Faculty Involvement & HR Design at UW-Madison

As I recently described, UW-Madison is currently going through a process of Human Resources Redesign.  Today at Faculty Senate there was an unexpected and lengthy discussion of the recommendations of the HR working groups that was at times a bit acrimonious (I say unexpected because it was listed nowhere on the posted agenda). The exchanges between the faculty and the administrators--especially Darrell Bazzell and Bob Lavigna--were fraught with apparent frustration and visible annoyance from both men.  At several points, Lavigna said that faculty had been asked several times to participate in the working groups, but few had. Nothing that had transpired, he seemed to suggest, should be construed as an effort to circumvent shared governance, and transparency in the process was always the aim.  Moreover, he responded to faculty questioning, we should know that "our colleagues" had worked hard on the recommendations, and that he, at least, respected that work.

Driving home afterwards, I had a few reflections and observations I hope it's productive to share.

First, it seems all-too-common for our administrators to mistake faculty critique for dismissal of their hard work.  As if when someone says "I disagree or don't like your idea" they are really saying "You didn't try hard to come up with it."  That strikes me as a defensive posturing that's entirely unhelpful, since the critique is leveled at the idea not the person or their effort.

Second, it is also all-too-common for our administrators to bring forth proposals to the community without providing evidence to support those proposals.  The documents from the New Badger Partnership were heavy on big claims and light on data, and the same can be said for the HR recommendations.  As researchers, this is excruciatingly hard for us to accept.  After all, we spend our days seeking proof for ideas.  As such, we expect from anyone bringing forth ideas to say things along the line of "Based on a thorough review of evidence such as X, Y, and Z, we have concluded Q."  Instead, what we were told today was basically "Believe us, we did research--we talked to people in the community at many forums."  Well, that's not research-- it's a convenience sample of anecdotal evidence.  Where is the literature review? Where are the systematic methods? That's what we need to know.

Third, a favorite refrain appears to be "but we asked you faculty to be involved, and you wouldn't do it. Now you can't blame us."  Well...sorta.  But a key  problem underlying faculty non-participation is how administrators treat advice from faculty.  See above-- would you want to participate in meetings where the people you're having discussions with act as though your difference of opinion with them is an assault on their effort? Where they want to have policy discussions based on anecdote? Where they pull the common punch of "this isn't your area of expertise, so what would you know?"  Where requests for data and evidence are consistently met with suspicion?  This is the environment many of us faculty encounter when we serve on university committees.  So some rightly ask, why bother?

Sadly, that creates a vicious cycle-- out of frustration, we don't spend the time on these key administrative tasks that govern our daily work lives, and in turn we become increasingly disenchanted with the place. That goes to simply prove the administrators' point-- when the going gets tough, where are we?

My honest question is this: Does the administration genuinely want the faculty involved? If so, then the kinds of questions we asked at today's Senate meeting should be welcomed. No one should respond defensively when asked for further information -- instead, it should be sought and provided.  Instead of redirecting well-informed questioners to other people, people not present at the meeting, those who proffered their ideas for questioning should offer to promptly ascertain the information and respond.  Data should be plentiful, evidence brought forth, and open debates should ensue.  That's how academia works.  Despite the wishes of some, UW-Madison remains at its core an academic enterprise, not a business. Thankfully, some professors stood up today and  reminded us of that. 

What the Nass Hearing is Really About

Tomorrow's hearing on equal opportunity practices at UW-Madison is but one such action being taken by organizations and individuals around the country seeking to erode access to higher education.

Writes Adam Liptak in today's New York Times, "diversity is the last man standing, the sole remaining legal justification for racial preferences in deciding who can study at public universities." And diversity is under attack. According to Liptak, a case involving the University of Texas is likely to reach the Supreme Court sometime next year. That case will challenge the right of universities to focus any part of their admissions efforts on ensuring a racially diverse campus.

Why? Because some people, even well-educated ones, even Yale law professors whose work I regularly cite, fail to see its value. Says one, "The idea of racial and ethnic diversity altering the kind of conversation that goes on in the classroom is so overrated. Any experienced, conscientious teacher, regardless of race, could and would get on the table any of the arguments that ought to be there, including ideas normally associated with racism or other analogous experiences not personally experienced by the teacher."

Really? And how widespread is that sort of highly culturally competent teaching among today's professoriate?

Folks, Steve Nass may be an outsider in the Wisconsin Legislature, but he is far from alone in his opinions. Tomorrow's hearing has national implications. Please watch it with our students at the Memorial Union. Please discuss it with your friends. The educational opportunities of millions of children across this nation are at stake.

New Course Offering: Spring 2012

In response to recent student demand, I have decided to offer my higher education policy course this spring. Here's some info.


EPS 518: Introduction to Debates in Higher Education Policy
Spring 2012
Tuesdays, 225-5:25 pm

Open to Undergraduates and Graduate Students

In this course students will learn to think critically about debates in contemporary higher education policy. Our discussions will explore the tensions between key policy goals including diversity, quality, and efficiency, and the results (including unintended consequences) of those tensions. We’ll also examine the research brought to bear on policy debates, and how it is used-- or not-- to shape policy agendas.

This semester we will focus on three big debates dominating contemporary higher education policy:

(1) Who should attend higher education?
(2) Who should pay for higher education?
(3) How can federal, state, and institutional policies most effectively support students who wish to attend college and earn degrees?

We will discuss many contemporary issues, including the debates over tuition and financial aid, as well as affirmative action.

ENROLLMENT MAY NOT EXCEED 50 STUDENTS-- SO SIGN UP EARLY DURING REGISTRATION.

Executive Compensation at UW Madison

Last week UW Madison employees got the details on their pending benefits cuts, which will take a substantial hack at their earnings during the coming years.

At the same time, we also got word that at least two folks at UW Madison wouldn't be feeling the pain--quite the contrary actually. Barry Alvarez has a new deal amounting to $1 million in total compensation (a 20% raise), and Francois Ortalo-Magne was named dean of the biz school with a salary of $410,000. While former dean Mike Knetter's salary was completely paid for by the Albert O. Nicholas endowment, apparently some of the new dean's salary (how much? we aren't told) is covered by UW Madison central administration. This apparently amounts to a 109% increase in 43-year-old Ortalo-Magne's salary. Outgoing chancellor Biddy Martin approved both deals as she left UW Madison.

According to the posted agenda for the upcoming UW System Regents meeting, these two aren't alone...
"Move into closed session to consider personal histories related to the naming of a facility at UW-Madison, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(f), Wis. Stats.; to consider a compensation adjustment for the UW-Madison athletic director, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(c), Wis. Stats.; to consider a compensation adjustment for the UW-Madison men’s basketball head coach, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(c), Wis. Stats.; to consider a compensation adjustment for the UW-Madison women’s hockey head coach, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(c), Wis. Stats.; to consider salary approval for an interim chancellor for UW-Madison, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(c), Wis. Stats; to confer with legal counsel regarding pending or potential litigation, as permitted by s. 19.85(1)(g), Wis. Stats.; and to consider annual personnel evaluations, as permitted by Wis. Stats. §19.85(1)(c)."

Raises for not one but three athletics folks, eh? Don't forget, Bret Bielema's salary was increased 47% and Paul Chryst's was jacked 33% back in February while most of us were freezing our butts off protesting at the Capital. And of course tuition is going up yet again-- passing the costs for these luxuries onto all students and their families (hey, do they get a vote?). You can claim "private donors funded this" but (a) it's not entirely true (some comes from Administration) and (b) if donors didn't have to pay for this stuff, don't you think they might CONSIDER funding our educational mission? In other words, a dollar is a dollar-- and a dollar spent here is a dollar that could've been spent there.

I guess the UW Madison administration isn't acquainted with the phrase "shared sacrifice."

Fit to Lead

UW-Madison has a new interim chancellor and it's a person of great integrity, intellect, and experience. David Ward has led Madison before, and is exactly the right kind of person to lead us through the current high waters.

My opinion of David is based on many things, including:

-- His decision to found the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education with gifts he received when completing his term as chancellor. This was an effort to let more flowers bloom in higher education research and policy, and it led to the creation of several faculty lines including one I occupy.

-- His leadership on the Board of the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars, the state's largest private need-based financial aid program. Again, in full disclosure, it's the program I have spent the last three years studying. I've watched David interact on this board, asking tough questions of us researchers, and offer sage advice. He's fully capable of making thoughtful decisions informed by rigorous evidence.

-- His prior term as Chancellor of UW-Madison, during which time he showed great respect for shared governance and solid choices in selecting staff.

-- His work as president of the American Council on Education.


This, ladies and gents, is the power of a System. President Kevin Reilly has installed just the kind of leader we need at this moment, someone who has not been embroiled in rancorous campus politics, and can come and steer us onto calmer seas.

Trust me, given their druthers, it's not whom "Bascom" would've appointed.

Rock on.

Biddy Martin's Next Bold Vision

Chancellor Biddy Martin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison enjoys making bold moves. Here are some thoughts on what those next moves could be.

Since his election, Scott Walker has successfully divided the constituencies supporting public education across Wisconsin. Advocates for poor children who see charter schools as the best option are attacking public school teachers who struggle to feed their families while being painted as living lifestyles of the welfare "queens." Proponents of publicly-supported research universities are attempting to preserve the rights of UW-Madison by denigrating the work of other UW institutions. By distracting supporters of public higher education with a divisive "public authority" model for UW-Madison, Walker convinced most administrators, faculty, staff, and students at that school to fight against their brethren, rather than against his $250 million cut.

Regardless of her intentions, Chancellor Martin participated in Walker's charade. Great ugliness has resulted, and I think she's well-aware of that. For example, last week, even as the media declared the death of public authority, the Badger Advocates issued a press release that castigated UW System President Kevin Reilly and humiliated everyone not at UW-Madison. While the Badger Advocates consistently claim to represent the Chancellor--above and beyond the institution-- even she couldn't take it anymore, attempting to distance herself from their work.

That was a good start. Much more is needed. The past several months have illuminated some extremely elitist, ugly attitudes among Madison's employees, students, and alumni. To be clear, I am not attacking students here-- indeed, I feel we are collectively responsible for their actions. I am extremely concerned, however, by Martin's expressions of uniform support for alumni involvement in Madison when alumni express opinions like this one, written by Frank Rojas (UW, '74) in the comments of a national higher education online newspaper:

"Madison gets more outside research funding in one day than than Oshkosh gets in a year. It raises more donations in a day than Oshkosh does in a year. Madison would be happy to see the other schools grow and improve as it would take away some of the heat it now gets over admissions/rejections of instate kids. But to date none has shown much ability or vision in that area. There is no College of New Jersey or William and Mary equivalent in Wisconsin. Madison endorses similar freedoms from state regs for the other campuses. But it does not want to be held back by the limits of the lowest common denominator thinking either."

Frank has written to me and about me since this debate began, accusing me of "hateful" behavior towards UW-Madison. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have worked tirelessly to preserve the best of UW-Madison -- its unselfish leadership and opportunities it provides all of Wisconsin. I have worked to defend UW-Madison from global forces that aim to corrupt it-- a market-driven vision that is antithetical to its populist roots, a neoliberal approach that prioritizes pragmatism over values, a narrow definition of excellence that excludes others' accomplishments. I honor UW-Madison, the institution. That is why I fight efforts to distance it from the rest of UW System -- a move that would transform it from something unique and wonderful, to something common and truly mediocre.

Biddy's bold step should be to ensure that all of UW-Madison understands her lesson learned from the past six months: divided we fall. She should work to instill a sense of collective efficacy, and teach her employees and staff to empathize with the struggles facing all of Wisconsin. She should endeavor to educate UW alumni about the institution's values, lest they be away far too long and simply forget.

I know Biddy can do this. I recently watched a wonderful video of her during days at Cornell, where she spoke of rejecting the corrupting influence of college rankings that create a "winner-take-all" society, and focused on "questions of value" for the future of higher education. She talked of the "threats to meritocracy" that stem from "public resistance to paying the taxes it would require to keep pace with the costs of higher education and research." That is the Biddy Martin we needed to fight Scott Walker's cuts.

That Biddy Martin also talked about something crucial when she said, "I think that there is a kind of lack of attention to interiority generally, by which I mean the relationship we have to ourselves, and I believe that education is letting us all down when it comes to that. I am not talking about interiority in the form of naval-gazing or individualism in the sense of some sort of asocial obsession, but I am talking about the value of awareness and individuality, the development of individuality and the development of the ability to integrate, what we take in and what we establish as our own. I think we owe it to our students to model those things. They require engaging with the world and with other people, but they also require that each of us engage with the person that we are in the process of becoming, and that we give our students the tools to engage with themselves as the people that they are becoming to. It is a combination then of wired connectivity and super-fast pace on the one hand, which our students require of us and we require of ourselves, but also the ability to take space and time in the midst of the gold rush for contemplation and reflection."

The Biddy Martin of that video is capable of repairing the immense damage inflicted by the push for public authority. She is capable of standing up to alumni who wish to promote a UW-Madison that views the UW-Oshkoshes of the world as part of the "lowest common denominator." She is capable of reaching the hearts and minds of students who mistakenly believe they are at UW-Madison because they deserve it more than other people in the state.

That's the Biddy Martin I look forward to meeting this fall.

The Saddest Tweet of Them All

Updated May 30, 2011--and again June 1

I've been watching as UW Madison moves into the post-NBP phase of life (wait, there is life after NBP?). In particularly, I'm finding the (re)framing of recent events by NBP proponents both fascinating, and disturbing.

Spin is, to some degree, expected. We can't blame Chancellor Martin for trying to save face, or Governor Walker for that matter.

What I didn't expect, and what upsets me most, is the self-righteousness evident in those who proclaim "we accomplished something here." Something, they claim, UW System did not. Could not. Would not.

Sad and short-sighted, perhaps, but not surprising. On the other hand, a recent tweet from a Madison student stopped me in my tracks. On Saturday he wrote, "No #UWNBP. Disappointing. Looks like we have to be tied to the poor decisions #UWSystem makes." Surprised at his statement, I responded, "Ever been to System? Ever met anyone there? Why do you follow blindly what u r told? #UWNBP #UWSystem." To which he replied "It's fun to make assumptions."

Well, that's sorta what I figured-- the majority of people claiming failure on the part of UW System and lauding the achievements of Chancellor Martin have never interacted with System. It's not that System is perfect -- far from it. But by degrading the capabilities of the governing body of our sister institutions, one casts dispersions on the quality of education received by other students. It's incredibly unproductive. It's also unfair. Of course, maybe people just don't care. I worried about that, so I wrote: "Fun, but destructive to students at other universities."

A moment later, I got a reply: "It isn't my job to be concerned with students at other universities." And a few minutes after that, he added: "It was my job to maximize my education and the value of this university, if that benefits other universities too, great!"

It was like a punch in the gut, as I suddenly realized that the whole UWNBP situation is but a microcosm of the broader threat to public education.

Too many of our fellow Americans are downright compassionless.

As David Berliner wrote in The Manufactured Crisis, "true improvements in public education will not come about unless they are based on compassion...If we structure our public school system so that large groups of students are not provided equitable education, we create a host of problems....In Lincoln's words, it has always been clear that effective reform of education must begin 'with charity for all.'"

None other than David Brooks makes a similar statement in today's New York Times, where he loudly admonishes college graduates "It's not about you." The big mistake society has made is giving undergraduates the impression the goal in life is to find themselves. Not hardly. The goal is to "lose yourself", Brooks explain, by "look[ing] outside and find[ing] a problem, which summons [your] life."

I guess we can't really blame the students. After all, they are simply following the example set by people like the alumni backing The Badger Advocates. Given that I've already publicly called them "goons" I suppose it's worth the risk to go one step further and say straight up that their latest press release reveals them as plain ol' liars. Yes, I said that. They are lying. Take a look. According to their revised version of reality, Chancellor Martin spent the last year attempting to "educate" the state about the need for the New Badger Partnership (if by educate you mean tell people the version of the facts you prefer, alrighty then), working "closely and diligently" with the Legislature while UW System "fought the proposal," worked "hastily," opposed "real reform," and basically did whatever was possible to undermine the thoughtful, hard work of Martin. "And although Martin worked tirelessly on the NBP, at the end of the year-long tour, she is respectful and considerate of the Joint Finance Committee and the Legislature’s desire to draft their own plan for UW-Madison and the system." There are no words for the extent to which this is a lie, other than COME ON! (I'm not alone in saying this.) The only truth in the whole darned thing is that Martin was on a "year-long tour."

We have been sold a bill of goods-- one that paints UW Madison into a corner as an elitist, know-it-all flagship that bears no resemblance to the rest of the state. We at UW Madison should be furious that anyone--anyone--is spending money "on our behalf" to support the kinds of work The Badger Advocates are doing. That they are doing it at the behest of our leader is even more appalling. At this point, they are more than undermining our credibility with the Legislature, in fact they threaten to further smear the good name of Madison in the hearts and minds of the rest of Wisconsin. Not only have they -- and she-- not given up on Public Authority, they are pushing harder.

This state faces massive inequities in the provision of both k-12 and higher education. If we at UW-Madison cannot teach our undergraduates compassion for their fellow undergraduates-- at all public institutions throughout the state-- then we are doomed to a competitive race to the bottom. If the only route they can see to helping others is by helping themselves, we have not done our jobs.

That was the lesson I got from Twitter that day. We have failed to educate. We must do more.

Just the Facts on UW System (Part 1)

It seems that the advocates for the New Badger Partnership have a new strategy-- attack UW System Administration. That attack's been inherent in many comments over the past few months, but now the language is downright offensive.

What's most startling is the lack of knowledge these critics of System Administration seem to have about the organization itself. It's typically described as expensive and bloated--common critiques of all those opposed to centralized government.

So let's get educated about UW System, shall we? This is part 1 of a new series....

Fact #1: The total budget in 2010-2011 for all of UW System was about $5.6 billion. Of that, nearly half (48%) was allocated to UW Madison. Just 2.7% went to UW System Administration ($15 million).

Fact #2: In 2010-2011 40% of all state monies for UWSA went to UW-Madison, and just 8.3% ($9.8 M) went to System Administration.

Fact #3: While in Ohio Senators are expressing concern about real potential bloat-- $3 billion in unrestricted net assets (e.g. CASH) held by the Ohio system of public colleges and universities, here in Wisconsin, UW System only has about $500 million. This is not a bloated system.

So...let me get this straight. UW Madison with its $2.7 BILLION budget is attacking and fighting its way out of an Administration that has a total budget of just $15 million per year? What a super-human bureaucracy System Admin must be to be imposing such power over such a WEALTHY counterpart!