You might think that one of the nation’s leading academic communication programs would be a good place to make a long-distance phone call.
Humanities is not a field of education; humanities is a way of life. My interdisciplinary education through a public institution the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has shaped my life and the lives of many others.
I remain very proud of the education I received here in Wisconsin, and my mom and sad, my sibs and now my kids all have degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison — public school educations for all of us. We have all had successful lives and successful careers. It doesn’t look like my family will have any more kids of the age where schools will be an issue.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s state faced a big budget deficit. To solve it, he plans to decimate one of the most respected and productive university systems in the country. And he plans to spend hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars for a professional basketball arena.
I am a full professor at UW-Whitewater, having taught there for 34 years. Faculty at UW-Whitewater teach eight classes per year, generally twice as much as UW-Madison faculty. Academic staff teach nine classes per year. We do not have teaching assistants to help us with our grading, and we provide much more one-on-one contact with students.
Walker’s autonomy plan has nothing to do with what he tries to pass off as a better way to free the university to gain efficiencies and, in turn, “save” taxpayers money. It has everything to do, though, with the $300 million he can use as a downpayment on the state’s $2 billion budget deficit. Walker not only needs to cover that deficit, but come up with enough additional spending cuts so he can fulfill his promise to make yet more tax cuts in the next biennium.
A great state needs a great state university — as a source of educational opportunity, vital research and economic development. The founders of Wisconsin understood this, making provision in the first state constitution “for the establishment of a state university, at or near the seat of state government.” That provision also speaks of linking the great state university in Madison with “colleges in different parts of the state as the interests of education may require.” And it outlines strategies for supporting and sustaining higher education in Wisconsin.
If Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies support education, they have a strange way of showing it.
With $300 million in cuts proposed for the University of Wisconsin System, it is tempting to say that the sky is falling. But saying that requires real cuts and real impacts that are felt immediately by the general public. Unfortunately, the impact of these cuts will take years to be fully felt.
First, I strongly disagree with the characterization of the original policy as coming “close to constituting a general ‘civility code.’” … Second, in his reference to Dean Soyeon Shim’s comments on Inside Higher Education, Downs mistakenly states that Shim portrays the university’s new policy “as a general civility policy.” … Finally, it is important to recognize that there are a number of ongoing discussions on campus regarding topics such as bullying, civility and inclusion, and to not conflate these distinct conversations.
Regarding “UW System defends importance as Walker says professors can work more,” imagine a worker at Briggs & Stratton Jan. 29.
In December, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank met with The Gazette’s editorial board and made compelling arguments for state support. (Subscription required.)
Though I love the game of baseball, why not introduce the oldest, newest game to a varsity position. The sport of lacrosse was founded by Native Americans a very long time before baseball and many other sports were even thought of.
To say the state can cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System without affecting the quality of education and research is simply not true. Far from saving money, failing to invest in higher education will results in a further lag on our already lagging economy compared to our neighbors.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recently unveiled higher education budget plans would only exacerbate the burgeoning student loan debt crisis.
Dear Editor: On behalf of our colleagues in the department of neuroscience we write to express our appreciation for our colleague Professor Tom Yin. The false claim that the closing of Yin’s laboratory was a PETA victory reminds us of the fable of the rooster that believed that his crowing in the morning made the sun rise. The professor is 70 years old and, after a distinguished career that has lasted for 45 years, he plans to retire.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A governor suggests that educators have a sweetheart deal, and, by golly, he’s going to do something about it on behalf of Wisconsin taxpayers. He will supply a set of “tools” to get the job done.
The implication from the headline is that faculty and staff have more time and effort they can give. This is more of the “politics as usual” from the Walker administration. As Gov. Walker stated, “divide and conquer.”
Once again, Gov. Scott Walker has hit the nail on the head. The proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System over a two-year period with an increase in its responsibility to self-manage its financial decisions is overdue “UW System cuts could bring layoffs,” Jan. 28.
Still, when I hear System officials complain that Walker’s cuts and tuition freeze could cause layoffs, I also hear the sound of the world’s smallest violin playing mournfully in the background.
Those squeals of indignation you hear echoing from one end of Madison to the other are likely occasioned by Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System budget.
The governor’s proposal would grant the System greater autonomy over purchasing and the like, which, in the long run, will afford substantial savings. But it is the short-run cut in state support that should concern all of those who value the University. It’s a baffling recommendation given the state’s economic recovery and the governor’s claims to have repaired the structural deficit. Perhaps some in the governor’s circle assume UW is just another state agency. This is, frankly, akin to saying the Green Bay Packers are just another NFL team.
Both of us came to digital teaching early but somewhat reluctantly. What we love most about teaching are the interactions with students, and 15 years ago we didn’t see clearly how adding digital tools would allow us to strengthen those interactions.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut state aid for the UW System by $150 million in each of the next two years, and then give the board that sets system policy the power to completely run it by 2017, will prompt the biggest Capitol fight over public universities in 44 years.
Higher education costs a lot of money. The University of Wisconsin System, which serves 180,000 students and employs 39,000 people in Wisconsin, asks a lot. Its budget includes more than $1 billion in state money; tuitions have been rising, putting pressure on many middle-class families; the system leans on federal grants and private donations and other revenue sources. It’s expensive.
As I watch many valued colleagues leave the University of Wisconsin-Madison for other institutions, I react with dismay. Not at them, but at the lack of any substantive educational vision that now seems to pervade the governor’s officer and the Legislature. We do a disservice to any serious understanding of the importance of education if we simply see it as a vocational path to more money and jobs. When the governor said that he didn’t need to finish college because he already had a job, he demonstrated how limited was his view of education as a self-making process.
I am writing about University of Wisconsin System Ray Cross’s response to Gov. Scott Walker’s suggestion that UW professors should teach more classes, and therefore absorb most of Walker’s proposed funding cut in that way.
Gov. Scott Walker announced details of his 2015-2017 budget proposal that would turn the University of Wisconsin System into a public authority, extend the tuition freeze and cut funding by $300 million. In anticipation of the governors biennial budget address on Tuesday, a dynamic conversation already has begun among policy-makers, members of the UW and citizens in the state.
Last weekend, news reports began to swirl about potentially massive budget cuts to the University of Wisconsin System. On Tuesday, Gov. Scott Walker confirmed the worst: UW System campuses are slated to take a combined $150 million base budget cut over two years, so $300 million total in his upcoming 2015-17 biennial budget proposal.
There is only one word for Scott Walker’s comments about the University of Wisconsin faculty: demeaning.
The Republican governor’s plan to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System is troubling. Allowing UW campuses more flexibility from state bureaucracy to save money is fine. But the governor wants the System to absorb what would amount to a 13 percent cut in state funding while maintaining a tuition freeze for two more years. No amount of efficiency, short of damaging layoffs, is going to offset that in the short run. Moreover, tuition hikes after a freeze expires could price some in-state students out of a Wisconsin school.
Critics of soon-to-be-presidential-candidate Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin have certainly noticed the message he sent this week about what’s important in his state: professional sports, specifically an NBA franchise.
It’s safe to say when we put Reinvigorating The Wisconsin Idea on our editorial agenda for the year we never dreamed it would be perhaps the most important issue facing our state in 2015.
It’s time we consider our high admission standards a positive asset, not a liability, and be proud of setting the bar high.
This proposed cut is especially draconian, given the election-year tuition freezes and the state’s recent parsimonious allocations to the System. Even without these future cuts, faculty — often the very best young faculty — have been leaving Wisconsin.
Here’s hoping the debate is an honest effort to improve the performance, accessibility and accountability of the state’s largest higher education system, not a political exercise driven by perception rather than fact.
UW is the only Big Ten school without baseball. Baseball ended at UW in 1991 because of funding and gender equity. UW cannot shake gender equity. It refused to spend a few hundred thousand dollars to update the UW Field House for a Big Ten championship women’s volleyball program.
If we are to make progress moving beyond talk to honest dialogue on racial disparities we will need to reconnect as citizens and rebuild trust in our institutions. Trust of course is that often elusive two-way street. Take the UW for example. It is, among other things, a political football. And because of that many citizens are confused about its role.
As the University of WIsconsin welcomes new football coach Paul Chryst and watches in anticipation as one of Bo Ryan’s finest teams makes another bid for the Final Four, I would like to issue the following statement.
Noted: Schmidt is a retired UW-Madison professor of psychiatry. “Conflicts persist because of universal aspects of the developmental physiology of each human brain, but our brains have also evolved to include a capacity for reason and empathy. Let’s use that capacity to move from conflict to cooperation.”
… once public universities or public university systems get the authority to increase tuition, “you get the tendency to increase tuition.”
Noted: A trio of prominent local African-Americans describes the subtle slights, how they don their racial ‘armor’ and offer advice to white Madisonians. Included: Everett Mitchell, director of community relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It was disconcerting to read that when it comes to the care of medically fragile newborns, hospital officials might be keeping an eye on factors other than their patients’ health — namely, the health of their employers’ bottom lines.
“According to UW-Madison sociology professor Pam Oliver’s research, racial disparities occur throughout the criminal justice process.”
Sara Goldrick-Rab, UW-Madison professor and founding director of the Wisconsin Harvesting Opportunities for Postsecondary Education, or HOPE, Lab, thinks paying for college with need-based government aid is an antiquated model and supports Obama’s proposal. There is “clear evidence that most families are struggling to afford the cost of even community college today,” she said. Still, the existence of students who manage to pay for college without any government help isn’t proof that there isn’t enough help available.
It’s worth noting that President Barack Obama’s new education initiative introduced last week has its roots right here on the UW Madison campus.
Noted: Carolyn J. Heinrich is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin formerly at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has worked with Milwaukee Public Schools in an external research and evaluation capacity since 2006.
Madison has benefited greatly from its building boom Downtown and elsewhere. This includes the central city, the East Washington corridor, the UW-Madison campus, State Street and beyond.
The battle over who should lead colleges and universities has been raging since the inception of higher education. It is most often, and stereotypically, cast as a fight between administrators and faculty members. Both of those parties, supposedly interested in what students need, are alternately said to be effective governors of higher education and major impediments to effective leadership.
Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature should give UW-Madison the right to work without micro-management. Take off the shackles that bind UW’s hands.
Gov. Scott Walker and the Legislature should give UW-Madison the right to work without micro-management. Take off the shackles that bind UW’s hands.
or multiple reasons I find possibly misleading either the study of economic development marketing by the University of Wisconsin’s department of agricultural and applied economics or Mike Ivey’s brief description of it, “WEDC marketing efforts a waste of money, new report suggests.”
Okay, so it wasn’t the most eloquent statement ever, but it was accurate.”Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL, classes are POINTLESS.”
Maybe the GOP has actually convinced voters that we do not need and cannot afford a world-class research university such as the one we have at UW-Madison. After all, it is GOP pols who like to say — to dodge overwhelming evidence that climate change exists — that they cannot opine on it because they are not scientists. So, not grasping the promise of stem cells and other advanced research, maybe they think Wisconsin’s flagship university should stick to training for professions they understand.
Why not cut it down to just a large stump, perhaps three feet high. It could be sealed over the top using some of the good lumber from the tree to make a monument and statement.
There were two very different hiring processes for arguably the two most important people on UW-Madison’s campus. Make up your own minds as to which ranks No. 1.
Rock County got an early Christmas present Dec. 19 when a Georgia recycling and packaging company announced plans to build a $52 million factory in Beloit that will employ 140 people. (Subscription required.)
My hope for 2015 is that Madison Mayor Paul Soglin will finally have the courage to close the hideously cruel University of Wisconsin Primate Center.
And the second most powerful state political figure, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, has joined the attack on science. Vos … threatened that he wants university research to focus exclusively on economic development and not, as he put it, “on the ancient mating habits of whatever.” University researchers will now have to worry that the guy who holds their purse strings and can cut their budget will be passing judgment on what they should research.
The post-World War II baby boom swept into American colleges in the 1960s, driving up total taxpayer costs and sending officials looking for financial answers.
