?d be interesting to look at Scott Walker?s influence on Board of Regents (the current, UW System-wide board) and the proposed Board of Trustees (UW-Madison specific.) Here is a Google Spreadsheet of the makeup of the two boards through 2022.
By now if you?re on twitter you?ve probably seen the satirical ASM PR Committee account created by some unknown person. I first saw it a couple of days ago and thought the tweets were too often and not funny enough to warrant following. Today another tweet sent be back browsing their twitter feed to see what I had missed and I stumbled across this particular tweet:
In case you don?t keep up on the ramblings of Max Love over at his blog, he recently has been tossing allegations around that a number of students and former students, including the authors of this blog, are part of Biddy Martin?s propaganda machine and that we have all been bought off through various means including football game tickets, letters of recommendation and free trips to LA in exchange for our support. When he initially made that post I chose not to respond to the absurd and unfounded allegations against myself, but now that he?s back at it I think it?s time for a response. Let?s make a list of all of the students that Max is alleging have been ?bought out? by Chancellor Martin:
Recently, a coalition of students was formed to educate students on the Budget Repair Bill and then teach them how to combat it. The Badger Impact group has now moved into a new field. Their new website declares they are ?Students United in Stopping Biddy Martin?s Plan to Ruin the UW System.? For being a group that was so rooted in education for SB-11, there seems to be a lot of misinformation on their website. Let?s go down their list of what their vision of the New Badger Partnership is, and then see what it actually is.
It is hard to know who is pulling the strings on the Walker/Fitzgerald puppet show, but someone other than Gov. Scott Walker and Family Fitzgerald has cooked up a radical agenda that just doesn?t seem like a ?Wisconsin idea.?
I would really like to know who drafted the manifesto. Seems more like the Koch brothers and the CATO Institute than Lee Dreyfus, Warren Knowles or Mike Ellis.It just doesn?t seem like it fits the definition of this ?special place? called Wisconsin as Bob La Follette described us. It isn?t John Muir, Aldo Leopold or John Bascom.
….Let us join together and declare they do not have the right to dispose of the great state university of Wisconsin. This is not a power plant ? it is the font of ideas and dreams. It is us. The real stakeholders are the people of this state and students of the future. Not David Koch.
Protesters in Madison have “aroused a sleeping giant” in the national fight for workers? rights, filmmaker Michael Moore told thousands at the Capitol Square on Saturday, as rallies opposing Gov. Scott Walker?s budget proposals wrapped up their third week. Leland Pan, of UW-Madison?s Student Labor Action Coalition, criticized Walker?s plan to split the campus from the University of Wisconsin System, a move that UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin supports.
University of Wisconsin faculty and members of the campus community gathered Saturday to question the fate of shared governance and representation on the new governing body for the university under the New Badger Partnership.
There is much to be made of Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed budget and the effects it will have on the University of Wisconsin. But considering the state?s present $137 million budget deficit and Walker?s blunt crusade to tackle it, one thing is clear: It could have been much worse.
A mixture of optimism and concern surrounds Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to split UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee from the UW System. As Chancellor Biddy Martin has asserted that the public authority model will give UW-Madison the ability to deal with deep cuts in state aid, other UW System chancellors have expressed concern that the split could negatively affect their schools and the state as a whole.
As I commented yesterday, Chancellor Biddy Martin is getting what she wants out of the governor?s budget. The budget proposes making the University of Wisconsin-Madison a public authority, meaning it will have more independence from the state to set tuition rates and professor salaries, construct new buildings and do a wide variety of other things that are currently restricted by state regulations. In short, UW-Madison will no longer be treated as another state agency.
The proposal to split the flagship University of Wisconsin-Madison campus from the rest of the UW System has taken a backseat to Gov. Scott Walker?s other budget plans, but it nonetheless merits careful consideration because of what?s at stake.
Chancellor Biddy Martin and Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell answered questions about how a proposed public authority model and major budget cuts would affect UW-Madison faculty and students at a forum Wednesday.
In the wake of the governor?s budget announcement, protesters at the Capitol continue to voice discontent with strict limitations on public access to the building as University of Wisconsin students rallied in opposition to the proposed ?marriage? between the university and the state on Wednesday.
After the governor?s budget proposal outlined extensive budget cuts in higher education, the University of Wisconsin chancellor clarified the details of a public authority status and said the university must remain a contender among international institutions in a public forum Wednesday.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes. Oh, and a jump in tuition when state funding for public higher education is slashed.
Under Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 biennial budget proposal released Tuesday, UW-Madison and the UW System each will see state aid slashed by $125 million over the next two years.
“The size of the cut is really sobering,” says UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Governor Walker?s proposed biennial budget calls for separating U.W.-Madison from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System so it can operate on its own — and remove more than 20,000 employees from the state payroll.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin says Gov. Walker?s budget proposal will give the school more flexibility, but it will result in higher tuition.
In the wake of the debate over Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill, UW Oshkosh faculty, staff and union workers universally noted their concern and discontent with the plan.
Although Chancellor Richard Wells used a metaphor to illustrate his stance on the idea of UW Madison separating from the system, how he felt about the issue was clear.”There is no flagship without a fleet,” was the highlight of his March 1 statement speaking out against UW Madison?s plan.
The UW System would be forced to tighten its belt under Gov. Walker?s new state budget, especially UW-Madison which will absorb half of the $250 million cut to the UW System.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison will shoulder half of the $250 million cut to the UW System in the governor?s budget. As many begin to digest Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed cuts, UW-Madison officials are trying to answer questions.
I wrote this yesterday in response to the Governor?s budget proposal:
Dear members of ASM,Today, Governor Walker released his proposal for the state?s budget for the 2011-13 biennial.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin probably would have preferred lesser cuts her university?s budget. However, the $125 million of cuts Gov. Walker proposed in his budget yesterday comes with a big present: The separation of UW-Madison from the UW System.
With states providing a dwindling share of money for higher education, many states and public universities are rethinking their ties.
The public universities say that with less money from state coffers, they cannot afford the complicated web of state regulations governing areas like procurement and building, and that they need more flexibility to compete with private institutions.
While some are optimistic, others remain hesitant about substantial changes to the UW System proposed in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-?13 budget. In an effort to combat the budget deficit, Walker proposed a plan to remove UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee from the UW System, in addition to cutting $250 million in state aid from the system, $125 million of which will be directly from UW-Madison.
After the governor unveiled funding reductions for higher education and plans to establish the Madison campus as a public authority, the chancellor said University of Wisconsin officials will use the new flexibilities to combat ?painful? budget cuts.
Universities around the state will be forced to take a big hit if Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed 2011-2013 budget is enacted.
While some are optimistic, others remain hesitant about substantial changes to the UW System proposed in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-?13 budget. In an effort to combat the budget deficit, Walker proposed a plan to remove UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee from the UW System, in addition to cutting $250 million in state aid from the system, $125 million of which will be directly from UW-Madison.
After the governor unveiled funding reductions for higher education and plans to establish the Madison campus as a public authority, the chancellor said University of Wisconsin officials will use the new flexibilities to combat ?painful? budget cuts.
Nothing is certain but death and taxes. Oh, and a jump in tuition when state funding for public higher education is slashed.
Unveiling his biennial budget on Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin formalized his plans to split the University of Wisconsin at Madison from the rest of the system and created a pathway for the Milwaukee campus to gain a similar autonomy “soon.”
As faculty leaders in research and discovery at UW-Madison, we are writing to share our support for the additional flexibility that Chancellor Martin has been seeking through the New Badger Partnership.
Chancellor Biddy Martin has shown an unwavering commitment to transparency and discussion that is currently unrivaled in the city of Madison. Where Gov. Scott Walker flippantly referred to the budget repair bill as ?just another bill? in his letter to Wisconsin, Martin recognizes the incredible significance surrounding these proceedings.
As University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin watched this state?s government face deeper and deeper financial woes with the approach of the 2011-2013 budget, she could have sat back and asked the Legislature to consider the university?s own difficult financial situation.
Gov. Scott Walker would support increasing flexibility for all University of Wisconsin System schools but the means to do so now lies with the state Legislature, according to a UW System official.
Gov. Scott Walker said in a television interview that there still is hope all of the campuses across the University of Wisconsin System could be granted some long-sought freedoms and flexibilities from state oversight.
Gov. Scott Walker would support increasing flexibility for all University of Wisconsin System schools but the means to do so now lies with the state Legislature, according to a UW System official.
Separating the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the state?s college system could dilute the system?s cachet and lead to infighting for funding.
As University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin watched this state?s government face deeper and deeper financial woes with the approach of the 2011-2013 budget, she could have sat back and asked the Legislature to consider the university?s own difficult financial situation.
Chancellor Biddy Martin has shown an unwavering commitment to transparency and discussion that is currently unrivaled in the city of Madison. Where Gov. Scott Walker flippantly referred to the budget repair bill as ?just another bill? in his letter to Wisconsin, Martin recognizes the incredible significance surrounding these proceedings.
