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I often receive email from students who've learned of my interest in the contemporary college experience and want to provide a window into their own.  Recently I heard from a man who initially enrolled at UW-Madison in 2007 and subsequently took an educational pathway that is increasingly normal.  His efforts to find ways to learn new things and make college affordable are notable, and he challenges us to think about the ways in which traditional forms of higher education align with today's students.  With his permission I'm sharing a letter he wrote, and at his request, I am identifying the author.  The following essay is by James Kasombo, who will be re-entering Madison this fall.  ' Our education system is predicated on the idea of academic ability .'             Upon graduating from high school in the top five percent of my class, being ushered into the university's honors program, and finding a who...

UW-Madison has a rich history of activism among its students, and that history evolves today as students stand in solidarity with the workers of Palermo's pizza and the good folks of Voces de la Frontera.  What will outgoing Interim Chancellor David Ward do? Why not act, given widespread public support and his short remaining tenure?   Here's what you need to know: (1) UW-Madison's students have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to standing up for the rights of underdogs throughout the world.  It's no surprise they're ahead of the NLRB on this one. (2) UW-Madison's code of ethics is independent from the rulings of the NLRB or any other entity and is supposed to reflect our values, not those of others. (3) It is abundantly clear that moral leadership is lacking on both the so-called Left and the Right in Wisconsin, especially when it comes to standing up to corporate interests seeking to keep wages low and profits high.  It is far harder to battle t...

This post is by  Chad Goldberg, Professor of Sociology at UW-Madison and Vice President of United Faculty and Staff , the campus unit of the American Federation of Teachers. As a card-carrying member, I am proud to provide this outlet to Chad to share his thoughts. Chad and Rebecca meet, 2013

This blog is called the Education Optimists  and so it's with great hope and the strong desire to be pleasantly surprised that I am responding to the announcement that Dr. Rebecca Blank is the next chancellor of UW-Madison. First, the good news.  With Blank at the helm, we can expect that the thoughtful scholars of the Institute for Research on Poverty and the La Follette School of Public Affairs will play an important role in the direction of our institution in coming years.  I suspect policy formation on affordability and tuition will be guided by Bob Haveman , Chris Taber , and Karl Scholz , efforts on diversity and access will be led by Bobbi Wolfe , and our interactions with social policies throughout the state will be shaped by  Tim Smeeding . These labor economists are experts in their field, and will undoubtedly constitute a vocal cabinet for Blank.   Second, the Social Sciences will flourish under Blank's direction. As a sociologist, that's nice to know...

Working on some shared governance tasks this evening, and time with this data  really got me thinking. For the first time, probably in UW-Madison's history, we are enrolling more legacy students than first-generation students.   Enrollment of Wisconsin residents is at an historic low, while enrollment of international students is at an historic high. Enrollment is a function of applications, admit rates, and yield. Arguably, changes in policies around cost and campus climate (e.g. the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates-- see below) most often affect the yield. So let's look at the yield rates-- the percent of students who accept the admissions offer and choose to attend Madison.  They are quite stable for some groups, but declining for others. By the numbers, of the 6,279 new freshmen who enrolled at UW-Madison in 2012: 1,119 are children of parents who attended UW-Madison 1,033 do not have a college-educated parent    609 are not from the United States ...

I am not a nervous person, but I was sweating a bit as I waited more than an hour in line today to meet Michael Schill, candidate for chancellor of UW-Madison.  Next year will be my 10th at this university, and I have come to love it deeply, and feel strongly about the important role the chancellor plays in the direction it takes.  And thus, it was with some trepidation that I shook hands with Michael, because my instinct is that he's an excellent pick for Chancellor , and thus an important person in our future. As readers know, I profiled two other chancellor candidates shortly after they were announced and declined to endorse them.  It didn't take long to figure out they weren't a match.  I haven't yet weighed in on Rebecca Blank, and feel I can't do so until I meet her next week-- she made several comments during her last visit that make me hesitate, and I want to see what she thinks after her Washington experiences. But reading Schill's work and talking with...

This post is the second in a series of four. It's hard to say much about Nick Jones, candidate for chancellor of UW-Madison, because hardly anyone seems to know who he is.  He's spent most of the last 30 years at a single, very elite private institution-- Johns Hopkins University-- where he's currently the dean of the Whiting School of Engineering.  About 10 years ago, Jones left Hopkins about about two years to work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but quickly returned. Apart from engaging in various engineering-related activities, he doesn't seem to have done much in higher education leadership. That said, Jones is well-liked by those in the Hopkins community, and appears to be good at fundraising. Very nice. But this is a case where having been a dean and the product of one institution may simply not be enough. He talks in terms of sports metaphors when describing his current job , noting that  "I’m an offensive lineman. Basically,...

PREFACE: There are four candidates for UW-Madison Chancellor. This week I will profile each of them, contributing information gleaned from "off list" discussions and sleuthing. As I noted in my last couple of blogs, unfortunately that sort of due diligence was not undertaken by the search firm. I'm doing this in the spirit of sifting and winnowing, with an eye towards helping us identify the candidate who best suits UW-Madison with its many strong traditions-- foremost among them our tradition of shared governance. I hope you will join me in that spirit, refraining from engaging in name-calling or sheer speculation, while sharing any useful information you may have, using the comments function on this blog. Until December 2012, Kim Wilcox was the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Michigan State University, where he also served as a professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, a member of the MSU Foundation board of directors,...

There's hardly ever been a more difficult and auspicious time to lead a public flagship university. Yet at the same time, I believe it's among the greatest opportunities, and anyone would be beyond lucky to have the job. The last chancellor of UW-Madison nearly undid our relationship with our state. In my opinion, then and now, she was nothing short of disastrous.  And, we have learned since her departure that her employment could have been avoided if only the search had involved a genuine due diligence process before she was brought in for interviews. For example, had due diligence occurred, we would have known-- before she came to woo the campus with her charisma-- that as long as Biddy's around, no one needs to have good ideas, for she has them all. In a setting like ours, where shared governance prevails, and we know that good ideas come from all sorts of places, she clearly wouldn't have fit. Due diligence is a must when hiring any leader. And it's incredibly ...

It was only a matter of time.  The anticipation was palpable when a group of about 50 concerned faculty, students, and staff from around UW-Madison gathered last summer to talk about the governance crisis at UVA .  The president of that flagship university had just been ousted for failing to quickly embrace MOOCs-- a sign some UVA board members thought meant that she was failing to embrace the "disruptive innovation" that will purportedly transform higher education.  While President Teresa Sullivan was reinstated some weeks later, after a period of alumni outrage, the writing was on the wall.  MOOCs were established as an especially hot new trend with broad appeal among the powerful who find "shock and awe" scenarios the best way to promote change-- and it wouldn't be long before UW-Madison lept into the quicksand. This morning UW-Madison is going public with the news that we're joining with Coursera to offer four pilot MOOCs .  Our administrators have app...

Providing more students with a variety of college choices is a good thing.  But I'm beginning to wonder about the unintended consequences of policies that try to accomplish it. Take the case of Wisconsin, which shares a tuition reciprocity agreement with Minnesota.  Many students, especially those living on the borders of the two states, and those who don't get a place in their flagship university, choose to attend college in the other state. That's very nice, of course, and very neighborly. And, according to the press , it helps the state attract "the best students."  But every policy has its downsides, and in this case there may be several: (1) It seems to nudge data reporting toward the uninformative . Since both Minnesota and Wisconsin are treated as residents for tuition purposes, the vast majority of official reporting from the state and the campuses combines the two groups.  This makes it hard for the public to examine the characteristics of Wisconsin res...

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM A Nation at Risk? Reflections on the Past and Future of U.S. Public Education 10th Annual Educational Policy Studies Conference Madison, Wisconsin March 21-22, 2013 All events in Room 159 of the Education Building, 1000 Bascom Mall, UW-Madison FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Thursday, March 21, 2013 8:30-10:00AM : Public Discourse on American Education             Michael Apple, Curriculum & Instruction & EPS, UW-Madison Nancy Kendall, EPS, UW-Madison Gloria Ladson-Billings, Curriculum & Instruction & EPS, UW-Madison Chair: Bill Reese, EPS & History, UW-Madison             10:15-11:45 AM: Race/Ethnicity and the Evolution of U.S. Public Education             Jack Dougherty, Trinity College             Adrienne Dixon, Univer...