Dear Editor: Why would anyone want to destroy a $15 billion economic engine for the state? That is an absolutely great return on a $1.2 billion investment as a state we make.
Dear Editor: Underemployed graduates are sick of paying so much tax money to the same University of Wisconsin System that did them no favors in the labor market. Anecdotes of graduate success adorn university websites and press releases, whereas anecdotes of failure are ignored.
The blanket exemption in Walker’s budget from open records laws for UW researchers could lead to abuse and public distrust.
It’s hard to believe that Gov. Scott Walkers proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System’s budget over the next two years would allow the system to maintain its quality. Walker would prohibit the university system from raising tuition during that period, but instead give university officials more flexibility in managing contracting and construction projects.
The Wisconsin State Journal Editorial Board captured the prevailing opinion last weekend when it called the jaw-dropping $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin “inexplicable.” Unfortunately, the board is wrong. There is a plausible vision behind what Gov. Scott Walker is trying to do, which makes his proposal much more dangerous than a simple misunderstanding of university operations.
All right, listen: I am a professional editor, and I am here to help.
First, take that amount out of the big surplus UW administration garnered while raising tuition to the maximum amount possible. Second, recover claw back the money given in error to UW employees because of an incompetent human resources payroll department.
Gov. Walker clearly stepped in it when his administration attempted to quietly slip into the budget substantive statutory language changes to what is known as the “Wisconsin Idea.”
All of the University of Wisconsin campuses face difficult personnel decisions in the wake of Gov. Scott Walker’s call for a $300 million System-wide cut in taxpayer support for the 2015-2017 biennium.
EDITOR: The proposed 2015 biennial budget not only will make it considerably more difficult for Wisconsinites to attend any and all University of Wisconsin campuses but it will also eliminate citizen voice and control in the UW governing process.
Gov. Scott Walker’s budget achieved an unusual result in a Legislature that has been so politically divided: It united a handful Democrats and Republicans who oppose some of the proposals.
I’m honored to be serving the friends and neighbors of the 69th Assembly District! I’m also delighted to be taking part in the first budget process since my election over a year ago.
I really hope the state budget wraps up soon, because I don’t know how much more flippant politicking I can take from Wisconsin’s governor/presidential candidate — nor how much more righteous indignation I can take from the officials of multimillion UW-Madison and its billion-dollar parent institution, the UW System.
Can you imagine UW-Madison after it has been decimated by Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts?
Among the many other non-budgetary and bad policy items in Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed biennial state budget, theres this: The governor is asking for a measure that could be used to hide certain research in the University of Wisconsin System. Two previous efforts in the last two years to thwart public access to such research failed, one rejected by the Joint Finance Committee and one by an Assembly committee.
It’s probably only fair to point out, though, that UW-Madison profs might also be suffering from comparatively low wages because so darn many have been promoted to the highest pay category, but there’s only so much money to go around.
Greenler is a Madison resident and an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Kudos to conservative professors James Baughman and John Sharpless for defending UW-Madison in the face of the severe cuts Gov. Scott Walker is proposing to the University of Wisconsin System. It is great to hear such dedicated teachers, scholars and citizens defend UW-Madison, which is a state treasure regardless of any warts it bears.
[T]he proposal by the Walker administration to strike statutory language directing the UW to focus on “public service” and “the search for truth” has turned out to be a healthy development for the state.
A “drafting error” of this scope, defended initially by the governor, is not really an error at all. Sadly, it is a look into the values and beliefs of the governor and those around him. It is good that he backtracked, after the public outcry. Let this be instructive to us in the days, weeks and months ahead as his full budget comes under public scrutiny in the light of day.
For starters, lawmakers should ease the university cut. The governor pitched his historic reduction to the 26-campus System as a trade. UW would lose state aid in exchange for more autonomy from state rules.
McWilliams is a former chair of the Associated Students of Madison.
Guess the source of this quote: “There is no profession in the world, anywhere in the world, where if you work for seven years you get a lifetime guarantee of a job. Except at a university…If you have tenure at a university, by the time you are 35 you never have to prove yourself again.”
I admit to being agnostic when it comes to whether Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget cuts to the University of Wisconsin system are a good idea. I want the university to thrive, as I suspect most Wisconsinites do.
With the UW’s financial and philosophical future under attack, it is really tempting to go march on the Capitol. Dig the blue fist shirts from the back of the closet, polish the old vuvuzela.
What is the purpose of a great University? In Wisconsin, our answer is that universities exist to apply knowledge to the benefit of every citizen of the State, not just those who are privileged to attend. Rather than an ivory tower, the mission of the UW System is to search for truth and serve society. Put another way — the boundaries of the UW are the boundaries of the state. This is the essence of the Wisconsin Idea, and it’s been enshrined into state law for over a century:
As a senior at Wausau East High School in 2000, I made the decision to attend the University of Notre Dame. My friends’ parents questioned this move, asking me both seriously and in jest why I’d pay the hefty tuition of a private university when the University Wisconsin System was just as good and far more affordable.
Editorial board says: “The Wisconsin Legislature must resist the governor’s ideologically driven thrust at the state university system.”
On the dumb scale, dissing “The Wisconsin Idea” while youre governor of Wisconsin is somewhere just to the south of suggesting that the Green Bay Packers are such a suck on the states resources that they should move to the U.P. Now, of course, that notion might gain purchase if Mike McCarthy settles for a few more field goals from the one-yard line but thats another column.
EDITOR: I am a conservative when it comes to high debt levels and spending. I’ve been a supporter of Gov. Scott Walker supporter for the most part because we needed an elected official willing to take a stand on controlling government spending.
While the big kerfuffle in Madison this week was over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget attempt to redefine the Wisconsin Idea and turn state universities into jobs programs, there remains in the budget an even more outrageous proposal that would put a black veil over public oversight of university operations.
We call upon our state legislators, Rep. Al Ott and Sen. Frank Lasee, to vocally and forcefully oppose Gov. Scott Walker’s devastating cuts to the University of Wisconsin.
In the past few weeks, there has been much discussion regarding the University of Wisconsin System, its budget and access to higher education. But this discussion has missed some important points:
During his tenure as Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker has gotten a lot of ink for things he has done. But far less attention has been paid to the things he hasn’t been able to accomplish.
On the one hand, the Wisconsin Idea is a relic of Progressive-Era gasbaggery. The idea that the Wisconsin public university system could reach its fingers into every corner of the state was cooked up by university leaders like Charles Van Hise when he wasn’t trying to rid the state of “defectives” through the practice of eugenics. In the past 100 years, anyone who rightly criticized any wasteful practices at the UW were met by howls of “but the Wisconsin Idea!,” as if the mere invocation of the term constituted the last word.
As part of a broader attempt to diminish the state’s support for, and ties to, the University of Wisconsin System, Walker wants to strike “Wisconsin Idea” language from state statutes — including references to public service and a commitment to “search for truth.”
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.
