As the University of Wisconsin begins to noodle out its budget for the next two years, it?s a good time to remind the state?s lawmakers – and the public – of some unfinished business that we hope is taken up in the next session of the Legislature: greater autonomy for the university.
Amid the firestorm in 2011 over a secretive plan to split off the Madison campus from the rest of the system, a very good idea was lost: giving all the campuses more control over their own affairs. More autonomy especially would benefit the Milwaukee campus, which educates more Wisconsin natives than any other and runs leaner than most other campuses in the nation.