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Thanks, I will check this out as well! 🙂
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…with the head of the system pledging to resign if the Republican assault on the system makes it through the legislature. Folks in Wisconsin, any more details, insights in to what's going on?
It is confusing for us too, since so much of it is bottled up in closed-door discussions. But there are two main issues: the drastic budget cuts, which will have a serious impact on the whole University of Wisconsin System, including UW-Madison; and the "Public Authority" (PA) initiative, a move to give the UW System more independence from the state with respect to setting tuition, self-governance, personnel, budget, etc.. IF I understand it all correctly, essentially, with respect to the PA, the governor's proposal eliminates Chapter 36 (which sets the purpose and responsibilities for the UW, including tenure and shared governance) from state law, with the expectation that it will be replaced by a new charter to be determined by the UW Board of Regents, which would operate as the governing body of the UW System with more independence from state control. And the Board of Regents has indicated that it would preserve tenure and shared governance. This has angered a minority of the more extreme Republicans in the state legislature, who say they don't want to see more of the same old same old, and who now insist that if the Board of Regents won't drastically change things, then they won't approve the public authority structure; in which case, were the budget to pass as is, the UW System would remain under the state's oversight but now without Chapter 36! However, the whole budget is getting push-back even from Republicans who think it goes too far.
It seems to me that there is serious division among the faculty over the Public Authority issue — both among faculty at UW-Madison and among faculty at various UW System campuses. Richard Grusin, the UW-Milwaukee professor who is a leader of the drive against PA, does not represent all faculty. Under the right circumstances, PA could be good for the UW System. True, it appears to be a step toward "privatizing" the public university system, but this is misleading — I, at least, think that the PA can go forward while the UW still remains committed to the "Wisconsin Idea" and the ideals and goals of a top-notch public university.
Again, this is my impression of things as they currently stand, and I may not have it all straight, since so little authentic information is being passed along, while the rumor mill runs rampant.
Thanks for posting this. I'm a tenure track faculty member in the UW system. I don't have any particular connections to decison-makers.
I do want to note a couple of things, though. One is that people here are skittish: The current political regime in Wisconsin is extremely un-forthcoming. The Act 10 stuff in 2011 came without warning or discussion. Right-to-work came without warning or discussion (indeed the governor called it a "distraction" before the legislature plowed ahead and passed in a special section). With respect to the UW system, over a year ago there was a big blow-up over a supposedly-large (in fact, not at all, and lower than generally accepted accounting practices) budget surplus at UW. The legislature demanded that we spend down that money (basically it was just cash on hand to cover a few months operating expenses and commitments), such that we now have what the chancellor (correctly) calls "dangerously low cash reserves." Hence, with looming budget cuts, there is very little flexibility about what to do. From where I sit, it looks like an intentional dismantling: force us to cut to the bone based on political outrage, then slash the budget.
Next, the thing on the table right now is removing _statutory_ protections for tenure and shared governance (i.e., by moving to a public authority model). That would give control to the Board of Regents to devise rules for tenure and shared governance (and as the linked article notes, aligning Wisconsin with most every other state). Fair enough. But, first, as the quote from Vos in the linked article makes clear, at least some legislators are doing this not simply as a way to give autonomy to UW, but precisely to undermine tenure and shared governance (that would certainly align with their top-down, screw-labor moves in Act 10 and RTW). Second, public authority is discussed in the legislature and press as a potential budget-saving measure. In some ways, maybe (streamlining certain processes, having more tuition control). But not necessarily. There is no concrete plan about this at the moment. Moreover, even though the rhetoric is about money, it's clear that legislators like Vos want to undermine the faculty. There is NO reason to think that tenure, specifically, costs money, except insofar as you can simply run the whole system on adjuncts. If you assume you want something like a respectable research university (main campus, UWM) or quality teaching institution (others) (ye gods I hope we can assume THAT, but perhaps not), you would need to offer more money to make up for the job security loss. That is, if you want to attract people who could work elsewhere, you either provide similar job conditions (tenure/tenure track), or you pay them more. Simple micro econ.
Third, nothing prevents the legislature from writing a statute for public authority that explicitly prohibits tenure. And based on their lack of forthcomingness, they would certainly not advertise such a plan.
I believe that the regents do not want to see the UW dismantled on their watch, hence their commitment to tenure and shared governance. But I am not convinced that they will end up being able to make good on that commitment. I see two likely ways that this plays out: (1) slight less budget cuts, keep statutory language re: tenure and shared governance, continued caps on tuition, slowly kill UW over a couple of decades. (2) similar budget cuts to those already proposed, public authority that is okay from an operations perspective (but terrible from a public goods perspective), regents preserve tenure in slightly-weakened form at least for UW and UWM, fairly rapid privatization (tuition increases, demagoguery from legislature cutting state funding, repeat cycle).
Thanks to the first two commenters for this additional information and perspective. Eliminating tenure will cost money *if* the System wants to maintain quality: that is "economics 101" as they say. The worry, of course, is that those pushing for this don't care about quality because they don't even know what it is. And that's scary, and not just for Wisconsin, since this mischief, when successful, tends to spread to other states.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has been making noise about the evils of shared governance for a while now (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/09/wisconsin-faculty-object-idea-shared-governance-should-change). He was recently on a Wisconsin Public Radio show saying that only Wisconsin has such a thing, which of course is either pure Frankfurtian bullshit or just a bald-faced lie, as anyone with a passing acquaintance with the workings of higher education on whose head an anvil has not recently fallen would know.
Vos graduated from UW-Whitewater with a degree in political science, which seems to have prepared him well for memorizing and repeating ALEC talking points. Interestingly enough, Whitewater is also the alma mater of state representative Steve Nass, perhaps the UW System's most vocal critic over the years, and also RNC chair Reince Preibus. Nass recently went after a UW economist for daring to provide some data and perspective relevant to the right to work debate ("debate"?) (http://www.isthmus.com/news/news/republican-calls-uw-research-on-right-to-work-partisan-garbage/). So much for serving the public good.
Vos has cooled on Walker's idea of granting the UW system more autonomy (http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/professors-group-raises-red-flag-on-scott-walkers-uw-system-plans-b99461011z1-296085811.html), since the Board of Regents does not seem to share his views on the evils of tenure and shared governance. I can see his point — I mean, what's the point of granting more autonomy if the person you're granting it to isn't going to do just what you want them to do? I mean, that would be like loving someone unconditionally so long as they don't disappoint you. There's nothing to be gained by that.
As an indication of how much the state legislature values higher education, Vos named David Murphy as the chair of the State Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities. Murphy does not have a college degree — though he did attend (without completing a degree) a UW two-year college in the 70s. In his application essay (for real: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/assembly-term-papers-offer-insight-into-gop-lawmakers-ideas/article_3d02d06d-1b12-5efd-bcea-a75a28bd9e95.html), he indicates that he is "good friends" with one of the Regents, which should assuage any worries anyone would have about his qualifications for the position.
In addition to our absentee governor, who is somehow managing to direct the focus away from Wisconsin's at best lackluster economic performance under his leadership (http://host.madison.com/business/wisconsin-lags-midwest-job-growth-state-rankings/html_94b31476-74a1-11e3-9597-0019bb2963f4.html) and toward his "courageous" standing up to ordinary citizens protesting Act 10, our legislature is filled with enough knaves and fools to do real, lasting damage to a university system that was once fairly enviable.
In a word, we're phuqued.
I do wish people who want to defend Universities would refrain from sneering at people for not having attended, or succeeded in, college. Lacking a college degree in no way disqualifies someone from chairing an Assembly committee on HE. Murphy is an elected official whose salary is considerably less than we offer our beginning assistant professors. He may well be unqualified for other reasons, but his lack of a college degree (like the Governor's) is a complete irrelevance, and mentioning it as anything other than an irrelevance makes critics sound like elitist snobs.
I’m surprised that expecting the chair of a legislative committee on higher education to be a college graduate would suggest elitist snobbery. Honestly, had this comment come this coming Wednesday, I would've chuckled. I agree that Gov. Walker’s lack of a college degree is in general irrelevant (indeed, you'll notice I didn't mention it above) – though it is relevant when he decides to rewrite the mission of his state university system. Similarly, I think Rep. Murphy’s not completing even an associate’s degree is not generally relevant, but it strikes me as quite relevant to his chairing the assembly committee on higher education – much as someone’s not having earned a living as farmer or small business owner or attorney or health care professional would be relevant to their chairing (not just serving on, but chairing) a legislative committee devoted to that domain.
I agree with what Sean McAleer said with respect to the relevance of having completed college to be being able to effectively chair a legislative body overseeing, and would add that harry b's assertion concerning legislative salaries compared to assistant professor salaries is incorrect. Wisconsin legislators' get $51K per year, plus an allowance for while they are in the state capital, Madison. This allowance adds several thousands of dollars to legislators' salaries, sometimes over $10K, with a typical addition of maybe about $5K. At my branch campus of the University of Wisconsin, assistant professors make somewhere around $47-54K (I'm sure it would be higher at Madison, the flagship campus). Thus legislators do not make "considerably less" than assistant professors– they make about the same. This may seem like small beer, but harry b's misunderstanding– that professors are highly paid– is a common one, and one that has helped form the growing political consensus (of which Wisconsin is a prime example) that higher education is essentially a private good, the purpose of which is to provide job training, and that therefore public support of higher education is unjustified.
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