A thorough airing is needed before any legislative action is taken on a plan to keep the University of Wisconsin System united while still allowing the flexibilities sought in a proposal to split off its flagship campus.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin has launched an all-out attack on William Cronon, arguably one of the most prominent and respected academics not just on the University of Wisconsin campus but nationally.
Why the attack? Because Cronon, the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Rhodes Scholar and MacArthur Foundation fellow who has for decades been one of Wisconsin’s most beloved public intellectuals, dared to raise questions about whether national right-wing think tanks and interest groups might be influencing the choices made by Gov. Scott Walker’s administration to attack Wisconsin unions and initiate a power grab that even some Republicans worry will diminish democracy at the local level.
Once upon a time, professors led quiet lives, walking slowly from seminars to tea in panelled rooms. Nowadays they wake up in the middle of media storms. The latest scholar to whom this has happened is William Cronon, who teaches environmental and Western history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Monday?s New York Times features a column by Paul Krugman headlined “American Thought Police” about the matter of William Cronon, the UW-Madison history professor whose writing about the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC, a right-wing think tank, has drawn the ire of the Wisconsin Republican Party. This follows an editorial by the same newspaper on the topic last Friday.
Ray Cross, Wisconsin?s new chancellor overseeing the state?s 13 two-year colleges and the UW-Extension, could play an influential role in the growing debate over Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal to spin off UW-Madison as a public authority. Many students entering the colleges hope to later transfer to the flagship university ? a process that could become more difficult if UW-Madison leaves the UW System.
Gov. Scott Walker’s first budget is a spending plan that seems to uniformly favor Republican pets such as school vouchers, transportation and tax cuts while targeting nearly every Democratic sacred cow. Walker?s proposal, aimed at eliminating the state?s $3.6 billion shortfall, would cut more than $1 billion from education, knock more than 50,000 people off BadgerCare, roll back recycling and water purity requirements, and cut aid to the poor. Supporters say it is the first honest budget in a generation, since any real reform requires serious cuts to entitlements and education. Critics say Walker is turning Wisconsin into a laboratory for the GOP.Mark Bugher, director of University Research Park and a former administration secretary under Thompson, said the governor has rightly targeted the ?Big Five? of state budgeting: schools, Medicaid, local aid, corrections and the University of Wisconsin System. ?If you want to reform things, you start there,? he said.
When UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin says she wants her university to set sail from the constraints of the UW System, I say bon voyage! Respected public universities such as UW-Madison increasingly have sought status and brand-recognition as they prey on that bizarre middle-class American fetish for higher education that assumes a student?s choice of college is possibly the most important choice of his life. Despite Martin?s assurances to the contrary, a standalone UW-Madison would be more expensive and harder for state residents to get into, while benefiting from the hype among out-of-state and well-heeled students that expense and exclusivity confer.
As a retired UW System vice president, I?ve watched the debate over the proposal to give UW-Madison?s varied constituencies a greater role in guiding and supporting the institution through the next phase in its history. The reforms, advanced by UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and endorsed in the governor?s budget, should be adopted.
Professor William Cronon, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is now in a serious tangle with none other than the state Republican Party, in yet another battle over Scott Walker?s new anti-public employee union law. After Cronon posted a piece on out-of-state think tanks and interest groups that would spur the law, the GOP has responded with an open-records request on Cronon?s own state account e-mails.
A branch of the US Republican Party has been accused of attacking academic freedom by using freedom of information laws to access emails sent by a University of Wisconsin-Madison academic who criticised its policies.
MADISON, Wis. ? Wisconsin Republicans insist that the anti-union law that sparked weeks of protests at the state Capitol and that is being challenged in court takes effect Saturday because a state office decided to post it online. The head of the office that posted it and a court order temporarily blocking the law?s implementation suggest otherwise.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin isn?t happy when uppity university professors criticize our governor.
A thorough airing is needed before any legislative action is taken on a plan to keep the University of Wisconsin System united while still allowing the flexibilities sought in a proposal to split off its flagship campus.
Governor Scott Walker says he?s open to a plan that would offer campuses in the UW-System more flexibility, similar to what he?s offering UW-Madison.
A leading Republican lawmaker says the controversial budget repair bill now has the effect of law, but Wisconsin?s Secretary of State says otherwise.
Some confusion still exists over whether Friday?s publication of Wisconsin?s controversial collective bargaining bill by the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau makes it law.
The Republican Party of Wisconsin is seeking, under the state?s open-records law, to obtain e-mail sent by a Madison professor who has publicly criticized that state?s Republican governor, a move the professor is denouncing as an assault on his academic freedom.
Just when it seemed that the political conflict and intrigue over public higher education in Wisconsin could not get any more intense or convoluted, it did. Thrust into the tangled mix of controversy over employee union policies and potential governance restructuring that roiled the University of Wisconsin System this winter came word late Thursday of a Republican operative?s perceived attack on academic freedom and on one of the university?s most visible scholars, which promises to complicate an already combustible situation.
The latest technique used by conservatives to silence liberal academics is to demand copies of e-mails and other documents. Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli of Virginia tried it last year with a climate-change scientist, and now the Wisconsin Republican Party is doing it to a distinguished historian who dared to criticize the state?s new union-busting law. These demands not only abuse academic freedom, but make the instigators look like petty and medieval inquisitors.
Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state?s political turmoil. He started a blog, ?Scholar as Citizen,? devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council in pushing hard-line conservative legislation at the state level. Then he published an opinion piece in The Times, suggesting that Wisconsin?s Republican governor has turned his back on the state?s long tradition of ?neighborliness, decency and mutual respect.?
Here?s what we?ve never understood about the idea of cleaving the Madison campus from the rest of the University of Wisconsin System: Why shouldn?t all the campuses be freed from unnecessary state bureaucracy?
They should be, yet that?s not what will happen under Gov. Scott Walker?s proposal, which has the hearty endorsement of Carolyn Biddy Martin, chancellor of the Madison campus.
MADISON, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor said if her school is allowed to spin off from the rest of the UW System she won?t recommend a tuition increase of more than 8.5 percent next year. Biddy Martin said the in-state rate hike would match what Madison students absorbed in the past year. She said grants would cover students from lower-income families.
The Wisconsin Republican Party, apparently stung by a blog post written by UW-Madison history professor William Cronon, has responded by asking the University of Wisconsin-Madison for copies of all of Cronon?s office e-mails that mention prominent Republicans or public employee unions. Cronon revealed the GOP?s Freedom of Information Act request in his Scholar as Citizen blog post late Thursday evening along with a lengthy, and typically scholarly, defense.
Chancellor Biddy Martin just can?t catch a break when it comes to the New Badger Partnership. After she attracted support from major student leaders across campus, Martin was left with the daunting task of capturing the heart of one of Wisconsin?s most intransigent politicians to date?Gov. Scott Walker. Fortunately for Martin, the idea of the partnership was established even before Walker came to office. And to Martin?s delight, Walker released a 2011- ?13 biennial budget containing all the statutory language needed to grant UW-Madison more autonomy under?much to the UW System?s surprise and dismay?a public authority model.
Budget cuts are flying around mercilessly these days. Madison is facing a 13-percent budget cut in Scott Walker?s proposed budget bill and needs to find ways to absorb those costs without just passing them on to students. Public authority status, included in the budget, is one proposal aiming to do just that, but Chancellor Biddy Martin is looking for other cost-reductions as well. This week, the administration announced a contract with Huron Consulting Group to look for ways to improve efficiency on campus and save the university money.
A Wisconsin appeals court referred the controversial ruling blocking publication of the collective bargaining bill to the state?s Supreme Court Thursday, whose decision to hear the case could be impacted by the upcoming judicial elections.
City Council candidates from four downtown districts worked to distinguish themselves on key neighborhood and city issues, from the city budget to the downtown entertainment district, at a forum Thursday night.
Full-time faculty and support staff at Madison Area Technical College voted to amend a three year contract so that they would get smaller raises and would begin paying into their pensions. In exchange, the unions representing the two groups asked the college to “make every effort to avoid layoffs caused by budget reductions.”
Many of you have probably heard of a proposal, as part of the Budget Repair Bill, to “spin off” the University of Wisconsin at Madison from the UW System. Under this proposal, called “The New Badger Partnership,” UW-Madison would operate under a separate board that would provide it with greater control of its own budget.
When University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin began campaigning her New Badger Partnership last year, she made it clear the Madison campus has its own unique needs. In formulating a way to deal with these needs, she was proactive, both in outlining a plan and working with the new governor.
Governor Scott Walker says he?s open to a plan that would offer campuses in the UW-System more flexibility, similar to what he?s offering UW-Madison.
Here?s the headline: the Wisconsin Republican Party has issued an Open Records Law request for access to my emails since January 1 in response to a blog entry I posted on March 15 concerning the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in influencing recent legislation in this state and across the country. I find this a disturbing development, and hope readers will bear with me as I explain the strange circumstances in which I find myself as a result.
Chancellor Biddy Martin just can?t catch a break when it comes to the New Badger Partnership. After she attracted support from major student leaders across campus, Martin was left with the daunting task of capturing the heart of one of Wisconsin?s most intransigent politicians to date?Gov. Scott Walker.
Budget cuts are flying around mercilessly these days. Madison is facing a 13-percent budget cut in Scott Walker?s proposed budget bill and needs to find ways to absorb those costs without just passing them on to students. Public authority status, included in the budget, is one proposal aiming to do just that, but Chancellor Biddy Martin is looking for other cost-reductions as well. This week, the administration announced a contract with Huron Consulting Group to look for ways to improve efficiency on campus and save the university money.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin chancellors asked state lawmakers Wednesday to support a new plan that would give all their schools more autonomy but wouldn?t spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System. The chancellors asked legislators in a letter to consider a six-pillar proposal called the Wisconsin Idea Partnership. UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said it would be difficult to comment on the chancellors? plan until more specifics were released.
UW-Madison is embarking on an external study to look for areas where the university could function more cheaply, effectively and efficiently. There are no cost estimates yet for the contract that university leaders signed with Huron Consulting Group earlier this month. Instead, the company will bill the university on an hourly basis, giving the university flexibility on how much it wants to spend, said Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration.
UW-Madison, please don?t go.That?s the gist of a letter to state legislators Wednesday, signed by all of the chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System ? except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin. The 13 university leaders asked legislators to support the Wisconsin Idea Partnership, a UW System proposal that calls for more autonomy for all UW campuses, but as part of a unified system. In a dueling letter, also to state legislators, Martin wrote that she is “skeptical” of the UW System plan. She charged that details are not clear, while a plan that would make UW-Madison a “public authority” with its own board of trustees is already in Gov. Scott Walker?s proposed budget.
The Wisconsin Idea Partnership is a win-win for all UW campuses and all UW students. It maintains public ownership and accountability and promotes a synergistic approach in which all campuses work together to revitalize the state?s economy.
We hope that legislators will recognize that the whole is sometimes greater than the sum of its parts – a truism that certainly applies to one of the nation?s great public university systems. [A column by regents Charles Pruitt and Michael Spector].
Now that a Wisconsin judge has temporarily blocked a state law that would strip public employee unions of most collective bargaining rights, it?s worth stepping back to place these events in larger historical context. Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to reverse civic traditions that for more than a century have been among the most celebrated achievements not just of their state, but of their own party as well.
(This column first appeared in The New York Times)
We disagree with some of Walker?s approaches. And even though we agree that spending cuts are needed, we also believe he and the Republicans in the Legislature should be more open to modest tax increases.
But here?s something that no one in the state should disagree with: It?s time to stop playing make-believe with the state budget.
There have been a number of recent opinion articles in support of giving the University of Wisconsin-Madison more freedom to run its own affairs and allowing it to become more independent of the state.
Former Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy is something of a political ghost, a memory of a particular style of legislative representation, full of demagoguery and deception, that has since seen few equals. Two UW-Madison history professors, in recent columns, resurrect the ghost ? although they disagree on how closely Gov. Scott Walker?s politics compare to Wisconsin?s most notorious of politicians.
Opposing Gov. Scott Walker?s budget is one thing.Walking 43 miles across three counties to deliver that message to the Capitol steps is something different.
A plan to grant UW System schools more autonomy while retaining UW-Madison as the system?s flagship university has the backing of the chancellors at UW-Stout, UW-Eau Claire and 11 other public universities in the state.
Faculty from a University of Wisconsin System campus are making a protest trek to Madison, protesting cuts to the UW System. Associate professor James Hartwick, one of the walkers, notes faculty will face a seven to ten percent pay cut under Governor Scott Walker?s budget repair bill. ?Maybe that doesn?t sound so bad, but faculty already make between 11 and 21 percent less than they would make at a comparable institution out of state,? said Hartwick. UW Whitewater faculty are not unionized.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin chancellors asked state lawmakers Wednesday to support a new plan that would give all their schools more autonomy but wouldn?t spin off UW-Madison from the rest of the UW System.
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison know their school can hold its own as a first-class public research institution rivaled by only a few dozen universities across the world. But our state?s current budget debates forecast spending cuts that could slash into the core of what makes the campus great.
UW-Madison, please don?t go. That?s the gist of a letter to state legislators Wednesday, signed by all of the chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System ? except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
UW-Madison is embarking on an external study to look for areas where the university could function more cheaply, effectively and efficiently. There are no cost estimates yet for the contract that university leaders signed with Huron Consulting Group earlier this month. Instead, the company will bill the university on an hourly basis, giving the university flexibility on how much it wants to spend, said Darrell Bazzell, vice chancellor for administration.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison signed off on a deal earlier this month which asks the Huron Consulting Group to study if the university is running as efficiently and effectively as possible. There is no estimate for how much this project might cost the university at this time, said Darrell Bazzell, UW-Madison?s vice chancellor for administration. However, university administrators told faculty leaders in September that such an endeavor could cost upwards of $3 million. Taxpayer dollars will not be used to pay for the project, said Bazzell.
UW-Madison, we don?t want you to go. That?s the gist of a letter today to state legislators, signed by all the other chancellors in the University of Wisconsin System, except UW-Madison?s Chancellor Biddy Martin.
If there was any doubt remaining, it?s now gone: Biddy and Bucky are going it alone.
In an opinion piece sent to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents President Chuck Pruitt and Vice President Michael Spector said chancellors at 12 of the system?s four-year campuses, plus the head of the UW Colleges and Extension, are backing a proposal the regents announced March 10 called the Wisconsin Idea Partnership. This plan would give campuses long-sought freedoms from state oversight but would keep all of the institutions under the umbrella of the UW System.
Thirteen University of Wisconsin System chancellors have endorsed a plan that would give the state?s public universities more autonomy but would not formally split the state?s flagship campus from the oversight board that runs the rest of the campuses.
Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen filed an appeal Monday to lift the temporary restraining order a Dane County judge placed on Gov. Scott Walker?s budget repair bill.
Wisconsin?s attorney general filed an appeal Monday against a Dane County judge?s ruling that effectively halted publication of the governor?s collective bargaining law.
The union for teaching and project assistants at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Sunday voted against a proposal from Gov. Scott Walker to separate Madison from the UW system, but members did not vote to authorize a strike, the group announced Monday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison?s Teaching Assistants? Association voted Sunday to pass a motion opposing the university being granted public authority status and breaking away from the UW System.
The motion reads: “The TAA opposes the New Badger Partnership, especially the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System, the formation of the public authority model, and the threat to affordability and accessibility it poses to public education and the lack of protection for labor unions on campus. The TAA also objects to the non-transparent and undemocratic process by which the New Badger Partnership was designed.”
….I am certain that to make any major change in the status of the UW-Madison that brings the university under the governance of a board on which the majority of members is appointed by the current governor is irresponsible, and that if Chancellor Biddy Martin believes that Gov. Walker?s influence through such a board will be benign, she has drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid.
On the face of it, the budget proposal that Ohio Governor John Kasich released this week looks like terrible news for state universities. Not only would Kasich?s plan slash higher education spending by 10.5 percent but it also would cap tuition increases at 3.5 percent a year.
Members of the Teaching Assistants? Association graded papers, looked over exams and passed around pizza boxes on the floor of the Bascom Hall rotunda at a protest Monday against cuts in state education funding.
