Category: Higher Education/System

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will discuss changes to the System’s tenure policies at its meeting Thursday, a main point of discussion at a faculty and staff meeting at UW-Green Bay Wednesday.

The “fearless sifting and winnowing” that is the core of the Wisconsin Idea would be squelched by the erosion of support for tenure in state law proposed by legislative Republicans, say leaders of a lobbying organization of UW-Madison faculty.

A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison professors is appealing to the UW Board of Regents to preserve tenure protections and standards of shared governance.

Already dismayed by prospective cuts to the University of Wisconsin System, higher education observers now suggest the state could become an academic pariah if the Legislature scales back two treasured tenets of academia — tenure and shared governance.

University of Wisconsin System faculty, staff and student government groups could soon lose influence on their campuses after Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee voted last week to change shared governance laws.

University of Wisconsin faculty are urging the UW Board of Regents to preserve tenure and reject some of the powers the board would be granted under a GOP budget plan.

This week’s University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting takes on added significance after Republicans on the state Legislature’s budget committee voted to remove tenure protections from state law.

State lawmakers approved reducing a planned cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, and making multiple changes to how tenure and shared governance are included in state law.

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to reduce Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System by $50 million. Committee members approved the change Friday evening.

The University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross made the following statement on the proposed Joint Finance Committee motion.

Lawmakers on the Legislature’s powerful budget committee trimmed Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million two-year funding cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, which if it stands would be tied for the largest cut in System history and would mark the fifth time in the last six budget cycles that the universities took a significant funding cut. Of perhaps even more consequence, the committee approved significant changes to faculty tenure, removing it from state law, and to shared governance that would take away some decision-making power from faculty, students and staff and give more sway to campus chancellors and the UW System Board of Regents, who are appointed by the governor.

Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin were disheartened on Friday after a state legislative committee approved proposals that would limit the faculty’s role in shared governance and eliminate laws protecting tenure.

It’s been a tumultuous year for faculty members within the University of Wisconsin System, from threats to the Wisconsin Idea to a proposed $300 million budget cut to Governor Scott Walker’s suggestion that professors do more work to compensate for the slash.

The Legislature’s budget-writing committee voted Friday to cut the University of Wisconsin’s budget by $250 million and eliminate tenure protections for faculty from state law — moves derided by Democrats who argued the changes would hurt both higher education and the state’s economy.

Members of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee have restored some of the cuts Governor Scott Walker proposed for the University of Wisconsin System in his budget plan. Although, the UW will still have to absorb funding reductions of $250 million over the next biennium.

Republicans on the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted Friday night to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $250 million, while at the same time ending tenure protections enshrined in state law.

The University of Wisconsin System would see $250 million in cuts and sweeping changes in its operations, under a proposal put forward by GOP lawmakers Friday that will still be less dramatic than changes proposed by Gov. Scott Walker.

In a final push on the state budget bill, a key legislative panel is scheduled to start voting Friday on how deeply to cut the University of Wisconsin System and key natural resource programs, whether to publicly fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and how to fund highways.

The UW cut up for a vote Friday is one of the most controversial pieces of Walker’s two-year state spending plan. Republicans who control the budget-writing committee have already said they won’t go along with Walker’s plan to give UW more independence from state laws and oversight.

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the University of Wisconsin System is slated to be voted on by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.

Among other actions Wednesday, the Joint Finance Committee approved $86.2 million in bonding to renovate and expand UW-Madison’s outdated chemistry building.

As Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin threatened nine-figure reductions in higher education funding, public colleges and universities in those states made their own threats in return. System leaders warned — often and loudly — that layoffs, program cuts and the general welfare of the states’ college students were on the line if legislators went forward with the proposed cuts.