oflovefaithhopedream

Tuesday morning at 11 am, my colleagues and I initiated an online petition requesting that the Director of Human Resources at UW-Madison, Bob Lavigna, put his good intentions for revising the HR plan in writing  before shared governance groups are asked to vote on the plan next week. Just one day later, we had 223 signatures and counting!  Two days later we crossed the 300 mark.  This includes dozens of faculty, including many prominent, senior members who know and love the place.  Clearly, in this town people care about having information at hand and in writing before they're asked to vote.  As Marcia Schiffman of the Department of Opthamology and Visual Science put it, "How can you make an informed decision either way without the actual proposal, changes and all, in front of you?" One of the best things about an online petition is that signers can leave comments, and as a sociologist I'm finding their words full of insights into how we struggle to make public...

On Monday the Faculty Senate at UW-Madison will vote on HR Design.  The University Committee has crafted a nice resolution supporting the plan, which is great, but the fact is that they do not know what they are supporting . They are acting on faith, a lovely sentiment, but not a realistic one in a Wisconsin where conditions for working families erode daily. Join us in calling on the Director of Human Resources to reveal a written list of changes to the current plan that he intends to ask the executive committee (chancellor, provost, and vice chancellor for administration) to suport. Know. Then Vote. It's a good plan for Monday November 5-- and for Tuesday November 6 too. SIGN NOW

This fall marks my ninth academic year at UW–Madison. During my time here I’ve experienced our human resources system in many ways—as a new mother seeking a maternity leave (twice), as a temporarily disabled employee in need of a leave, as a frustrated faculty member seeking a raise, and multiple times as the director of a large research project trying to hire and retain qualified classified and academic staff. I know firsthand that the system needs to change in order to realize our campus goals of equity, efficiency, and effectiveness. That is why I have taken seriously the HR Design team’s request for input from shared governance units, spending significant time studying the plan, and commenting on it in multiple venues. I think further adjustments to the current plan are required, because my own knowledge of higher education reform efforts and the scholarly literature on work and organizations suggests that as currently formulated it will have significant unintended consequenc...

A few months ago I wrote about the HR Design process at UW-Madison.  Some readers questioned the accuracy of my assertions.  We have new confirmatory information obtained via open records requests.  It seems the Huron Engagement has been expensive, indeed.   In the following memo, the Wisconsin University Union summarizes what we now know. It's a bit long, so I have underlined and bolded key points. To: Interested campus employees From: WUU Date: June 20, 2012 RE: Memos from Huron Consulting Group As you may know, Wisconsin University Union (WUU) has filed a series of open meeting and open requests to UW administration to gain access to information on the HR Design Project (the Project).  We initiated these requests because we believed that the effects of the Project will likely be far-reaching and long-term and that despite the administration’s attempt to project a gloss of participation and transparency to the process, it was fundamentally top-down and opaque...

Last year, I wrote extensively about efforts led by former Chancellor Biddy Martin and her administration, donors, and alumni to privatize (or at least semi-privatize) the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  That effort was partially successful, for while Martin and colleagues failed to separate Madison from the rest of the UW System, or gain authority over tuition setting, they did succeed in getting Madison the authority to redesign its human resources system.  This new "flexibility" was praised by many on campus, including staff, faculty, and students, who recognize that the current bureaucracy is not working, especially for those outside of administration. So, this year the Human Resource Design Project has been advertised as a tremendous opportunity, hard won, and far better than the alternative -- the status quo.  Perhaps.  But few reforms are without consequence, and the r ecommendations recently offered by the working teams in HR Design suggest this case is n...