Chancellor Rebecca Blank of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shared the following message by email with faculty on June 9 ahead of an emergency meeting of the Faculty Senate. The message was also posted on a web page maintained by the University and devoted to budget issues. As we prepare to meet, I want to again…
The following statement was published yesterday (June 3) and as of this morning had acquired 361 signatures [UPDATE: As of the next morning (June 5) the number of signatories had climbed to 459. The additional names, however, have not been added to the list that follows the text of the statement]: We write as fortunate…
On Tuesday the Wisconsin State Journal published an op-ed piece by John Wiley, who was Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 2001 to 2008. Wiley pointed out that “In 1900, Wisconsin was one of only 14 research universities that came together to form the now prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU is now…
In a post yesterday entitled “The End of Tenure in Wisconsin?” I discussed proposals approved last week by the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee that would remove tenure protections from statute, weaken shared governance, and modify layoff policies and procedures for faculty. While the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents will remain empowered to restore…
Last Friday afternoon the Wisconsin Legislature’s powerful Joint Finance Committee declared war on the University of Wisconsin’s faculty. By a vote of 12-4 the Committee approved an omnibus spending bill that would impose drastic budget cuts and, most important, eliminate tenure from state statute. The committee also approved adding new limits to the faculty role in…
I have done a number of posts on Bobby Jindal’s political calculations and their impact on public higher education in Louisiana, and I am planning several more posts on the ongoing budget issues in the state. But I have just come across a news item that has left me scratching my head. But, first, here…
In what passes for “business” these days, institutions of any sort become potential cash cows for those at the top, structures allowing extraction of wealth while providing a minimum in return. Until, say, twenty years ago, educational entities were somewhat exempt, operating on a slightly different paradigm. Their mission was not to enrich those at the…
Rudy Fichtenbaum has sent me the following statistical analysis in response to the assertions made by Campos in the article in the New York Times and as a follow-up to my own post on that article. I don’t think that anything that Rudy points out in this analysis substantially contradicts anything that I have asserted…