Category: Opinion

Column by Chad Alan Goldberg, a UW-Madison sociology professor and president of United Faculty and Academic Staff, AFT Local 223.

Cross has been a weak advocate for the UW System and its students — too mild in his defenses of higher education and too willing to accept compromises that harm UW-Madison and other campuses. The majority of regents have been worse; they have taken positions that have undermined the integrity and the strength of the UW System. Some outstanding faculty members have left; others are thinking about doing so. And those who remain have been undercut.

Letter to the editor: I find it amusing and obviously not a well-thought-out comment when Rep. Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, calls the UW faculty arrogant for having no confidence in the Board of Regents or University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross.

Letter to the editor: [I]f there is any takeaway between John’s involvement in the emerging sand mining industry and his role on the Board of Regents, to me it would be his unique ability to navigate uncharted waters and provide positive solutions with limited unintended consequences.

Several weeks ago, I completed five bracing years in Washington, D.C., as president of the Association of American Universities. What have I learned about research universities and their place in American life? Three things stand out: undergraduate education, crucial to liberal democracy, is showing signs of getting better; federal regulation of universities, an issue to which I had previously paid little attention, is stifling and out of date; and big-time intercollegiate athletics, incredibly popular, are also incredibly perilous for universities, as their moral and physical hazards multiply rapidly.

Declaring “no confidence” is cantankerous and irresponsible for anyone with a future invested in this institution.

By an overwhelming margin, faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison voted to express “no confidence” in UW System President Ray Cross and the system’s Board of Regents.

The Faculty Senate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison voted overwhelmingly Monday for a resolution of no-confidence in the UW System president and the Board of Regents.

Letter to the editor: By their actions, the governor, Republicans in the Legislature, the UW Board of Regents, and the University of Wisconsin System administration have shown “no confidence” in the UW faculty and in the long-term reputation of the university in recent years.

EDITOR: It’s rare to know ahead of time where Gov. Scott Walker will be making an appearance in this state. Many of us were shocked to learn he will be coming to Stevens Point Thursday to take part in the groundbreaking ceremony for a new science building at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. It is the first new building on the campus in more than 40 years, and funding for the building was approved many years ago.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy about Wisconsin professors’ freedom of speech and academic freedom. It’s easy to defend speech you like. A lot of people are defending only the speech they like. A challenge to left and right: Start being consistent.

Let’s take the time to do this right. Otherwise, we may be not only putting a new south Madison campus in a financial hole, but damaging what still is a key element in providing technical and vocational training for thousands of our young people.

Steineke is too oblivious to know it, but he’s providing the very reason why tenure is so important to a faculty that requires the freedom to embark on controversial research, offer scholarly opinions and produce academic papers that may not be politically popular at any given tim

Letter to the editor: UW-Madison has disclosed it is considering mandating “cultural competency training” for all university students, staff and administrators. This is likely a fine idea.

Letter to the editor: We should listen to the professor’s concerns about the difficulties faced by minority students and not reflexively condemn the messenger. The university was right to quickly apologize. Let’s hope the university learns from its mistakes. If the student is guilty, I hope he learns from his.

Former Gov. Tommy Thompson will get an honorary degree this month from UW-Madison. He is being cited for his dedication to the university and the “Wisconsin Idea.”

Letter to the editor: The resolution is before the Faculty Senate, a group of faculty elected or coerced to serve, charged only with advising UW administrators. In short, it has absolutely no power and governs nothing.

Letter to the editor: With all due respect to a UW-Madison student who spray-painted several buildings and was arrested on vandalism charges — costing taxpayers thousands of dollars to clean up — my suggestion, learned in kindergarten, is: Let he who makes the graffiti erase the graffiti.

Letter to the editor: The responses of faculty in support of McDonald reveal we inhabit different planets — or different Madisons. Through #TheRealUW campaign, the Race to Equity report, and other narratives of racial inequality in Madison, it is clear people of color experience the city differently than their white counterparts. McDonald’s messages reflect these experiences, as well as the frustrations of living under a university structure that has done little to protect and support its students of color.

It seems to be happening more and more lately: we put an issue on our editorial agenda for the year and the issue takes an unexpected turn before the year is half over.

Another sure sign of spring in Wisconsin came last week — student protest marches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In February of 1940, students at small Young Harris College in Georgia staged an uprising. Among their demands of the Methodist institution were the right to hold school dances, to liberalize campus dating practices and for each student to be given an additional sandwich on the Sunday menu.

Neil Heinen talks about the Morgridge Center and how it works as an example of the Wisconsin Idea.

The UW-Madison political science professor, an Ozaukee County native, was stunned by what northern Wisconsin residents told her in diners, coffee shops, back rooms and barns between 2007 and 2012.

Letter to the editor: The caption describes this example of graffiti as “anti-racist.” Only now, in our culture that is afraid to speak the truth that racism cuts both ways, would such a blatantly racist statement be deemed “anti-racist.”

It’s all on camera, documenting the arrest of Denzel McDonald in more detail and clarity than any written police report could ever provide. That’s the power and benefit of recording video and audio of officer interactions — and why more departments should equip their patrol officers with the technology.

It seems reasonable enough for police to wait until class is over to arrest a suspect who isn’t otherwise causing a problem. But if you’re going to suggest the hearing of constitutionally protected political speech is more important than the cops’ interest in enforcing well-established and legal limits on how that speech can be expressed — like in spray paint, on state property — then you can’t really discriminate based on the content of the speech.

Foreign Policy contributor Stephen Walt recently published an article on how to get tenure. His 10 very reasonable points are rooted in more than 30 years of experience at top departments in the field of political science. He offers practical suggestions in a number of areas, advising those pursuing tenure to publish and take advantage of networking opportunities. But his article overlooks a critical issue for about half of the junior faculty out there — the fact that they are women.

The study of English literature, and literary studies more broadly, was, for the greater part of the 20th century, the crown jewel of the humanities. And from the early 1960s until his death last month, at the age of 86, Geoffrey Hartman was one of its staunchest guardians.

We all do stupid things when we’re young. Many of us continue to do them as we age, too. Stupid has no expiration date.

Mark us as seriously concerned about the impact of reductions in the levels of state funding for the University of Wisconsin System. And, for now, add that we are moderately concerned about the level of interest in a robust, public discussion of that impact.

In his April 7 op-ed “An Overheated Climate Alarm” Bjorn Lomborg targets the recent Federal Climate and Health Assessment, focusing on the balance between cold-related deaths avoided and heat-related deaths caused by climate change. He complains that the report “not once” mentions that more people die of cold than heat—a complaint that is plainly false (see the chapter on temperature). Mr. Lomborg is right that cold-related deaths will decline, but quantitatively comparing this health benefit with the health penalties of hotter weather and more heat waves is complex, as the report clearly acknowledges.

We remain in favor of Voter ID as a concept, that a person appearing at a polling place should be wiling to offer proof of identity. But we also recognize that for all law-abiding citizens 18 or older, voting is a right, affirmed with the same powerful language in the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments as something to “not be denied or abridged.”

April 12 is this year’s national Equal Pay Day — the day when, because of the gender wage gap, women’s pay for the previous year equals men’s. The gender pay gap highlighted today also means greater student loan debt burdens for women. The latest update of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) report, Graduating to a Pay Gap, finds less pay translates into women taking longer to pay off student loan debt.

Ray Cross just isn’t up to his job. Certainly, the UW System president has a tough challenge. He has multiple constituencies, and none of them are easy to please. Worse, their interests often conflict, sometimes spectacularly.