Chancellor Biddy Martin presented a compromise between the New Badger Partnership and the Board of Regents? Wisconsin Idea Partnership that would provide the UW System more flexibilities while maintaining public authority status for UW-Madison.
After University of Wisconsin System representatives expressed support for a new plan to keep the Madison campus within the System, the UW-Madison chancellor proposed an addition to the budget bill that would provide administrative flexibilities to all campuses while maintaining the public authority status for the campus.
Members of the University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate weighed a new approach to funding for the university under the public authority model and approved a resolution in support of academic freedom during a meeting Monday.
…Walker is mugging Wisconsin?s educational tradition. He has proposed cuts of nearly $1 billion in state aid to local school districts while capping their levels of taxation. Apparently he is supporting the idea of spinning the university off from the state system, largely because he now will include all university employees as part of his ?250,000 new jobs.? The state and municipalities have yet to see the impact of his program on recruiting and retaining good teachers. The outcome is all too apparent.
Life goes on. The grass is sprouting on the trampled grounds at the state Capitol, the Legislature is in recess and the governor wants nothing less than a do-over of the 20th century. Meanwhile, killing the bargaining rights of teachers, providing a one-sided grievance and disciplinary process and reducing their incomes apparently are vital parts of the governor?s plan to open the state for ?business.?
(Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus. This column first appeared on Truthdig.com.)
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin on Friday released some of the emails requested of a history professor by the state Republican Party but said she is withholding others that “fall within the orbit of academic freedom.” Stephan Thompson, deputy executive director of the state Republican Party, had sought the emails under the state?s open records law after professor Bill Cronon wrote an essay on his blog critical of the role the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council has played in pushing anti-union legislation in Wisconsin and elsewhere.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin announced Friday that she will release some of the emails from a history professor requested by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, but she is withholding others that “fall within the orbit of academic freedom.”
University of Wisconsin System officials provided new details of their proposal to gain flexibilities as a united entity in a Joint Finance Committee meeting Thursday, a plan the Madison chancellor has said could pose a risk to the excellence of the system?s flagship campus.
UW-Madison received an open records request from Stephan Thompson, deputy executive director of the state?s Republican Party, for email records of history professor Bill Cronon two weeks ago. On Friday, Chancellor Biddy Martin revealed in a letter to the campus community that the university will release those emails.
The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus urged state lawmakers Thursday to support Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal spinning it off from the university system. The future of the university system is one of the largest and most divisive issues in Walker?s budget. UW System President Kevin Reilly argued for giving the other campuses more autonomy but keeping the system intact. “I will be the first to agree that these flexibilities are important for UW-Madison,” Reilly said. “They are, but they are equally important to all other UW campuses.” Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin, who has pushed more than a year to get more freedom for Madison, said the campus needs a model that will allow it to thrive. “We?re in a race and were tired of listening to words and we?re tired of the same structures that aren?t getting us to where we need to go,” Martin said.
MADISON (WKOW) — More authority for all schools in the UW System. That?s what system president Kevin Reilly called for Thursday morning.
“This is not the time to break up a well-running UW System,” Reilly said. The UW System President renewed his call for greater control at the university level – proposed in the Wisconsin Ideas Partnership. Reilly is opposed to Walker?s plan — supported by UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin — to spin off the Madison campus from the rest of the system.
Members of the University of Wisconsin student government said Monday they are deliberating the best procedure to appoint a student representative to the new governing board for the period after the campus becomes a public authority.
In a public forum Monday, the University of Wisconsin dean of students and several deans of individual schools said university operation is hampered by a human resources structure that does not fit a world-class institution.
As in every other state budget cycle, University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly will appear this week before the Joint Finance Committee to defend state funding for the system. During more typical times, most of Reilly?s angst would be focused on the $250 million in cuts proposed in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 biennial budget, half of which will be absorbed by UW-Madison.
A thorough airing is needed before any legislative action is taken on a plan to keep the University of Wisconsin System united while still allowing the flexibilities sought in a proposal to split off its flagship campus.
When UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin says she wants her university to set sail from the constraints of the UW System, I say bon voyage! Respected public universities such as UW-Madison increasingly have sought status and brand-recognition as they prey on that bizarre middle-class American fetish for higher education that assumes a student?s choice of college is possibly the most important choice of his life. Despite Martin?s assurances to the contrary, a standalone UW-Madison would be more expensive and harder for state residents to get into, while benefiting from the hype among out-of-state and well-heeled students that expense and exclusivity confer.
A thorough airing is needed before any legislative action is taken on a plan to keep the University of Wisconsin System united while still allowing the flexibilities sought in a proposal to split off its flagship campus.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor said if her school is allowed to spin off from the rest of the UW System she won?t recommend a tuition increase of more than 8.5 percent next year. Biddy Martin said the in-state rate hike would match what Madison students absorbed in the past year. She said grants would cover students from lower-income families.
Chancellor Biddy Martin just can?t catch a break when it comes to the New Badger Partnership. After she attracted support from major student leaders across campus, Martin was left with the daunting task of capturing the heart of one of Wisconsin?s most intransigent politicians to date?Gov. Scott Walker. Fortunately for Martin, the idea of the partnership was established even before Walker came to office. And to Martin?s delight, Walker released a 2011- ?13 biennial budget containing all the statutory language needed to grant UW-Madison more autonomy under?much to the UW System?s surprise and dismay?a public authority model.
Budget cuts are flying around mercilessly these days. Madison is facing a 13-percent budget cut in Scott Walker?s proposed budget bill and needs to find ways to absorb those costs without just passing them on to students. Public authority status, included in the budget, is one proposal aiming to do just that, but Chancellor Biddy Martin is looking for other cost-reductions as well. This week, the administration announced a contract with Huron Consulting Group to look for ways to improve efficiency on campus and save the university money.
Chancellor Biddy Martin just can?t catch a break when it comes to the New Badger Partnership. After she attracted support from major student leaders across campus, Martin was left with the daunting task of capturing the heart of one of Wisconsin?s most intransigent politicians to date?Gov. Scott Walker.
After all the smoke clears from the budget battles, we may find that, other than Gov. Scott Walker?s astounding move to crush public sector unions, no proposal will have as profound an effect on the future of the state as Walker?s takeover of the UW-Madison.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin chancellors asked state lawmakers Wednesday to support a new plan that would give all their schools more autonomy but wouldn?t spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.
UW-Madison, please don?t go. That?s the gist of a letter to state legislators Wednesday, signed by all of the chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System ? except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
UW-Madison is embarking on an external study to look for areas where the university could function more cheaply, effectively and efficiently. There are no cost estimates yet for the contract that university leaders signed with Huron Consulting Group earlier this month. Instead, the company will bill the university on an hourly basis, giving the university flexibility on how much it wants to spend, said Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison signed off on a deal earlier this month which asks the Huron Consulting Group to study if the university is running as efficiently and effectively as possible. There is no estimate for how much this project might cost the university at this time, said Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for administration. However, university administrators told faculty leaders in September that such an endeavor could cost upwards of $3 million. Taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay for the project, said Bazzell.
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.
