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Category: State news

UW President Ray Cross feared lawmakers would curtail shared governance, tenure

Wisconsin State Journal

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank urged Cross to include Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison’s chief financial officer who’s experienced and respected at the state Capitol, on the System’s negotiating team. Cross said Tuesday that he heeded Blank’s suggestion, agreeing that Bazzell “has a good financial mind.”

Walker Dodges Questions On Foreign Policy, Evolution During UK Event

Wisconsin Public Radio

Walker was also asked by Chatham House moderator, Justin Webb of the BBC, why his budget rewrote the UW’s mission statement to delete what’s known as the Wisconsin Idea. “Well how did you get in this mess though about changing its sort of — its stated purpose?” Webb asked. “I don’t want to get into too much detail and sort of bore people who don’t know a lot about the University of Wisconsin and I certainly don’t, but you’ve fiddled with something that a lot of people felt very strongly about. Do you regret it?”

Faculty, staff and students to rally against UW System cuts

Madison.com

Quoted: Karma Chávez, associate professor of communication arts.
“We need to decide whether affordable and high-quality public universities are the vital resource they have always been to Wisconsinites, or if the UW System is worth giving up, to be replaced by something inferior, or to shut down access in some parts of the state altogether,” Chavez said. “Clearly the Walker administration has chosen the latter.”

Scott Walker’s risky university experiment

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

A fundamental question in UW debate: Will it be pursuit of knowledge or simply employable skills?

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

Peter R. Orszag: Scott Walker’s risky university experiment

Bloomberg News

It’s hard to believe that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin’s budget over the next two years would allow the school to maintain its quality. Walker would prohibit the university from raising tuition during that period, but instead give university officials more flexibility in managing contracting and construction projects.

[Note: this column also appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal here.]

The Governor Who Maybe Tried to Kill Liberal-Arts Education

The Atlantic

Last Wednesday, Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker released a biennium budget plan that had a strange twist nestled inside. This line item didn’t have much, if anything, to do with how he intended to spend the state’s money; it had no numbers, dollar signs, nor provisos. It did, however, deal ever-so-vaguely with Wisconsin’s economy—at least, what Walker envisioned it would look like down the line and how higher education would make that happen.

Hall: Letter to the Assembly on the importance of the UW System

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

I am writing to thank you for your commitment to preserving the excellence and integrity of the University of Wisconsin System. As a native Wisconsinite, I have always felt tremendous pride that our humble, decent state has created and sustained one of the world’s premier institutions of higher learning and a state system that is the envy of the rest of the nation.

Bruni: Higher Education, Liberal Arts and Shakespeare

New York Times

Noted: Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin and a likely presidential candidate, signaled his membership in this crowd when he recently proposed a 13 percent cut in state support for the University of Wisconsin. According to several reports, he simultaneously toyed with changing the language of the university’s mission statement so that references to the “search for truth” and the struggle to “improve the human condition” would be replaced by an expressed concern for “the state’s work force needs.”

Chris Rickert: Students the likely losers in battle between Walker, UW

Wisconsin State Journal

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.

Walker budget clips authority of state Building Commission

Capital Times

While the shift isn’t generating the amount of publicity as Walker’s plan to make the Natural Resources Board advisory, the change is significant since it consolidates key borrowing decisions within the Department of Administration, including bonding for transportation purposes. Under the Walker budget, the Building Commission would no longer meet in order to approve projects or the borrowing to make them happen. The commission — which by statute includes members of both political parties and is chaired by the governor — has traditionally met monthly. Instead, the commission would operate under what the budget proposal calls a “passive review process” where items are considered approved unless a majority of Building Commission members request a meeting.

Budget item to hide UW research is bad public policy

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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.

Kudos to UW’s conservative defenders — Donald Downs

Wisconsin State Journal

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.

Roberta Gassman: Scott Walker’s ‘drafting error’ reveals his values

Capital Times

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.