Some University of Wisconsin students are concerned a proposed $300 million cut to the UW System will ultimately have a negative impact on college affordability and student input.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to slash $300 million in funding from the University of Wisconsin and in return for greater autonomy would make it make it harder for low-income and minority students to go to college there, said affiliates of WISCAPE Wisconsin Center on the Advancement of Post-Secondary Education, a UW-Madison think tank on post-secondary education.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Faculty Senate is calling for a full and open analysis of Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to give the UW System autonomy from state government.
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.
Speaking on WKOW-TV’s “Capitol City Sunday,” UW-Madison Atmospheric Science professor and the president of faculty lobbying group PROFS Grant Petty said Gov. Walker’s comment about teaching more was out of touch with the responsibilities of faculty who he said work an average of 63 hours per week at UW-Madison, combining teaching, research, mentoring and more.
Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal came through with the flexibilities that University of Wisconsin System leaders have been asking for, but the catch is what drew ire last week
WAUSAU — More central Wisconsin lawmakers have weighed in with views of Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System in the 2015 to 2017 state budget — and they’re open to at least part of his plan.
3rd District Democrat Ron Kind believes cutting 300-million dollars from the UW and freezing tuition is a huge mistake. When it comes to education and job creation, Kind believes the Republican Governor could learn from his Democratic colleague in Minnesota. “Governor Dayton there is sitting on a billion dollar surplus, and he’s talking about increasing investment in education programs including higher education, and they’re doing laps around us today when it comes to job growth and economic growth overall, so I think there’s a lesson to be learned here in regards to economic policies what’s working and what isn’t.”
The price of freedom from state regulation has gone up for the University of Wisconsin.
Already grappling with a $4.5 million budget gap, the University of Wisconsin-Superior could face even greater financial strain if Gov. Scott Walker has his way. The governor is proposing a 13 percent cut in state funding for the University of Wisconsin System in his 2015-2017 state budget proposal. That amounts to $300 million less to spread around the state’s 26 campuses over the next two years.
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.
UW-Milwaukee is considering strategic budget cuts as opposed to a systemic cut to the entire institution, the provost told the Faculty Senate Thursday. And the UWM chancellor announced a plan to try to meet with 32 legislators in the next month, as well as a planned lunch with the lieutenant governor, as administrators try to counter a proposed $300 million System-wide budget cut.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor had strong words for Gov. Scott Walker over his comments that the UW System staff should be more productive.
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.
The Wisconsin academic community is filled with shock and frustration after Governor Scott Walker unveiled his proposal to cut the UW-Systems budget by $300 million. Professors are just as frustrated with his recent comments that the system could find savings by adding to faculty members workload.
Noted: Lovell said in response to a reporters questions that he is worried about unprecedented budget cuts Gov. Scott Walker is proposing for the UW System.
While University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross has said its too early to know whether proposed state budget cuts will lead to layoffs, he indicated on a radio talk show Thursday morning that will look first at the “back office.”
There is only one word for Scott Walker’s comments about the University of Wisconsin faculty: demeaning.
Sen. Steve Nass of Whitewater, one of the system’s toughest critics and vice-chair of the Senate’s universities committee, has warned the plan would allow regents to raise tuition at will starting in 2017.
People don’t understand what university professors do, UW System president Ray Cross said Thursday as he panned Gov. Scott Walker’s suggestion that professors work harder to absorb his planned $300 million cut to the system.
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.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, defending proposed budget cuts for higher education, took a swipe at university professors who he said could be “teaching more classes and doing more work.”
MADISON – The University of Wisconsin System president fired back Thursday against Gov. Scott Walker’s suggestion that faculty teach more classes as a way to help absorb a $300 million funding cut, saying the governor doesn’t understand professors already face a huge workload.
Governor Scott Walker is suggesting that University of Wisconsin System faculty could work harder. The Republican governor said Wednesday that may help to offset the impacts of a $300 million dollar cut in state aid to that will be included as part of his state budget proposal.
Before Gov. Scott Walker proposed cutting funding for the University of Wisconsin System by $300 million, university leaders were already trying to find ways to save money through overhauling business practices.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross said he’s not sure how the UW can avoid layoffs if Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget becomes law.
MENOMONIE — Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to reduce state spending for the UW System by $300 million in the 2015-17 state budget will face significant challenges in the Republican-controlled state Legislature, state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf said Thursday.
WAUSAU — Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System in the coming years has caused a stir in the higher education community and an indecisive response from legislators.
The University of Wisconsin System has come under increased scrutiny from the state Legislature in recent years, with some lawmakers questioning the need for certain programs and research. To address some of that criticism, UW System President Ray Cross said he wants to take a closer look at what’s going on inside and out of the classrooms.
Under Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget, the University of Wisconsin System would be given more independence while having its state funding cut by 13%. Joy Cardin’s guest reporter lays out the details of the plan. Then, UW System President Ray Cross gives his mixed review of the pitch. …
If the drastic cut in university funding Gov. Scott Walker will propose next week is approved by the Legislature, UW-Madison is looking at layoffs and tuition hikes for out-of-state students, Chancellor Rebecca Blank cautioned.
University of Wisconsin System president Ray Cross on Thursday blasted recent comments by Gov. Scott Walker that UW faculty should teach more classes and work harder in a radio interview.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross has ordered system employees to immediately implement cost-saving moves after Gov. Scott Walker announced he wants to slash the system’s funding over the next two years.
“They might be able to make savings just by asking faculty and staff to consider teaching one more class per semester,” Walker told reporters Wednesday in Madison … Vince Sweeney, vice chancellor for university relations at UW-Madison, said the most recent survey data found UW-Madison faculty spend 50 to 70 hours per week teaching and supporting students, participating in research and other activities. “It should be noted that many also bring in millions of dollars in grant funding that is a direct boost to the Wisconsin economy,” Sweeney said. Grant Petty, president of PROFS Inc., the professional group representing UW-Madison professors, said he doesn’t know any UW faculty who don’t already spend 50 hours a week or more doing what are considered the “essential duties” of their job.
Gov. Scott Walker suggested Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin System could ask its professors to teach one more class per semester to help alleviate the $300 million in cuts he has proposed.
With less than a week to go before Gov. Scott Walker formally rolls out his proposed 2015-17 state budget, a clash of rhetoric is swirling around the governors proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System.
University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross bristled on a Thursday radio talk show at Gov. Scott Walker’s remarks the day before that faculty and staff could teach more classes and work harder.
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.
Gov. Scott Walker said his plan for the University of Wisconsin System should force changes in teaching loads at schools across the state.
Gov. Scott Walker said the University of Wisconsin could ask its faculty to teach more classes and do more work to offset funding cuts in Walker’s state budget proposal.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System budget over the next two years is “disturbing” and “unprecedented,” University of WIsconsin-Green Bay chancellor Gary Miller said Tuesday.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a potential 2016 GOP contender who never earned a college degree, has proposed a huge cut in funding for the University of Wisconsin system over the next two years.
First the unions, now the university system. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is calling for steep cuts to the University of Wisconsin System, while offering the network more freedom in exchange, in a controversial plan his office says is meant to provide more financial certainty.
Faculty and staff in the University of Wisconsin System should be “teaching more classes and doing more work,” Gov. Scott Walker said during an interview Wednesday morning with a Milwaukee conservative radio talk show host.
Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to give the University of Wisconsin System more freedom would allow it to impose unchecked tuition increases and potentially price students out of college, one of the system’s toughest critics and student leaders said Tuesday.
UW-Madison students might face tuition increases and less oversight of the UW System if certain provisions of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal, announced Tuesday, are approved by the state Legislature.
The governor has promised, in his soon-to-be-released budget, to slash funding by 13 percent for the University of Wisconsin System over the next two years. In return, the UW System will be given greater autonomy and flexibility.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed 13 percent, $300 million budget cut for the University of Wisconsin System would lead to layoffs across the UW-Madison campus, chancellor Rebecca Blank said Tuesday, even though she and others see a long-term benefit in another part of the plan to give the university greater autonomy. The proposed spending cut is believed to be the most severe in the System’s nearly 45-year history. It would be accompanied by another two-year tuition freeze and come in exchange for System control over its finances, including major building projects.
After days of speculation over the future of the University of Wisconsin System, Gov. Scott Walker announced Tuesday he wants more autonomy for the UW System along with $300 million in funding cuts and an extension of the tuition freeze.
Of the $300 million Gov. Scott Walker R-Wisconsin is proposing to cut from the UW System in his next two-year budget request, roughly $120 million would be taken away from UW-Madison.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Tuesday that she has not yet seen full details of Governor Walker’s plan, adding “I am concerned about the magnitude of the proposed budget cuts and their impact on UW-Madison. “These proposed cuts are believed to be the largest in the history of the university. In the past, large cuts have always been mitigated by additional tuition revenue from resident and non-resident students,” Blank posted in a blog.
