Against the Wisconsin System Blueprint, For the Students

BY BOB NOWLAN One of the most egregious dimensions of outgoing University of Wisconsin system president Ray Cross’s May 7 “Blueprint for the University of Wisconsin System Beyond COVID-19”—which calls for a radical restructuring and effective elimination of the comprehensive dimension of the system’s eleven regional comprehensive universities, as well as an effective jettisoning of…

AAUP’s Governance Committee Denounces Remarks by UW System President

BY MICHAEL DECESARE Yesterday the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance released the following statement: In October 2017, news broke of University of Wisconsin system president Ray Cross’s decision to propose a merger of the system’s two- and four-year institutions. It was the latest in a number of unilateral and secretive actions taken by system…

The Price of Excellence in Wisconsin

BY KELLY HAND Kelly Wilz, author of the May–June Academe article “A Day in the Life of a Public University Professor in Wisconsin,” recently won the 2015–16 Teacher Excellence Award given by the student body of the University of Wisconsin-Marshfield/Wood County. Becoming an award-winning teacher is never easy, but as Wilz’s article demonstrates, it has…

Brakemen, Professors, and a "Job for Life"

Among other things, I am (or have been) an historian of railroad labor, so I was especially thrilled to learn that University of Wisconsin-Madison labor historian William P. Jones had joined the conversation around the assault on tenure in the Wisconsin system.  Professor Jones, by the way, will be the plenary banquet speaker at AAUP’s…

Wisconsin: The Bagman Cometh

As the faculties at one University of Wisconsin system campus after another vote “no confidence” in the leadership of system head Ray Cross and the Board of Regents, new evidence has emerged to demonstrate that, despite public claims by Cross that under his leadership “the substance of tenure was simply moved from statute to board…

Tenure Weakened in Wisconsin

The AAUP issued this statement today after the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents adopted a new policy weakening tenure protections. Tenure in Wisconsin It is now clear that the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has adopted a policy that provides weaker protections of tenure, and thus of academic freedom, than what has…