A Milwaukee business operator and his family have pledged the largest household donation ever to UW-Madison for student scholarships, the university’s foundation announced Friday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison received its largest student-aimed gift from individual donors in its history this week: a $50 million donation from Albert “Ab” and Nancy Nicholas, the school’s foundation announced Friday.
“Recent action by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee has the potential to threaten that longstanding commitment to fearless inquiry. I am worried about the risk this creates for UW-Madison, by alienating and demoralizing the faculty who have built this into one of the world’s finest education and research institutions. Abrupt changes to tenure and shared governance — another historic underpinning of UW-Madison — could drive away the people we most need to attract and retain. That these changes are being recommended without public discussion or consultation from those who will be most affected adds to our collective concern.”
The University of Wisconsin-Madison received its largest student-aimed gift from individual donors in its history this week: a $50million donation from Albert “Ab” and Nancy Nicholas, the school’s foundation announced Friday.
Twenty-one scholarly groups led by the American Historical Association wrote on Thursday that they were “gravely concerned” about looming changes in tenure and shared governance in Wisconsin.
Four years after taking union rights away from teachers and other public workers in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker now wants to strip job protections for University of Wisconsin professors in a move he likens to the 2011 law that made him a national figure and set up his expected presidential run.
Many UW-Madison faculty members are worried their jobs could be at risk after the Joint Finance Committee recently voted to remove tenure from state law. Tenure offers protection for academic freedom and was designed to make sure people can express ideas without fear of retaliation.
A proposal in the state budget to cut the tenure system from state law is drawing criticism from those who work at the University of Wisconsin. Chancellor Becky Blank said the tenure plans are not a disaster, but faculty members demanded answers late Tuesday at a faculty senate meeting.
UW-Madison’s Faculty Senate is asking state lawmakers to remove from the state budget legislation doing away with tenure. The Senate passed a resolution with that call to action during a special meeting Tuesday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members upset about what they consider to be a coordinated political assault on the UW System spent nearly two hours in a packed lecture hall Tuesday afternoon, reiterating that tenure isn’t about a guaranteed job for life, but about protecting academic freedom.
The UW-Madison Faculty Senate was nearly unanimous Tuesday as it called on lawmakers to strike budget language that would decrease faculty influence and make it easier for tenured professors to be fired. But faculty members appeared to be of two minds on the tone they should take with a Board of Regents that many don’t trust to do what they believe is the right thing.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison asked state lawmakers on Tuesday to reconsider proposed changes to job protections for tenured faculty that have come under fire from professors and others who see it as putting academic freedom and their jobs at risk.
UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank plans to meet with the university’s faculty senate Tuesday to address concerns about the changes to tenure.
University of Wisconsin leaders moved forcefully on Monday to stem the fallout from lawmakers’ plans to strip tenure protections from state law as UW-Madison faculty planned an emergency meeting on the matter for Tuesday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Monday she will work with faculty to quickly draw up tenure protections for the state’s flagship campus “that would be the equivalent of any of our peers.”
Like many university leaders, Chancellor Rebecca Blank of the University of Wisconsin at Madison has had her ups and downs with the faculty. She butted heads with some professors in her support for a now-dead plan to make the university system into a more autonomous public authority, for example, but earned faculty praise when she defended professors against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s suggestion that faculty members might be shirking their teaching responsibilities.
The full University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted Friday to adopt a tenure policy to replace the one likely to be stricken from state statute, while rejecting one last opportunity to formally oppose planned Legislative changes to faculty terms of employment.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Friday to add faculty tenure protections to its policies, as state lawmakers prepare to drop those assurances from state law. The Journal Sentinel reports Regent Mark Bradley says the board is doing what it is able to do to protect tenure.
Mahesh Mahanthappa and Gray Jackson both grew up far away from Wisconsin but came here to pursue their passion for chemistry at UW-Madison, a national leader in the field.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted unanimously Friday to add faculty tenure protections to regents policy in anticipation of them being dropped from state law.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents voted on Friday to add faculty tenure protections to its policies, as Wisconsin lawmakers consider eliminating similar protections from state statutes.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal for weakening tenure at Wisconsin’s highly respected state university system and undermining the faculty’s role in campus governance will appeal to conservative voters whose support he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.
The University of Wisconsin has weathered years of budget cuts, but many faculty members believe the elimination of tenure would be a tipping point. The elimination of tenure is being recommended in legislation adopted by the Joint Finance Committee. Quoted: Don Moynihan and Pamela Herd, both professors of public affairs.
The UW System Board of Regents centered Thursday meeting discussion around a recent update to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed state budget, which included a detailed description of a multiple-request motion passed during the May 29 Joint Finance Committee meeting.
Facing national attention and an onslaught of petitions and lobbying by University of Wisconsin professors, a Board of Regents committee on Thursday voted against formally opposing controversial changes to faculty tenure proposed by Republicans in the state Legislature, neglecting another motion asking lawmakers to strip the tenure changes from law.
A University of Wisconsin faculty member, who presented more than 2,500 petitions to the members of a UW Board of Regents committee Thursday asking them to restore protections to tenure imperiled in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget, said he was shocked when the panel voted to recommend a policy that gives administrators greater leeway to dismiss tenured faculty.
With angry faculty members from several campuses looking on, a committee of University of Wisconsin System regents voted Thursday to go along with the intent of Republican legislative leaders in broadening the reasons in which tenured faculty can be dismissed.
A Republican plan backed by Gov. Scott Walker to remove tenure for University of Wisconsin professors from state law has emerged as the latest battleground for public employees in Wisconsin.
Are Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature on their way to doing serious harm to the respected University of Wisconsin system?
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents is expected to finalize a policy on tenure for UW System faculty by the end of this week, after lawmakers proposed changes to the state’s tenure laws last Friday. Proponents say the changes would give university leaders better oversight of their employees, but the proposal has also made educators worried about the future of the state’s schools.
More than 360 professors who have won some of the university’s most prestigious research awards signed a letter they plan to send to the UW-System Board of Regents before their meeting Thursday.
Faculty advocates are up in arms over proposed legislation in Wisconsin calling for a sweeping overhaul of the state’s public-university system. The measure, passed by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance as part of negotiations on the state budget, would greatly reduce faculty members’ say in the University of Wisconsin system’s affairs and scrap state laws providing them job protections such as tenure.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will discuss changes to the System’s tenure policies at its meeting Thursday, a main point of discussion at a faculty and staff meeting at UW-Green Bay Wednesday.
The “fearless sifting and winnowing” that is the core of the Wisconsin Idea would be squelched by the erosion of support for tenure in state law proposed by legislative Republicans, say leaders of a lobbying organization of UW-Madison faculty.
A group of University of Wisconsin-Madison professors is appealing to the UW Board of Regents to preserve tenure protections and standards of shared governance.
Already dismayed by prospective cuts to the University of Wisconsin System, higher education observers now suggest the state could become an academic pariah if the Legislature scales back two treasured tenets of academia — tenure and shared governance.
The Capital Times’ charitable arm, The Evjue Foundation, announced Wednesday that its directors have approved more than $1.4 million in grants to 86 area nonprofits plus funding for 27 programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison doctors have approved a plan to merge UW Medical Foundation and UW Hospital, which is expected to go before the UW Board of Regents later this week.
University of Wisconsin System faculty, staff and student government groups could soon lose influence on their campuses after Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee voted last week to change shared governance laws.
University of Wisconsin faculty are urging the UW Board of Regents to preserve tenure and reject some of the powers the board would be granted under a GOP budget plan.
This week’s University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting takes on added significance after Republicans on the state Legislature’s budget committee voted to remove tenure protections from state law.
State lawmakers approved reducing a planned cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, and making multiple changes to how tenure and shared governance are included in state law.
The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted to reduce Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System by $50 million. Committee members approved the change Friday evening.
The University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross made the following statement on the proposed Joint Finance Committee motion.
Lawmakers on the Legislature’s powerful budget committee trimmed Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million two-year funding cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, which if it stands would be tied for the largest cut in System history and would mark the fifth time in the last six budget cycles that the universities took a significant funding cut. Of perhaps even more consequence, the committee approved significant changes to faculty tenure, removing it from state law, and to shared governance that would take away some decision-making power from faculty, students and staff and give more sway to campus chancellors and the UW System Board of Regents, who are appointed by the governor.
University of Wisconsin student-athletes who are on full scholarship in 2015-16 are projected to receive among the largest, most varied cost-of-attendance stipends in the nation. The final totals are still being determined for the coming school year, but UW Athletic Department officials expect the range for each case to be between $3,800 and $5,200. That translates to an anticipated annual bill of $1.35 million to $1.5 million for UW Athletics, which has approximately 150 student-athletes on full scholarship and hundreds more on partial tenders.
Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin were disheartened on Friday after a state legislative committee approved proposals that would limit the faculty’s role in shared governance and eliminate laws protecting tenure.
It’s been a tumultuous year for faculty members within the University of Wisconsin System, from threats to the Wisconsin Idea to a proposed $300 million budget cut to Governor Scott Walker’s suggestion that professors do more work to compensate for the slash.
The Legislature’s budget-writing committee voted Friday to cut the University of Wisconsin’s budget by $250 million and eliminate tenure protections for faculty from state law — moves derided by Democrats who argued the changes would hurt both higher education and the state’s economy.
Members of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee have restored some of the cuts Governor Scott Walker proposed for the University of Wisconsin System in his budget plan. Although, the UW will still have to absorb funding reductions of $250 million over the next biennium.
Republicans on the state Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee voted Friday night to cut the University of Wisconsin System’s budget by $250 million, while at the same time ending tenure protections enshrined in state law.
The University of Wisconsin System would see $250 million in cuts and sweeping changes in its operations, under a proposal put forward by GOP lawmakers Friday that will still be less dramatic than changes proposed by Gov. Scott Walker.
In a final push on the state budget bill, a key legislative panel is scheduled to start voting Friday on how deeply to cut the University of Wisconsin System and key natural resource programs, whether to publicly fund a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and how to fund highways.
The UW cut up for a vote Friday is one of the most controversial pieces of Walker’s two-year state spending plan. Republicans who control the budget-writing committee have already said they won’t go along with Walker’s plan to give UW more independence from state laws and oversight.
Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the University of Wisconsin System is slated to be voted on by the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee.
Vials of bioterror bacteria have gone missing. Lab mice infected with deadly viruses have escaped, and wild rodents have been found making nests with research waste. Cattle infected in a university’s vaccine experiments were repeatedly sent to slaughter and their meat sold for human consumption. Gear meant to protect lab workers from lethal viruses such as Ebola and bird flu has failed, repeatedly.
High-profile biological lab accidents last year and this week with deadly pathogens like anthrax and Ebola put secretive bioterror labs under the microscope nationwide. The “high-containment” labs operate largely out of the public view in Wisconsin, even as mistakes happen.
Among other actions Wednesday, the Joint Finance Committee approved $86.2 million in bonding to renovate and expand UW-Madison’s outdated chemistry building.
As Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin threatened nine-figure reductions in higher education funding, public colleges and universities in those states made their own threats in return. System leaders warned — often and loudly — that layoffs, program cuts and the general welfare of the states’ college students were on the line if legislators went forward with the proposed cuts.
Multmedia feature of notable commencement speeches, including Katie Couric.
