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As I wrote in my last post, efficiency-minded legislators are raising questions about the role faculty play in decision-making on campuses across the University of Wisconsin System, and whether shared governance represents an expensive and wasteful practice. I understand where these folks are coming from. Involving more people in decision-making is costly, in terms of time in particular.   But attending only to those costs without considering the benefits is short-sighted and will generate unintended consequences.  This is because economic evidence indicates that the costly process of shared governance generates cost-savings as well.  It seems that without the cost-savings generated by shared governance, college would be even more expensive for Wisconsin families. Professor emeritus Robert Martin of Centre College explains this counter-intuitive process in a set of papers written over the last 15 years, and most recently summarizes his conclusions in a paper written...

Biddy Martin is moving on to Amherst. Sadly, UW Madison is stuck with the Martin/Walker, Walker/Martin plan for public authority-- and Scott Walker still seems hell-bent on pushing for it . Make no mistake about it, this fight ain't over. Rest up this summer, and while you're recuperating, please do some reading on what Walker and his ALEC cronies think is "best" for public higher education. That is, privatize the heck out of it. That's the plan folks, mark my words. If you thought this was Biddy's bright idea, think again. In her effort to save us from financial disaster, she walked us right into the lion's den. That's the "hand we were dealt" of course, a "reality" handknit for us by the corporate elites determined to ensure that big business rules, no matter what the cost to the working people of Wisconsin. Get ready. We have work to do. RECALL WALKER. Save Wisconsin public higher education.

Remarkably, one of the topic's of yesterday's blog post (and another I wrote two years ao)-- the limited learning taking place on many college campuses-- is the subject of a New York Times op-ed today. Titled, " Your So-Called Education ," the piece argues that while 90% of graduates report being happy with their college experience, data suggests there's little to celebrate. I urge you read it and its companion op-ed " Major Delusions ," which describes why college grads are delusional in their optimism about their future. We don't regularly administer the Collegiate Learning Assessment at UW-Madison, the test that the authors of the first op-ed used to track changes in student learning over undergraduate careers. From talking with our vice provost for teaching and learning, Aaron Brower, I understand there are many good reasons for this. Among them are concerns that the test doesn't measure the learning we intend to transmit (for what it do...

Want to work with a talented group of students and faculty, helping find ways to make Wisconsin public higher education more affordable? Then please consider joining the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study as an undergraduate or graduate intern this summer! The WSLS is seeking students who will commit to at least 10 hours/week of work for summer and fall 2011. The ideal candidates are responsible, trustworthy, and detail-oriented. Those studying sociology, psychology, economics, or political science are especially needed. Potential tasks include: (1) piloting a study of undergraduates using text-messaging, (2) interviewing students, (3) transcribing and coding interviews, and (4) Using STATA to clean, code, and analyze survey data. Interns will be included in regular biweekly staff meetings and social events. We offer class credit and/or pay based on experience. If you are interested, please email Alison Bowman at ambowman@wisc.edu by May 13. Include a resume and short descrip...

I have spent the last seven years afraid I'd become a cautionary tale . I have been repeatedly warned by older, wiser folks to reconsider my inclinations to do things that could threaten my chances of getting tenure: have a baby on the tenure-track (then have another), initiate a large-scale new data collection project, spend a lot of time grant-writing, write policy briefs and other non-academic papers, travel around the country for policy and practice speaking engagements, write a blog (and then two), and the list goes on and on. Of course, the most controversial decision I made was back in 2009 when I began to speak out loudly and frequently against the policies and actions of UW-Madison's Administration. For the most part, my advisers are tenured friends who simply want me to succeed. I have a tendency to get in my own way-- by saying "yes" to too many opportunities, wanting to have it all right now , and sometimes by starting to speak before I've finished ...

The following is a guest posting from Harry Peterson, a UW-Madison administrator from 1978-1990, Chief of Staff to Chancellor Donna Shalala from 1988-1990. Harry is also President Emeritus, Western State College of Colorado, Gunnison, Colorado The demand for Professor Bill Cronon’s emails by the Wisconsin Republican Party prompted the UW System Board of Regents to review its support for academic freedom throughout its history. At its April board meeting the Regents again was emphatic in its interest in continuing that tradition. This received virtually no notice in the media because it was not news. The Board of Regents has been supporting academic freedom throughout its history . It is one of its most important legacies. The board has done such a good job it is taken for granted. We know in our personal lives and in public policy that decisions can have unintended and unanticipated consequences, sometimes with tragic results. Goals that are pursued sometimes have the opp...

I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old so I'm used to people who don't listen. I repeat myself, say it more firmly, and find new ways to express the same message. So let's try this one more time-- Governor Walker and the Legislature: The State of Wisconsin is doing a very poor job of securing the future of its citizens by investing so little in public education at all levels, including higher education. However, if it has such poor judgment so as to slash education at this critical time, it is in the best interest of the state to give the institutions some additional flexibilities as outlined in the Wisconsin Idea Partnership (WIP). It is, however, not in the state's best interests to allow UW-Madison to be swept from the UW System and placed under the direction of its own Board of Trustees. Chancellor Martin: First, what you have proposed in your new " compromise plan " is a scary version of the WIP. Why scary? Because now it's just even more painful...

After more than two hours of sitting in small hard wooden chairs on this blustery Monday afternoon, Faculty Senate at UW-Madison finally got interesting. In the midst of a discussion led by (I kid you not) "Committee of the Whole Discussion of Fiscal Models for the Proposed Public Authority, and Institutional Governance and the Proposed Board of Trustees," Chancellor Biddy Martin appeared to have had enough. She'd taken numerous questions from faculty who seemed uncertain about the implications of her proposed New Badger Partnership (including a series of questions proferred by yours truly), and seemed to have reached the end of her rope. Red-faced, she looked at the crowd of 100 or so, and said: "I'm out there on my own on this one...Regents and chancellors are against it...If the faculty, staff, and students of UW-Madison aren't supportive [of the NBP] then it makes no sense for me to continue. I'm tired. I don't need to be out there on my own. You ...

Tired of the rhetoric? Want to take a stab at cutting costs in Wisconsin public higher education yourself-- or even try increasing productivity? The Lumina Foundation has supported the development of an amazing interactive tool that helps you do just that. Here's one result I generated: Let's say we need to close the 2025 budget gap for Wisconsin public research universities to maintain current spending per FTE student. We can do that by increasing student/faculty ratio from 13:1 to 17:1. Period. Gap closed. No increases in tuition or state & local revenues necessary. And research suggests that such an increase will come at no significant cost to degree completion rates. If you want to suggest it will hurt instructional quality, you'll need to provide hard causal evidence to support that case-- I'd love to see it--email it to me! Better yet, let's first increase faculty salaries per FTE to the 75th percentile (which means an increase of about $1,000 from a ...

When I was in high school, I dreamed of going to UC-Berkeley. The stories of protests against social injustices conveyed by my AP History teacher got me excited. I was determined to attend a college where students fought against elitism and embraced diversity. The computerized college match programs I tried out told me that only CUNY would fit my bill (every other school was too white). And my mom told me that I was about 30 years too late for the Berkeley of my imagination. I ended up (sadly) at William and Mary, then George Washington University, and finally at University of Pennsylvania--entirely out of financial constraints (VA was in-state, GW was tuition-free thanks to Mom's job, and Penn offered me a full ride for grad school). In all cases I was surrounded by smart but highly privileged kids who had little sense that many had been born on 3rd base. My heart is therefore warmed by the sudden realization, brought on by recent events, that many of the undergraduates at UW-Ma...

A huge public thank you to Paul Krugman for his outstanding defense of academic freedom in Monday's New York Times . As an untenured professor and regular blogger, I am eternally grateful that he -- at least -- gets it. He is absolutely right about the risks of letting this kind of behavior go by-- "... less eminent and established researchers won’t just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they’ll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble. What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed." Now if only UW-Madison Administration would take such a stance.

The news that the Wisconsin GOP has begun to investigate UW-Madison faculty should cause all members of the UW-Madison community to take a gigantic pause and ponder the reality that if the New Badger Partnership is approved, Governor Walker will get to immediately --July 1--appoint the majority of the board that will govern the public authority . This is not an "NBP myth." The Administration does not dispute this fact-- instead, they say : "Myth: Gov. Scott Walker will be able to control UW-Madison because he will be able to appoint a majority of the board. Fact: Having the executive branch appoint a majority of the Board of Trustees will preserve the university’s public status and its sovereign immunity status from certain types of lawsuits. The UW System Board of Regents is fully appointed by the governor to staggered terms, where the UW-Madison Board of Trustees would include appointments by the governor and the university of members with a closer interest in the uni...

The witch hunt is on. Last night, my colleague William Cronon -- a highly respected, tenured professor of history -- revealed that the Wisconsin Republican Party made an open records request for his university email following the publication of his first-ever blog post . What was in that post? A thoughtful set of questions about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The investigation of Bill Cronon scares the crap out of me, quite frankly. And obviously, that's the intent. We are told as university faculty that we are state employees and our writing is subject to these requests, but many of us operate (have operated) under the impression we are living in a rational, civil society that understands the importance of academic freedom. No longer. I'm betting that a request is coming my way soon. I lack Cronon's long track record in academia, I lack his tenured status, I lack his measured way of saying things, I lack his status as a white male, I lack his apparen...

Over the last several years, UW-Madison has increased its tuition at a higher rate than its System peers, thanks to the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates. That shift has not been accompanied by a decline in the percent of students receiving Pell Grants--in fact there's been a 5.5 percent increase in % Pell since 2000. Some are saying that this means that low-income students have been "held harmless" from the rising tuition, and that further increases would likely not lead to diminished economic diversity on campus. Furthermore, we are told, we can look to the outreach campaigns of institutions like UVA and UNC-Chapel Hill (home to Access UVA and the Carolina Covenant respectively) for models of anti-"sticker shock" programs that "work." These claims are terrific examples of why it's a bad idea to make causal claims based on correlational data. If you want to make those statements, you can look to those examples and find support for your ag...

UW-Madison is touting a new endorsement of its New Badger Partnership from "Appleton resident Tim Higgins." That's nice, dear. Oh, except hang on a second....Who is Mr. Tim Higgins of Appleton? Not just an ol' man about town. This guy is a business owner with serious conservative Republican creds who is eager to "restore...conservative leadership" to Wisconsin! He was a Bush-Cheney '04 local Wisconsin co-chair . Yep-- Scott Walker and his conservative cronies are all excited about the NBP. Things that make ya go hmmmm.....????

For immediate release March 21, 2011 Contact: Kevin Gibbons, TAA Co-President: 608-520-3560 Alex Hanna, TAA Co-President, 765-404-6996 TAA Opposes New Badger Partnership and the Formation of UW-Madison as a Public Authority At a meeting Sunday, March 20, 2011, the general membership of the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) approved a motion to oppose the New Badger Partnership. The TAA opposes the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System and the formation of the public authority model. The motion reads: The TAA opposes the New Badger Partnership, especially the separation of UW-Madison from the UW System, the formation of the public authority model, and the threat to affordability and accessibility it poses to public education and the lack of protection for labor unions on campus. The TAA also objects to the non-transparent and undemocratic process by which the New Badger Partnership was designed. “Our members have serious reservations about the sweeping changes being proposed ...

Whatever it actually means, "shared governance" seems awfully important to the faculty, staff, and students of UW-Madison. And so I want to bring to light an exchange that the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) had with Chancellor Martin about the New Badger Partnership at the end of January. I had heard about this conversation but neglected to read the text of it until now. I think it is something students should consider carefully, and discuss at great length. How do you feel about the process and how it's unfolded? How do you feel about the style of governance employed thus far, and what it means going forward? What follows is an excerpt from the ASM "live blog" of January 24 . Beth Huang: I’ve continually heard that the partnership is not a privatization, but a way to give the university more powers. But I don’t hear much about what powers will be given to students, staff and faculty at this university. Can you give me your vision for how other players...

UW-Madison Chancellor Martin has received positive press for her willingness to use social media to communicate with her public. In 2009 she was described in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as open to feedback, and eager to engage. "We've got a chancellor here who has been trying very hard to be open to feedback. She's done a huge number of public forums, trying to build support for the Madison Initiative," [Katy] Culver said. "Having her out there and appearing to be someone who is interested in using social media, is open to letting her personality out there, that may work very, very well for her." I thought this was super-cool of her. So, I started talking with her over Twitter about the New Badger Partnership . As a professional, I tried hard to balance candor, curiosity and a respectful tone. I mean, heck, I'm also untenured! Imagine my surprise when a few days ago I noticed her Tweets disappeared from my feed. I was no longer following her. ...

Interested in how the New Badger Partnership could affect the composition and quality of the student body? Of faculty? Please take a look at this memo I drafted for several campus committees, posted by Sifting and Winnowing .

When things look terrible in your neck of the woods, it's always useful to take a look around-- it helps to put things in perspective. I've been hearing a lot about how Wisconsin has disinvested in higher education over the past several decades, leaving Madison with no choice but to jump ship to become its own public authority. Today Tom Mortenson issued the latest issue of Postsecondary Education Opportunity, this one on " State Fiscal Support for Higher Education ." Here are a few key highlights: (1) In FY 2011 Wisconsin ranks 23rd in state fiscal support for operating expenses of higher education per $1,000 of personal income. The state spends $6.72, compared to a national average of $6.30. Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio all spend LESS. (2) We rank 34th in the rate of change in state fiscal support over time (FY1980-FY2011). The national average is a decrease of 39.9% -- in Wisconsin we saw a decline of 45.2%. In contrast, Minnesota saw a 55....