minahkaypoh

One week ago, a group of concerned faculty, staff, and students organized a forum at UW-Madison to discuss shared governance: what it is, how it's been challenged in the past, and what current risks it's currently facing.  The forum, held at 5 pm on the Monday before Thanksgiving, drew more than fifty people to the Wisconsin Idea Room in the School of Education. Speakers included former chair of the University Committee, Judith Burstyn , Professor Emeritus of History Jim Donnolly , Professor of Political Science Don Downs , David Ahrens of the Wisconsin University Union, and C had Goldberg , Professor of Sociology. There was a robust conversation about the precedent set by the famed Spoto case in establishing the importance of joint decision-making  in shared governance, a process that in the University of Wisconsin System goes well beyond simply advice and input.  The key takeaway: when faced with an impasse   between faculty and administration on an issue over wh...

The Chancellor just released the revised HR Design plan. Lest anyone wonder "Why did we postpone the vote at Faculty Senate," here's your answer. The red-lined version of the Plan and the list of changes should be read in full.  But there is clear evidence on the pages as to why a strong pushback at Senate was smart and appropriate.  For example: p. 4  and 41 Mandatory placement of laid off employees has been restored! p. 42 Right of return has been restored (for up 30 days)! p.10 A commitment to using HR to achieve excellence in all  disciplines and to emphasize learning is now included p.25 and 26 Internal equity is now explicitly included as a factor continuing to affect compensation (see Strategic Plan Components #1 and the following paragraph on p. 26) p. 28 Living wage for contracted employees is officially under consideration again But the language on shared governance is still too weak. This is ironic given tonight's forum (which I'll write about tomorrow...

With a headline like that, I bet you're assuming this is going to be one scathing post! The last time Scott Walker had ideas for Wisconsin public higher education, they involved separating UW-Madison from the rest of System. Or at least, so Biddy Martin told us. This time, the issue is performance funding for higher education. Walker recently declared his interest in the model, and many people are naturally on the defensive. The common list of concerns is already being circulated (e.g. it will fail to distinguish between institutions with different missions and student bodies, intrude on institutional autonomy, and excuse cuts in regular state funding of higher education), but this is my favorite:  Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson, a Democrat, said that W alker's plan sounds like "social engineering" that would force students to study "what industry wants" rather than what students want . Ouch!  Sounds godawful.   But here's the thing-- this is not ...

Since last week's Faculty Senate meeting, my email inbox has grown cluttered with letters from faculty, staff, and students who are experiencing violations of shared governance at UW-Madison.  All are afraid to speak out with their names included, fearful of responses from the Administration.  I can't tell you how upsetting this is, especially given my own Biddy battles during the term I was up for tenure. In any case, one brave soul has decided to allow me to quote from his letter.  I hope you'll consider his words (below) and then decide to join us next week for a discussion of the past and future of shared governance at Madison. There will be a FORUM on these issues held on Monday November 19 from 5-630 pm in the Wisconsin Idea Room of the School of Education. Sponsors include WUU, TAA, WISCAPE, and UFAS.  You can rsvp here . ****** Hi Sara, The biggest issue for me now is the apparent demolition of faculty governance. Wisconsin has a long history of egalitarian d...

The following is a guest posting by Robin Rogers, associate professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY). Robin authored the popular  " Billionaire Education Policy ." She can be reached via email at robinrogers99@gmail.com Follow her on Twitter: @Robin_Rogers The City University of New York (CUNY) is in the middle of a clash over budget-driven higher education reform that could rival the Chicago Public School strike , and that is bad for everyone. The epicenter of the crisis right now is in the small, unassuming English department of Queensborough Community College (QCC).  At issue is CUNY’s implementation of a new program known as Pathways that aims to make transferring among CUNY colleges, particularly from the community colleges to the senior colleges, easier and to improve graduation rates. It is also an attempt to make the CUNY system more cost-effective. All of this seems very rational. In fact, w...

This ran in today's Capital Times.  Stay tuned... more to come. 

" Mitt Romney will LOSE this election," says CNN.... We worked hard for this moment. Now, let's make it worthwhile. Agenda #1:  This is not a post-racial era. This is a highly racist era. It's time to deal with it. Agenda #2:  Education is not a business, and teachers are not mid-level managers.  Treat them like their partners in raising the nation's children. They deserve it. Agenda #3:  Families can't succeed if they can't work. Raise taxes dramatically on the Romneys of the world and provide tax breaks only if they create significant numbers of good jobs paying living wages to Americans. Agenda #4: End housing segregation, now. Poverty isn't quite so detrimental when it isn't concentrated. Agenda #5: Make college affordable by recognizing our democracy's need for postsecondary education. Two quality years for free-- minimum. Now. That's just a start.  ON.

All over America, faculty, staff, and students are losing their collective voice as a tidal wave of "reform" washes over higher education. The adjunctification of the faculty is well underway and some administrators and members of the public cast faculty as the enemy of progress, despite hard empirical evidence to the contrary. We've been confronting our own dilemmas at UW-Madison, where a deeply conservative Wisconsin legislature handed us the "tools" requested to bring efficiences to our human resources system.  It is indeed an old system, which insufficiently recognizes the needs of educational institutions, and it is indisputably in need of modernization.  The plans are in process to use the new flexibilities to improve the system, and today the Faculty Senate was to vote on those plans. The problem? The plans aren't yet  fully articulated.  They are still in process, in a draft stage, and it's hard to tell whether they really take UW-Madison forwa...

At 3:51 pm, I received the following letter from UW-Madison Human Resources Director Bob Lavigna in response to the Change.Org petition. The full text follows.   I have underlined key sentences since it is rather long and inserted with ** some comments of my own. I am very pleased with this display of engagement on the part of the administration and shared governance units, and hope you will agree with me that this is a significant step forward.  On Wisconsin! November 2, 2012  Dear UW-Madison colleagues: I am writing in response to the October 30 petition asking me to, “… issue a list of written assurances regarding all planned significant changes to the Human Resources Design Strategic Plan on which the Faculty Senate will vote on Monday, November 5, 2012.”  First, I want to outline where we are in the process of finalizing the HR Design Strategic Plan, and what will occur as we move forward. On September 21, we posted the plan for campus-wide review and comment. S...

This morning the Dean of Letters and Sciences at UW-Madison sent the following email to all faculty and staff in his college.  Since that time, my email inbox has flooded with concern expressed by staff, students, and faculty who are not sure why  he sent it and what it's meant to accomplish. Subject: [xtmp] Human Resource Design Strategic Plan Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 09:37:26 -0500 From: Gary Sandefur To: xtmp@lists.wisc.edu Dear L&S Staff and Faculty,  There have been many documents and statements floating around about aspects of the Human Resources Design Strategic Plan.  Some of this information is not factually correct. To address these misconceptions, campus has developed the attached fact sheet.  You can also find the document at the following website: http://hrdesign.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/120921HR_Facts.pdf  I encourage all employees to read the Fact Sheet to ensure you are accurately informed.  If you have any questions at...

Good news for UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students:   a new study  suggests that shared governance  lowers institutional costs per student.  The disintegration of shared governance across the nation's universities has contributed substantially to rising costs, according to these economists.  But not at UW-Madison, right folks? We are keeping shared governance alive. There is more good news.  The study also says that the optimal ratio for cost containment is 3 tenure-track faculty for every 1 full-time administrator.  At many places there are now twice as many administrators as faculty.  But not at Madison. This year, Madison has 1,986 tenure-track FTE faculty  compared 406 FTE administrators, a ratio of 4.86 to 1. However there may be some need for closer attention to what lies ahead.  The study also suggests that we need to take into account students (imagine that!) and think about our staffing relative to students, no...