Monday?s article on the new Union South describes it all too accurately as an opulent playground. This $95 million extravaganza was approved by a slim percentage of the student body in an election so rigged by the administration it would have made Stalin blush. UW-Madison?s potentates have decreed that Memorial Union, which already qualifies as a palace by any reasonable standard, will also be “improved” to the tune of millions.
In his inaugural budget address, Gov. Scott Walker stood before a joint session of the Legislature and delivered the somber news: We?re broke.”
Too many politicians have failed to tell the truth about our financial crisis,” he said. “The facts are clear: Wisconsin is broke and it?s time to start paying our bills today so our kids are not stuck with even bigger bills tomorrow.”
Quoted: Andrew Reschovsky, a professor of public affairs and applied economics at UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs
UW-Madison needs more freedom and flexibility to remain a world-class institution of higher learning and research.Gov. Scott Walker and Chancellor Biddy Martin?s push for public authority status for the Madison campus deserves bipartisan support from the Legislature.
Gov. Scott Walker?s biennial budget proposal seeks to remove the University of Wisconsin-Madison from the rest of the UW System, establishing a separate governing board and allowing it greater flexibility in areas such as budgeting and tuition. The proposal, backed by Madison chancellor Biddy Martin, is part of Walker?s plan to cut that school?s funding by $125 million ? in addition to $125 million in cuts that would be absorbed throughout the rest of the system. [Columns by UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin, UW-Green Bay Chancellor Thomas Hardin and a historical perspective on the UW System].
Gov. Scott Walker has called the state?s current university setup a “cumbersome bureaucracy” that imposes red tape on campuses.He expressed openness to management flexibilities for all campuses, but he wants to start with the state?s flagship research university.
That proposal, called the New Badger Partnership, would make UW-Madison a public authority, which means it would no longer be attached to the state executive branch, but it would remain a public institution that would receive state funding.
GREEN BAY ? In an era of tightening budgets, an organizational battle is brewing over the structure of Wisconsin?s public university system, and it involves rival plans.
Last Thursday, Chancellor Biddy Martin sent a campus-wide email arguing that the Wisconsin Idea Partnership proposed in response to the New Badger Partnership did not go far enough in extending flexibility to this university. Martin stated she had offered a compromise, one in which Madison would still gain public authority status, with other System campuses gaining similar forms of independence. She ended the email with a call for individual students to contact their legislators and advocate for the proposal.
UW-Madison needs more freedom and flexibility to remain a world-class institution of higher learning and research.
One by one, they stepped up to the lectern.And one by one, they ripped Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed two-year state budget as they testified before the Legislature?s budget committee.
Gov. Scott Walker?s administration went to the state Supreme Court late Thursday afternoon in a bid to implement its controversial collective bargaining measure.
When The Capital Times reported recently that Wisconsin public employee retirements jumped 31 percent through Feb. 25 compared to the same period last year, the data did not begin to hint at the breakneck pace of a new phenomenon in the state?s public workplace.
….This is also an important time to be supportive of libraries in Wisconsin. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed budget for 2011-13 includes a 10 percent cut each year in state funding for public libraries, cuts of 11.6 percent in the first year and 6.6 percent in the second year in school library funding, as well as a provision that would eliminate a requirement that local funding for public libraries be maintained, at minimum, at the average of the prior three years.
To kick off National Library Week, the UW-Madison Libraries are again hosting the Edible Book Festival on Tuesday, April 12, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. in Room 460 at Memorial Library, 728 State St.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin is asking for back-up support on the plan to split the university from the rest of the UW System. She sent a letter for faculty, staff and students encouraging them to reach out to lawmakers in support of the proposal, called the New Badger Partnership. But the co-president of the Teaching Assistants? Association — which opposes the controversial plan — questioned the chancellor?s message.
The Joint Finance Committee held a public hearing on the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus Thursday, and despite a smaller than expected turnout, testimony on the governor?s new budget proposal for the next biennium was filled with passion.
Public authority status is still months away for UW-Madison, but students are already thinking about how to fill their seat on the Board of Trustees.
Wisconsin residents across the state get their chance to weigh in on the Governor?s proposed state budget, starting today. The Legislature?s Joint Finance Committee will hold the first of three public hearings on the two-year state budget at the University in Stevens Point.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents met Thursday to discuss the Wisconsin Idea Partnership, a plan endorsed by 13 UW chancellors to increase flexibility for every UW System School while keeping UW-Madison within the system.
While members of the University of Wisconsin System emphasized the need for a unified voice in pursuing autonomy, officials reached little consensus on anything else in a Board of Regents meeting Thursday.
Massive crowds expected to swarm the first public hearing on Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s state budget proposal didn?t materialize Thursday, reducing the affair to another mundane legislative proceeding.
Chancellor Biddy Martin sent an email to members of the campus community on Wednesday urging those who support public authority status for UW-Madison — as outlined in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 budget proposal — to “speak out as individuals, citizens and taxpayers.”
At Monday?s UW-Madison Faculty Senate meeting at Bascom Hall, Martin said she was getting weary pressing for this proposal on her own, and asked for more backing from faculty. She added that if people on campus want no part of public authority status, they also need to let her know.
Wisconsin faces a historic opportunity to evolve its support for higher education and renew the Wisconsin Idea. After more than a decade of significant cuts in state support and shifting costs to student tuition, it is apparent that the old business model for the University of Wisconsin System and its institutions is broken.
William Cronon still is struggling to make sense of the past few weeks.
?I feel like I went down a rabbit hole and I?m in Wonderland, or just a really strange world,? says the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor. In the span of 10 days last month, Cronon started a blog, penned an op-ed for the New York Times and let the world know his emails were the target of an open records request from the Republican Party of Wisconsin, a move roundly criticized as an attempt to intimidate a professor for offering his perspective on political issues.
Lost in the debate is that at its core, the UW System needs to be a system that includes Madison and functions as one since it represents all of the citizens of this state. Evidently, Martin doesn?t get it or just doesn?t care. In any event, her actions demonstrate one stark reality as the mess she has created is cleaned up: It?s time for her to go. [A column by former Regent David Hirsch].
Members of the University of Wisconsin and System campus community traded barbs about the possible pitfalls of the New Badger Partnership and the UW System?s Wisconsin Idea Partnership in a public forum Wednesday.
Chancellor Biddy Martin sent an e-mail Wednesday urging faculty, staff and students to openly show their support for the UW-Madison New Badger Partnership.
Both chambers of the Legislature, which met with all the members present for the first time in almost two months Tuesday, passed the fiscal components of Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill.
After University of Wisconsin System representatives expressed support for a new plan to keep the Madison campus within the System, the UW-Madison chancellor proposed an addition to the budget bill that would provide administrative flexibilities to all campuses while maintaining the public authority status for the campus.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin is proposing a plan to give all University of Wisconsin System campuses more freedom from state regulations, but a System official said the proposal is problematic because it still calls for UW-Madison to split from the rest of the System. “At its core, it is not a compromise,” said System spokesman David Giroux. “It still results in the fracture of our unified public university system.” In a letter to members of the state Legislature?s budget committee, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin suggests changes to statutory language in Gov. Scott Walker?s budget to give other System campuses more control over funding, setting tuition, creating personnel systems, building and purchasing. But she writes that “UW-Madison seeks to maintain its treatment in the current budget bill to become a public authority.” In Walker?s budget, UW-Madison would separate from the System, getting its own 21-member board of trustees.
Leaders at several University of Wisconsin Campuses are reacting to a proposal that would separate the Madison campus from the rest of the UW-System.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin is proposing changes to Gov. Scott Walker?s budget to give other University of Wisconsin System campuses more flexibility, while also maintaining language that would make UW-Madison a public authority.
She sent the letter to members of the state Legislature?s budget committee a day after Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, charged UW System administration and Martin to come to a compromise. They have been fighting over the future of UW-Madison within the UW System.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before the partisan throw-down at the Capitol reached Madison?s eminent institution of higher learning. A heretofore below-the-radar UW-Madison history professor named William Cronon writes a blog post saying that ? surprise! ? political parties sometimes take their cues from ideological organizations and seek to crush their opponents.
A University of Wisconsin professor is at the “head of his profession” with expertise “recognized both in academic circles and by the social and governmental leaders of the day.” But the times in which he teaches are tumultuous; the economy is severely depressed and organized labor is an electric issue. Against that backdrop, his allegedly pro-union comments bring a public counterattack and thrust him into an unwanted spotlight.
The University of Wisconsin Teaching Assistants? Association held a brief gathering atop Bascom Hill Monday featuring two campus unions and Rev. Jesse Jackson before marching down State Street to the Capitol building where a rally commemorated Martin Luther King Jr.?s death and his fight for workers? rights.
UW Chancellor Biddy Martin has offered budget language changes aimed at giving other UW campuses more flexibility while maintaining Gov. Scott Walker?s budget proposal that the flagship campus gain autonomy from the rest of the UW System.
After listening to testimony from several witnesses Friday, Dane County Judge Maryann Sumi decided to keep the temporary restraining order on the budget repair law.
A Dane County judge said the temporary restraining order prohibiting publication of the bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees would stay in place, despite the continued absence of the Republican defendants.
…Walker is mugging Wisconsin?s educational tradition. He has proposed cuts of nearly $1 billion in state aid to local school districts while capping their levels of taxation. Apparently he is supporting the idea of spinning the university off from the state system, largely because he now will include all university employees as part of his ?250,000 new jobs.? The state and municipalities have yet to see the impact of his program on recruiting and retaining good teachers. The outcome is all too apparent.
Life goes on. The grass is sprouting on the trampled grounds at the state Capitol, the Legislature is in recess and the governor wants nothing less than a do-over of the 20th century. Meanwhile, killing the bargaining rights of teachers, providing a one-sided grievance and disciplinary process and reducing their incomes apparently are vital parts of the governor?s plan to open the state for ?business.?
(Stanley Kutler, a UW-Madison professor emeritus. This column first appeared on Truthdig.com.)
Quoted: Dennis Dresang, professor emeritus of public affairs and political science for the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.
I?m guessing most people who heard about the study last week showing UW-Madison generates some $12.4 billion in state economic activity and supports 128,146 jobs annually didn?t exactly smack their foreheads in surprise. Likewise, they probably wouldn?t have done any head-smacking if the numbers were $5 billion or $20 billion, or if the (surprisingly specific) jobs numbers had been a few thousand higher or lower. Massive numbers about huge institutions and the complicated means by which they are arrived at tend to produce a numbing effect on the human brain.
Proposals to give the University of Wisconsin-Madison independence from the rest of the UW-System and greater management flexibility are not going to lead to excessive tuition or cost students at UW-Baraboo access to the Madison campus, a UW-Madison spokesman said Thursday.
As Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, I fully support the Wisconsin Idea Partnership and its goals to keep the University of Wisconsin System as a unified, world-class provider of higher education and to provide maximum flexibility from state bureaucracy to all UW System campuses. These flexibilities will allow all UW chancellors to lead their campuses in meeting the needs of our regions and our state using 21st century management practices.
MADISON, Wis. — A Dane County judge said she?s keeping in place her restraining order preventing a law that would strip most public workers of a majority of their collective bargaining rights from going into effect while she considers whether a law was broken in the process of passing the law.
A temporary restraining order blocking enactment of the budget repair bill will remain in place until Republican lawmakers can appear in court. The ruling comes after Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne rested his case Friday in a lawsuit claiming passage of the bill violated the open meetings law.
Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi amended her temporary restraining order Thursday morning, declaring Gov. Scott
Considering the immense amount of opposition Gov. Scott Walker has faced regarding his controversial collective bargaining rights bill, it should come as no surprise that enacting the bill into law would be an equally torturous journey. That is exactly what is happening.
Academic freedom is the hallmark of any great university. Especially in times of societal turmoil and uncertainty, the work of researchers and professors is tantamount to understanding and forward progress.
The Department of Administration agreed to cease implementation of the governor?s union bill Thursday after a Dane County circuit court judge declared in an amended order the bill?s publication did not make it a law.
MADISON, Wis. — A new analysis shows that as long as state lawmakers approve a budget fix bill proposed by Gov. Scott Walker, the state?s budget would be balanced even if the collective bargaining law currently on hold doesn?t take effect. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis released Friday shows that the bill expected to be passed Tuesday would balance the budget currently projected to be $137 million short by July 1.
Proposals to give the University of Wisconsin-Madison independence from the rest of the UW-System and greater management flexibility are not going to lead to excessive tuition or cost students at UW-Baraboo access to the Madison campus, a UW-Madison spokesman said Thursday.
Having declared that Wisconsin?s divisive union law isn?t really a law yet, a judge was set to return to one of the underlying questions dogging the measure _ whether Republicans violated the state?s open meetings law during the frenzied run-up to passage.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker?s administration reluctantly suspended efforts to enact the law Thursday after Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi unexpectedly declared the measure hadn?t been properly published. The move marked another round in a messy legal fight over the law, which requires most public workers to pay more for their benefits and strips away most of their collective bargaining rights.
A Wisconsin judge on Thursday did what thousands of pro-union protesters and boycotting Democratic lawmakers couldn?t, forcing Republican Gov. Scott Walker to halt plans to implement a law that would strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights and cut their pay.
The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus urged state lawmakers Thursday to support Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal spinning it off from the university system. The future of the university system is one of the largest and most divisive issues in Walker?s budget. UW System President Kevin Reilly argued for giving the other campuses more autonomy but keeping the system intact. “I will be the first to agree that these flexibilities are important for UW-Madison,” Reilly said. “They are, but they are equally important to all other UW campuses.” Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin, who has pushed more than a year to get more freedom for Madison, said the campus needs a model that will allow it to thrive. “We?re in a race and were tired of listening to words and we?re tired of the same structures that aren?t getting us to where we need to go,” Martin said.
Wisconsin college students would have to pay more to attend the University of Minnesota under a proposal backed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker that his administration announced Thursday. Walker is asking the Legislature?s Joint Finance Committee to approve a change to the two states? 43-year-old tuition reciprocity program that would save Wisconsin money by making students who go to Minnesota pay more. The reciprocity program allows Wisconsin and Minnesota college-bound students to pay instate tuition even if they attend public universities in the other state. This year it costs about $3,000 more in tuition and fees to attend the University of Minnesota than it does to go to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under the deal, the state of Wisconsin makes up the difference for students who decide to go to Minnesota. That subsidy would end under Walker?s proposal, which means Wisconsin students would have to pay all of the higher Minnesota resident tuition.
?Yesterday was among the craziest of my entire life,? UW-Madison history professor William Cronon wrote on his blog last week, describing how news of the Wisconsin Republican Party records request seeking emails from his university account had ?gone viral in a very big way.?
A senator on the state?s powerful budget committee told university leaders to stop arguing over the fate of UW-Madison within the University of Wisconsin System. “Rather than fighting, sit down and work together so we can move this university system and UW-Madison campus forward,” said Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon. His comments came after some three hours of testimony from UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and UW System President Kevin Reilly before the Joint Finance Committee.
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Howard Schweber.
The chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus urged state lawmakers Thursday to support Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal spinning it off from the university system. UW President Kevin Reilly argued for keeping the flagship campus under the umbrella of the larger system.
It?s safe to say when this editorial board initiated its support for UW Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin?s flexibility and accountability proposal for the Madison campus we did not foresee a UW separate from the rest of the UW System. We?re still not quite sure how the New Badger Partnership ended up as a stand alone authority.
University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly is trying to convince state lawmakers not to allow the flagship Madison campus to operate independently as Gov. Scott Walker has proposed.
MADISON (WKOW) — After another ruling by a Dane County Judge the Department of Administration stops implementing the collective bargaining law.
