When Biddy Martin began her chancellorship at this university, a group of legislators circulated a blog post accusing the flagship?s new steward of being ?an obscure, self-indulged, theory-laden, post-modern scholar.?
You have to admire the public relations savvy. The UW System?s Board of Regents meets Friday and is expected to aggressively question UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin about not telling the regents about a plan to split the Madison campus from the UW System that she had worked on with Gov. Scott Walker.
….Martin and her team must be concerned, because they brought out the biggest possible gun today with former UW chancellor Donna Shalala opining strong support for the breakup in a guest column in the State Journal.
Here?s a thought: maybe Madison, Wis., isn?t Cairo after all. Maybe it?s Baghdad ? specifically, Baghdad in 2003, when the Bush administration put Iraq under the rule of officials chosen for loyalty and political reliability rather than experience and competence.
There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker?s claim of a “budget shortfall” of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.
In recent days, I?ve watched from afar as citizens of Wisconsin have captured the attention of the country with their spirited discussion and debate at the state Capitol. Clearly, the issues are painful and of great significance.
In Wisconsin, today?s Ground Zero for state budget battles, it is not hard to see bad behavior all around. Teachers are playing hooky to protest Gov. Scott Walker?s plan to trim their benefits and clip back the power of their union. Democratic lawmakers are hiding out in Illinois to prevent a GOP majority from working its will. And Walker, a newly elected Republican, has chosen this moment of fiscal crisis to pursue questionable tax cuts and a risky attack on collective bargaining.
We recognize the rising Wisconsin wave of resistance to corporatization and austerity and call on our fellow Wisconsinites to join it. For more than a century Wisconsin was America?s laboratory of democracy. Big Wisconsin ideas, like barring corporate electioneering, workers? rights protections, and the conservation ethic, have inspired Americans everywhere to push their state governments in a more progressive direction. But Wisconsin is not immune to the forces that often threaten social progress. For every elected official who channels grass-roots energy and calls us to the higher ground, there?s a politician who wants to steer us off the cliff.
For every ?Fighting Bob? La Follette, there?s a ?Tailgunner Joe? McCarthy. Today, Wisconsin?s democratic tradition faces the greatest threat it has ever known.
(Column submitted by Wisconsin Wave, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy and the Liberty Tree Foundation.)
When it comes to details about the New Badger Partnership, Chancellor Biddy Martin has been talking in generalities for nearly a year. Martin has continually called for drastic measures to help cushion the possibility of large cuts to university funding?measures she vaguely described as “flexibility” and “increased tools.” However, when a memo with specifics about the possible shape of the New Badger Partnership was released last week, it seemed as if behind-the-door details that had built up for months were finally made public.
Column by Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The feud between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and that state?s employees has all of a sudden become ground zero in the battle between efforts by the GOP to shut down unions as they exist and union workers. This pitched battle is clearly a precursor to the 2012 elections, but it is also the latest shot across the bow of union purists who don?t want to give up wages or benefits they have won in negotiations with government and business.
The standoff between Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the Democratic senators that caused a massing of protesters in the state capital isnt just about the bargaining rights of public employees.
(Mentions UW-Madison and the impact of the voter ID bill on students.)
For about a week, tens of thousands of men, women and children have been gathering at the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, protesting Gov. Scott Walker?s “budget repair” bill. Besides requiring sharp increases in employee contributions to pension and health insurance benefits, the bill strips most of the state?s public sector unions of almost all their collective bargaining rights.
If Walker?s bill passes, and salaries and benefits continue to be slashed by local governments with no negotiations necessary, it will be the most effective teachers, the best managers and the most successful university professors who will be the first to leave their jobs for the private sector.
For about a week, tens of thousands of men, women and children have been gathering at the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, protesting Gov. Scott Walker?s “budget repair” bill. Besides requiring sharp increases in employee contributions to pension and health insurance benefits, the bill strips most of the state?s public sector unions of almost all their collective bargaining rights.
Students in my class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison voted unanimously not to have class this week. They did so to support and participate in the protests that are happening a few blocks down the street at the state Capitol.
The protests come in reaction to Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to fix the state budget by increasing the amount of money that public employees contribute toward their pension and health-care premiums. The bill would also strip those employees – including nurses, bus drivers and teachers – of their collective bargaining rights. The bill is an outright attack on unions and the public sector. [A column by UW-Madison English and American Studies professor Russ Castronovo].
Perhaps it?s the most trivial issue to consider in the matter of separating the University of Wisconsin-Madison from all the rest of the University of Wisconsin system, but, just curious, who gets to keep the UW name?
Gov. Scott Walker?s apparently going to propose the split-up, but it?s clear he?s simply granting what UW-Madison has been asking for. Madison feels its constrained by state rules and appears not to want to be tied to the rest of the system.
The Madison campus apparently wants to secede from the University of Wisconsin System, becoming a more privatized hybrid – still sucking up tax dollars, just fewer.
Let?s be clear what we?re talking about here: UW-Madison essentially as an independent, elite school, even if this would be done under “public authority status.” Everyone else – continuing with the Civil War analogy – becoming, well, Alabama (apologies to Alabamans).
Now is the time for the University of Wisconsin-Madison to forge a new partnership with the state to strengthen its position as an educator, job-creator and a pre-eminent research institution. To ensure its vitality in the 21st century, the university needs more flexibility to be effective so that it will remain an economic engine that can help lead our state out of its economic dilemma. [A column by Milwaukee business executives and UW-Madison graduates Jon Hammes and Sheldon Lubar].
In the past two weeks, we have gotten used to hearing the phrase “Day of Rage” applied to cities across the Arab Middle East. Today, it was hard not to draw an analogy between those cities and Madison, WI. Not that anyone resisted the metaphor particularly: Congressman Ryan said, “it?s like Cairo has moved to Madison” while protesters carried sign reading “Walker like an Egyptian.” 30,000 protesters, that is, who filled all the floors of the Capitol building and the entire city square that surrounds it. Glenn Beck says the Madison protests are part of the same “spread of evil” that has gripped the Middle East. Uh huh.
So, I was initially going to wait and blog this after the Senate voted on the Budget Repair Bill, but seeing as how events today are stacking up, that won?t happen soon.
?New Badger Partnership is 100% necessary to ensure the survival of UW-Madison as we know it. The question becomes this: do you want Biddy Martin in control of UW or people like Scott Walker? I?ll take the one with at least a B.A.
?I have never been prouder of our movement than I am at this moment,? shouted Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Phil Neuenfeldt as he surveyed the crowds of union members and their supporters that surged around the state Capitol and into the streets of Madison Wednesday, literally closing the downtown as tens of thousands of Wisconsinites protested their Republican governor?s attempt to strip public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights.
Neuenfeldt is not alone. As a seventh-generation Wisconsinite, I have never been prouder of my state.
I wrote this in a fit of passion and the language is strong. I?ve had time to rationally think everything through and I think my feelings are more aligned with Erik Paulson?s. Read his comment down below (it?s long) for that. I was just trying to express my professional disappointment in the entire process; I feel that I have been slighted by administrators whom I trusted. So if some of this reads as a little bitter, it probably is.
The Teaching Assistant Association (TAA) calls on Chancellor Biddy Martin to take a strong stance in opposition to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill. Her response to the bill to this point has been anything but.
Noted: The Republicans have also named Representative Stephen Nass chair of the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee. The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater alumni has made it a priority to cut funds from the UW system and defund the Havens Center at UW-Madison because, as he says, it is “too far to the left.”
Many of you have likely read the guest article in the Badger Herald today. If not, take a moment and do so.
As a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin who studied public-sector employment relations for many years, I am concerned about the rhetoric over how to address your public service pension, health care and other challenges. Wisconsin is not alone: Most states, those with and without public sector unions and collective bargaining, are experiencing a similar and in many cases worse fiscal crisis. So it is critical to take an evidence-based approach to these problems and not look for easy scapegoats.
(Thomas A. Kochan is the George M. Bunker professor of management at MIT?s Sloan School of Management, co-director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, and a co-founder of the Employment Policy Research Network.)
When Gov. Walker announced his plan to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights — as well as, in effect, to cut their pay — he let slip that he had alerted the National Guard to help him implement the scheme.
….The absurdity of alerting the National Guard before a proposal — even an unpopular and potentially illegal one — has even been debated highlights the extent to which Walker has gone off the deep end.
It?s Sunday morning. I?ve just finished breakfast and called my parents to tell them I am not coming to brunch. The rest of my family, all private-industry employees, are there, enjoying Dad?s specialty: menudo.
The next several days will determine whether Wisconsin Republicans are fit to govern. Gov. Scott Walker has created a make-or-break moment for members of his party who serve in the Legislature.
Walker seeks to return Wisconsin to the days of patronage politics — where party bosses filled state positions with their flunkies and services were delivered not on the basis of need but on the basis of who had the right political connections.
The warning shots came late last November.Weeks after being elected governor, Scott Walker sent a letter to the as yet Democrat-controlled Legislature urging them to halt work on public employee union contracts so that he may ?fully evaluate their effect on our next state budget.?
Gov. Scott Walker?s announcement last Friday was perhaps the greatest push yet toward the feudalistic dystopia the new administration envisions for Wisconsin. In the midst of a paranoid mobilization of the National Guard and a dramatically vamped up security detail, Walker fired his latest salvo in a full-frontal assault on public workers that, if successful, will debilitate a sector of the economy significantly represented by people of color and women.
STEVENS POINT ? A recently completed gig called Voices of Rural Wisconsin sent me to all corners of the state and points between for conversations with rural folks. The project, sponsored by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, was simple in scope: We asked participants to talk about their life experiences and to envision what is needed to ensure a healthy future for rural Wisconsin.
….As state and local elected officials deal with tough budget challenges in the coming days, one can only hope they?ll recognize the value of this outreach arm of the UW System.
Noted: I asked Dan Vimont, a UW-Madison professor involved in the study, why they think warming trends are going to accelerate so much quicker than they have in the past. He mentioned expectations regarding accumulated levels of greenhouse gases and what scientists believe the impact will be.
The other day I was accosted at Memorial Union and asked to sign a Valentine?s day card
This Valentine?s Day, Gov. Scott Walker should show some love for the University of Wisconsin System. When Walker releases his 2011-?13 biennial budget proposal later this month, he must preserve funding for the UW System?s 26 campuses.
Marty Beil, time to update your resume. John Matthews, get a hold of the Help Wanted section of your local newspaper. Soon you will be out of work.Friday is when Gov. Scott Walker lowers the boom on government employees unions. As he has promised.
Biddy Martin?s actions to hire a firm for what is estimated to be $3 million dollars is not the wise way of figuring out how to save money.
As the University of Wisconsin invokes the Wisconsin Idea to justify its growing scientific collaboration with corporate America, and the once famously publicly oriented government of Wisconsin declares itself ?open for business,? it may help to revisit the true spirit of Wisconsin?s progressive idea.
In 1912 Charles McCarthy, head of the state?s Legislative Reference Bureau, wrote a short book explaining ?The Wisconsin Idea,? the state?s innovative effort to counteract a growing corporate tyranny.
For the last five years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been waging a fierce rear-guard action against equal treatment of religious speech on campus. While the university uses its mandatory student fee to fund a wide variety of student groups on campus, it has systematically shut religious groups out of funding ? preferring instead to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into favored, liberal student organizations.
As we battle the cold weather and accumulating snow, spring semester is upon us. We are adjusting to new classes, new experiences and new opportunities. Through all of this, I can sense a buzz around campus regarding the New Badger Partnership and what it entails. I?d like to take a moment to throw my support behind this initiative.
There is an infamous image that is inescapably tied to diversity efforts at the University of Wisconsin. You probably know the one ? two white women dressed in their Badger best raise their fists as they cheer on the football team. ?Wisconsin? and ?2001-2002 Undergraduate Application? float above their heads. And, at their left, out peeks the photoshopped face of a black man.
…there?s no longer a question about the motives behind the bill. The sponsors of this throwback to the days of the Southern poll tax can try to spin their motives all they want. It?s all very simple. The GOP wants to make it tougher for college students, in particular, and anyone else who tends to vote for Democrats, to exercise their right to vote.
Perhaps he?s hung around too long with those high-rolling supporters of his who have a habit of living only for the next quarter?s financial results while demonstrating little concern for the long term. Because, if Scott Walker hasn?t already demonstrated he?s shortsighted, he hasn?t done anything at all.
America, with its emphasis on sports, is becoming a nation of physical giants and intellectual pygmies.
….Over half of the instructors teaching in the graduate programs in engineering in the U.S. are foreign born. The proclamation that the U.S. is the most innovative, creative society in the world, with the most skilled work force and greatest universities, needs candid introspection.
STEVENS POINT — Proponents of the Wisconsin voter ID bill deserve credit for piquing college students? interest in current events. Of course, this is accomplished by proposing to make students jump through hoops to exercise their right to vote. Granted, students stayed away from the last election in droves, but deny them something and they?re likely to suddenly desire it more.
….Up this way, the UW-Stevens Point Student Government Association, representing the voting rights of about 9,500 students, issued a statement calling ?ongoing attempts of legislators in Madison to disenfranchise student voters unacceptable.? Going further, the student group specifically objects to the repeal of same-day voter registration, calling it ?a direct assault against the voting rights of citizens statewide.? They got that one right.
Column by political science professor David T. Canon and public affairs professor Donald P. Moynihan.
Another toxic substance, responsible for as many deaths (and here, by country), is being kept alive on the UW-Madison campus: socialism. The Havens Center has a big-box pharmacy full of the stuff. The difference is that Havens is not studying a dead culture but actively promoting its spread to the larger populace.
I love the University of Wisconsin.
The new governor and Legislature have fast-tracked a bill requiring a photo ID to vote in Wisconsin. Opponents say the law would do little to prevent alleged fraud at the polls, while supporters say it is necessary to protect the integrity of the system. Some version of this bill is almost certainly going to be signed into law. If photo ID is going to be implemented, it needs to be done right.
(By UW-Madison professor of political science David Canon and associate professor of public affairs Donald Moynihan. Also mentioned are political science professors Barry Burden and Ken Mayer.)
Early last month I sat in on a discussion UW-Madison School of Pharmacy Dean Jeanette Roberts was having with about 35 high school students who are considering becoming pharmacists. She told the students what it?s like being a pharmacist and what it takes to become one — the classes they?ll need to take, the grades they will need to achieve — and then she answered their individual questions, the first being, of course, how much do pharmacists make?
What was interesting is that Roberts and the students were miles apart from each other. She was in a small sound and video studio operated by Access Wisconsin on International Lane near the Dane County Regional Airport and the kids were comfortably seated in their school libraries. Some were at desks in Mellen, some in Green Bay and Arcadia. Several were in the Adams Friendship High School library, a couple were listening and talking from Grantsburg High.
With great fanfare, President Dmitry Medvedev has announced his intention to slash bureaucracy by 20 percent. It is a bold attempt to deal with an unmanageable government apparatus, perhaps the chief cause of the country?s persistent economic problems. It is also profoundly mistaken.
The item was tucked below the fold on an inside page of USA Today late last month, right before the Rose Bowl, so followers of the University of Wisconsin football program may have missed it.
In an up-and-coming podcast, I will be discussing the controversy surrounding the Charter Street Heating Plant with a guy who knows a little more about energy policy than I do. But until then, I will point you to one interesting fact: Biomass may be less environmentally beneficial than natural gas, which is the other option that the plant is pursuing.
Were the Tucson shootings simply an outcome of a single person?s struggle with mental illness or was the shooter driven – at least in part – by the hostile political climate in the U.S.?
Most likely it was a combination of both those factors and many others. That doesn?t let anyone in the political arena off the hook. But it does highlight the need for a much more nuanced debate than we?ve had so far about this tragedy. Unfortunately, even commentators who tried to reintroduce some reason to the post-shooting debates by pointing to the problem of mental illness did so by offering just another monocausal explanation and relying on the same rhetorical tools that got us to into this mess in the first place. [A column by Dietram A. Scheufele, professor of life sciences communication at UW-Madison]
I walked into a conversation this afternoon about the latest LGBT bullying related suicide. I quickly found out that it was a Minnesota teen who died on Saturday morning. With these basic facts, my mind immediately went on high alert. I grew up in Minnesota — I know plenty of young people who live there. (Kasandra Brown is a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a student employee at the LGBT Campus Center)
….A sober but determined focus on improving, strengthening and assuring the relevance of our educational system, from kindergarten through university or technical college, is crucial. If that means streamlining while strengthening and improving, then so be it.
….The defense of public employees ? so essential to a functional society, and yet so frequently abused by the powerful players who would diminish the role of government in order to enhance their own wealth and authority ? is as vital a struggle today as it was in 1968.
As Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies target public employees for abuse, it is as necessary for the right-minded and right-hearted people of Wisconsin to defend those workers as it was for the right-minded and right-hearted people of Memphis.
As a professor of ethnic studies, I feel under assault.
A successful strategy must build on strengths. We need economic and regulatory policies tailored to our diverse regions. A successful strategy must address our deficit in technology-intensive industries and college-educated workers. We will only catch up economically if we can employ more of those college graduates we already produce. Because the competition is stiff, we must focus on developing that sector where it has the best chance of success – in close proximity to major research institutions and population centers.
That’s according to a column by Michael Knetter, president and CEO of the UW Foundation and former dean of the Wisconsin School of Business.
Two days into the regime change that has ushered in the most right-wing state government of our lifetimes, a question begs to be answered: How should minority Democrats try to mitigate the potential damage to ideals that progressives and moderates hold dear?
….(Senator Fred) Risser says many constituents who work for the state or the University of Wisconsin-Madison are deeply discouraged.
?There is a lot of apprehension and a reduction in morale,? he says. ?State employees have been made a whipping boy by the incoming governor. They are not to blame for this recession.?
Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Barry Burden
