An interesting discussion though is taking place revolving around the idea of who should be tapped to replace Chancellor Martin at the helm of UW-Madison. For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, Erik Paulson wrote and excellent piece on leaders for this position on an interim basis. What hasn’t really been discussed yet, and probably rightly since the Search and Screen process hasn’t begun yet, is who we would want in the permanent position.

Before individuals begin to pick favorites on this question though, I suggest that we examine what we want the focus of this university to be? Based on this answer, we should be able to define our search for our new leader much more easily.

On thing that I think a lot of people will say is that we need to keep a focus on the Wisconsin Idea. Keep that at the forefront. Its what makes this university special. The problem is, as I pointed out a few months ago, not everyone’s definition of the Wisconsin Idea is the same. I have continually taken the view that, through the Wisconsin Idea, the university is able to support the state in many aspects, including economically and politically. I think that this is something that should be pursued, and put on the forefront, of the eventual Chancellor.

On this issue, Tom Still, President of the Wisconsin Technology Council, penned a column in yesterday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talking about how non-academics, specifically individuals from the business community, should not be dismissed in the selection process. It is clear from Mr. Still’s background that he believes that UW-Madison should have a focus that specifically helps foster business and economic growth. I give this opinion merit, as you could probably assume based on my interpretation of the Wisconsin Idea. Mr. Still makes a strong point though when he says “Hiring a business leader shouldn’t be academic blasphemy.”

I was so intrigued by this idea of looking outside the field of academia for a new leader that I did a little bit of research. One option that came up, that has tangential experience with UW-Madison and has the skills to navigate our state government, is current University Research Park Director Mark Bugher. His experience of combining research at this university with business initiatives is just what Tom Still would be looking for. Mr. Bugher may get some flak though for his work in former Governor Thompson’s cabinet, but having someone from that viewpoint may not necessarily be a bad thing in this time of a Republican government. This would also be helpful if we see our state government become split, in one way or another, as we would be able to reach through to both sides, through connections of our Chancellor and through the viewpoints of many of our students and faculty.

It would have to be seen though how Mr. Bugher would handle an academic setting, but that is what a Search and Screen process is supposed to test. I think that it would be smart, as Tome Still insists, to not automatically dismiss individuals because of the background that they come from.

So I’ll leave you with these two questions. What do think the focus of this university should be over the course of the next decade? Who do you think would be the right individual to lead that focus?

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

But on to the matter at hand. The way I see it, our chancellor has been doing everything in her power to advance the greatness and recognition of this university. In preparation for the New Badger Partnership, she has re-energized our alumni by holding many forums across the state and country. She took a large portion of the first semester to engage the campus community in this discussion (that was how I first learned of the NBP and got involved). And what people tend to criticize the most is probably the most important thing. During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, she positioned the university in a prime location no matter who won the election.

I for one am proud of my chancellor. Coming onto this campus I did not know what to think or what to expect. As a young, naive freshman I had no idea of what attending this campus actually meant. That changed at my freshman convocation when the Chancellor made me realize that I had made the right decision. She proved herself to be a bright leader, the one that such a large and great university needs.

She continued to prove me right in the weeks to come. When I had questions on the NBP and other issues on campus I emailed a large amount of administration officials. Instead of delegating me down to some lesser staffer, the Chancellor sat down personally with me for an hour to discuss these ideas. Through follow-ups, questions, and recommendations, she always continued to be receptive and engaging.

So I am pleased to come to the defense of our chancellor. She is doing what is best for this university. She is doing what is best for it’s students and staff. She is doing what is best for those immortal Badgers of generations ago and for those Badgers that are yet to be born. She has proved herself time and time again to myself that she is a great leader.

Everyone on campus can have their own opinion of the Chancellor, but I believe that others hold my opinion as well. And like myself, these will always hold hard and true and there is nothing that anyone can say to change mine and our minds.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

One thing to consider though is the position that Governor Walker is taking on this issue. At the end of the UW System budget briefing, co-chairs Vos and Darling were called out for a meeting in the Governor’s personal office for a discussion of budget issues. I’ve heard from multiple sources that one of the things discussed was Chapter 37 and the WIP. One thing that was said was that if Chapter 37 is removed from the budget bill that he will line-item veto out all changes to Chapter 36. From the same sources I’ve heard that this message was also conveyed to UW System President Reilly.

It is clear that Governor Walker is sticking to his guns on yet another issue. It seems that the only way for UW System to get their own flexibilities is to merge their Wisconsin Idea Partnership and Chapter 37. If not, then they, and possibly UW-Madison, will be forced to eat all of the cuts to higher education without flexibility savings. This can not be allowed to happen.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

Again the rhetoric that the administration is using is one of individual campuses, and not that of the entire system. Secretary Huebsch stated in his prepared remarks that:

The Governor chose UW-Madison not because he doesn’t support flexibility for the other campuses, but because this campus can provide…..the blueprint for the expansion of management flexibility at all of the campuses.

This repeated use of talking about the campuses instead of system strongly leads me to believe that the Governor has not intention of implementing the Wisconsin Idea Partnership. This can further be seen in the Secretary’s answer of Representative Strachota (R-West Bend):

When the Governor first looked at this program the desire and the interest was to provide this flexibility for every campus.

So we looked at two possibilities. One was provide the campuses that option and just hope for the best, or use Madison as that model by which we can figure out not just the relationship it is going to have with the other campuses, but of course the relationship that it will have with each of us as elected officials. And so the idea here as I said in my testimony we’re going to give Madison the ability because they are prepared to do this, to move forward with the flexibility that we would like to provide, and then we will determine the way that those campuses have the same type of flexibility.

The goal ultimately is to move forward to greater flexibility with ever campus.

After all of this, I would again give warning to those advocating for the Wisconsin Idea Partnership to be cautious in their dealings with the Governor’s office. You may just be advocating for the end of the entirety of the UW System.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

While a concern, it is not one that should be concerned with for a long time. Yesterday, the Chancellor’s office posted letters to other UW institutions who we have agreements with, in relation to transfers and degrees. These letters stated:

I write to commit formally to what I have shared with you publicly. UW-Madison is steadfast in our commitment to our academic program collaborations, our transfer agreements, and all other forms of cooperation with all System institutions, including [insert UW institution here]. Indeed, we are eager to enhance them in a number of areas. No matter what our administrative structure, public higher education and the citizens of the state of Wisconsin will continue to benefit from the relationships among faculty, staff and students across our campuses. The impact of these collaborations reaches every country in our state and is central to the identity of our institutions.

Attached to these letters were memoranda of agreement, already signed by Chancellor Martin, that articulated that need and desire to continue current agreements. I believe this action clearly shows that many others agree with, if UW-Madison does become a public authority, cooperation should still exist between campuses. These memoranda also articulate the idea of working to improve these relationships in the future. This is something that the Deans of Students, Education, and Pharmacy stated yesterday as well at their forum on the New Badger Partnership (sorry no transcript or video is available). I also believe that everyone wants this as well.

So as I stated before, while student academic connections between campuses is an important area of this debate, I, and others as well, believe that there is enough of a commitment from all sides to make them continue in the future, regardless of administrative structure.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

On the side of UW System I’ve heard it been said multiple times, both publicly and privately, that the Wisconsin Idea Partnership would keep the UW System as a state agency. Even in their summary document they state that the WIP “avoids the creation of a new public authority.” This has many downsides. One of them is in the area of finance. Remaining a state agency would not allow for the separation of university funds from state funds. This is one of the huge benefits of becoming a public authority because it would allow us to fully control how and when our own money is being spent. Another area is human resources. Without public authority statutes, universities across the state would still have to follow the same classification system that the rest of the state government uses. UW System says that they will be able to achieve these flexibilities through statute changes, but I have major doubts. Even if they were able to write the statute in a new way, they would still be connected through the Department of Administration for these issues and would have to go through long and arduous processes to accomplish even the simplest of changes.

Now lets look on the Governor’s side, whose voice will hold a lot of sway on the actions of the Joint Finance Committee. In an interview yesterday (9:40 mark) the Governor stated that:

I told them [the Chancellors] at that time why my budget was going to include the authority for the University of Wisconsin Madison, but that I was open to having that same sort of authority for campuses all across the state…

Notice that he never mentions that UW System once. He specifically singles out the individual campuses for gaining the same authority over matters that are proposed for UW-Madison. I believe that the Walker does not intend to extend the flexiblities to the UW System that they are asking for. Instead, I believe that he means to create additional authorities for individual campuses that ask for it. This is going directly against what UW System says in their summary document that changes that are made should be

within the current Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System governance structure.

There is confusion between what UW System is saying and what the Governor is saying. This confusion has the possibility to blindside many UW System officials. That is why again System needs to come out with the true details of the WIP so that this problem is not there. Maybe they should take a page out of North Park Street and merge the WIP with the New Badger Partnership and find a compromise from their position and the position of the Governor.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

On the front page we have the same rhetoric that we have been hearing on multiple occasions, like the emergency Board of Regents meeting on February 15th or in interviews across the state. An interesting claim that is being made is that the WIP will “provid[e] the maximum flexibility to all University of Wisconsin Chancellors to lead their institutions in the most effective and efficient manner possible.” Really we don’t know this. If the WIP does gain traction in the Joint Finance Committee we don’t know what the statute changes would be. So far UW System has not released any statute changes that they would like to see (more on this later). My best guess would be that they would want to streamline it and have a simple Chapter 36 with the least amount of clutter possible. This would mean that the flexibilities would not be granted to the individual campuses but to UW System Administration. It would be up to their discretion as to what campuses get what flexibilities. I foresee this allocation being very controlled where UW System and the Board of Regents will hoard these new powers for themselves and administrations at the universities would simply be advisory. This is why individuals have stated that the WIP is the actual plan implemented, over the New Badger Partnership, that these powers must be statutorily passed down to the campuses, and like I said, I do not see that happening.

Next let’s click on the “Details” tab. Well surprisingly there are no details of the plan whatsoever. All that is posted there are summary documents after summary documents. You’d think that if you chose to label the tap details that you would actually have details available. A more adequate name should be the “Summary” tab. It’s also surprising to me that if they’ve been working on these ideas for such a long time, why aren’t they able to propose actual changes?

Looking through the rest of the pages, it simply looks like they just cobbled together any piece of pro-WIP or con-NBP literature that they could. If I wanted this I could simply go to the great BadgerFutures website (and frankly I think their list of articles and statements is better than what UW System gives). This begs the question of how committed is UW System to actually trying to get the WIP passed?

And someone took notice of this. Governor Walker stated a few days ago that:

[t]he University of Wisconsin System showed up with some bullet points at the tail end of the budget debate and said they wanted to be a part of it. Logistically, you can’t make that happen.

Now if I had been working on something for such a long time, which apparently President Pruitt has been doing for a long time as a member of the Board of Regents, why did they only come with bullet points to the Governor. If they had actually wanted to make a push for the Wisconsin Idea Partnership, why did they not have state statutes written up? Where were they during the rest of the budget process? Walker says himself that his staff worked with UW-Madison on Chapter 37 multiple times per week for almost two and a half months. Reilly and Pruitt can moan all they want about Chancellor Martin not informing them of her discussions with the Governor’s office, but as the leaders of the UW System, these two men should have been doing the exact same thing as the Chancellor did. They should have been meeting with all of the gubernatorial candidates before the election. They should have been working during the transition with the Governor’s staff, which even ASM did. Waiting this long to try and start adding things into the budget is just stupid (oh great I bashed Kevin Reilly again).

To me, this is not the form of leadership that I want. I want someone who is going to be proactive and get things done. So Regents, go ahead and pass your resolutions. Propose your plan. At this point it is all too late. If the details of this plan don’t come out by the time that UW System presents to JFC this time next week, then the WIP should be considered dead. Plain and simple.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

The premise of this concern arises from the believed fact that have a centralized administration for UW-System facilitates these collaborations. I say believed fact because this claim is blatantly false. Research collaborations between Madison and her sister campuses do not stem from top-down coordination from system, but are created by campuses and faculty on an individual basis. One of the major examples of this is the Intercampus Research Incentive Grants Program. This program, which was created between UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin and former UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago, provides money for collaborations between faculty members at both universities to create “synergistic interactions between the two institutions.” Also, this fund, which is comprised of monies entirely provided for by private donors, is intended to focus in on

key project areas, including water/energy, health care, advanced manufacturing, biomedical engineering, K-12 education, social sciences and the humanities.

As a side note on this issue, to show a potential future for this program, it was renewed between Chancellor Martin and interim Chancellor Michael Lovell after Chancellor Martin knew that Governor Walker was proposing the split of UW-Madison.

Other areas of collaboration exist within the current model that were not administered from the system level as well. The UW-Consortium for Extension and Research in Agriculture and Natural Resources provides grants for cross collaborations in the areas of agriculture and natural resources for faculty members from UW-Madison, -Platteville, -River Falls, and -Stevens Point. Also in the area of CALS, the Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems collaborates with UW-River Falls, -Green Bay, -Eau Claire, -Oshkosh, -Fox Valley, -Marathon County, -Barron County, -Stevens Point, and -Whitewater in multiple areas of food science. Just last semester, as I stated in a post about Green Energy a while ago, the Wisconsin Energy Research Consortium was created between UW-Madion, -Milwaukee, Marquette University, and the Milwaukee School of Engineering to work on new “advanced energy, power, and control technologies.” A final example, of which there are many, is the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts which brings together researchers from 8 campuses and facilities to analyze potential impacts of climate change on the agriculture and natural resource industries in Wisconsin.

President Reilly seemed to side step everything I just laid out though when he said that this would change if UW-Madison would become an independent flagship institution. Using a false analogy to the University of Michigan model, Reilly posited that there would be no reason for Madison to continue research with other campuses. I’ve been accused of talking shit, by none other than Max Love, about President Reilly, and I guess I’m going to do it again. If the President had taken the 5 minutes that I had taken to do a Google search on the topic, he would have found that this was false. Partially established in 1999 as the Life Science Corridor, the University Research Corridor is a collaborative effort between UM, Michigan State, and Wayne State University. Their vision is

[t]o unite and lead, playing a key role in creating a vibrant Michigan economy that leverages the intellectual capital of its three public research universities, to work proactively to attract the knowledge economy businesses that can find the research activity that feeds new enterprise, educates the workforce and plants the seeds for the new industries of tomorrow.

To me that sounds like cooperation. In fact, it sounds very similar to the Wisconsin Idea, helping to improve the state and prepare it for the future.

But let’s look at a more realistic analogy, that of Virginia. Those self interested, independent universities, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Virgina Commonwealth University, and the College of William and Mary, could never come together to work on research. In reality, these institutions have gone beyond that call of what Michigan does, they were all founding members of the MidAtlantic Terascale Partnership, a research group founded to work on projects requiring “next-generation high-performance network connectivity.” Sounds like a pretty close relationship to me.

So I’m sorry if I talk shit about President Reilly, but when falsehoods are presented time and time again, when they are easily researched, some shit needs to be talked. Do your research. So I ask, what would be keeping these relationships from continuing. More importantly, what would be stopping Madison from creating an omnibus research group with Milwaukee and a possible new research university if Milwaukee was to split from system as well. Imagine it, 3 differently tiered research universities, each individually working on different issues, but at the same time collaborating for the betterment of the state of Wisconsin. What’s stopping us?

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

Badger Impact: Extreme, unprecedented tuition hike of, at the least, 26% over two years for which families have no way of preparing. The average annual increase in tuition is 5.5%.

Reality: Everyone loves to toss around the 26% number because of a January 7th memo from Chancellor Martin to the DOA. But as that report says, that increase is unacceptable. The report says that combining cuts, new streams of revenue, and tuition increases, students are more likely to see around a 10% increase per year. This would seem huge if Badger Impact’s “fact” on annual tuition increases was true. They get their 5.5% number from what UW System set the increase to be, but when adding in tuition differentials, we see that over the past 8 years, tuition at UW Madison has increased by 12.9%. In fact, the 10% is still lower than the 13% increase predicted by UW System for the 2011-2012 school year, and that does not even include Madison’s MIU differential.

Badger Impact: A board that steals the voice and decision-making power from students, faculty, and staff. Out of the 21 new members of the board, 11 are directly appointed by the governor, 6 represent other private interests, and the student body is represented by only one individual.

Reality: Well they got the composition right, but their analysis is a little off. In terms of stealing the voice and decision-making power from students, faculty, and staff, this is false. Currently the Board of Regents (the board that would be replaced by the new Board of Trustees) has no faculty or staff representation, and while there are two students on the board currently, neither is guaranteed, or currently is, from UW-Madison. Also in terms of the selection of that student, the governor currently appoints the positions, whereas students would get to choose their representative on the new board. I am a little weary of having 3 outside organizations pick more seats than direct campus constituencies, but as the composition currently stands, UW Madison will see our share of seats increase by almost 20%, and 33% if a amendment passes to lessen UW Foundation’s, WARF’s, and WAA’s share of membership by 1 a piece.

Badger Impact: A divorce of UW- Madison from the UW system, separating Madison into a quasi-private institution. This will handicap the entire UW system.

Reality: I have not heard hard evidence of this claim actually coming true. In actuality many of the connections with individual campuses will remain the same. I have not heard one person up at Bascom or the Capitol that wants these connections to be lost. What this plan proposes is a split from UW System administration so that decisions relating to Madison can be made by those that have a vested interest in UW Madison.

Badger Impact: Institutionalized union busting: the outsourcing of labor to a private company at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery is a precursor and an example of what to expect from the NBP. This goes against our university’s values and the Wisconsin Idea.

Reality: In case people haven’t been around for the past few weeks, Walker is currently trying to do his own form of union busting. Interestingly enough, SB-11 does not repeal Subchapter VI of Chapter 111, just all instances of it from state statutes. In case you don’t know, Subchapter VI is the UW Employee relations subchapter. It would be very simple for Madison to adopt that subchapter as its human resources policy under the new 37.11(1g). On the issue of the WID, that was a public-private partnership, and non-unionized workers are employed on the private side of the institute. Another interesting thing is that Section 1016 of SB-27 will define UW-Madison as a state agency.

Badger Impact: A sell-out of our university to Governor Walker. Despite Governor Walker’s evident scorn for higher education- cutting UW-Madison $125 million – Biddy Martin is putting the future of our university in his hands.

Reality: Chancellor Martin has been discussing these ideas since this time last year, meaning that this plan was not meant for Governor Walker. It was meant for UW-Madison. The idea that the entire future of UW-Madison will be in the hands of Walker is a complete fallacy. He will not be governor of Wisconsin forever. This also comes down to a question that I asked in a post a while ago, what would you do as Chancellor? I anticipate that UW-Madison would be facing a very similar cut even if the New Badger Partnership was not proposed. Again I will ask, what would you do if the university was facing a $62.5 million cut for each of the next two years?

Badger Impact: The NBP makes no mention of diversity and does not address by any means the financial aid.

Reality: In reality SB-27 talks about minority and disadvantaged programs twice, in 37.25(14m) and 37.34. Financial Aid is addressed in section 37.11(6) by saying that to Board of Trustees will have all power to “Make grants to students from funds budgeted to or controlled by the university and formulate policies and adopt rules for the grants.” Also under 37.34, the board must report on how much financial aid is given to minority and disadvantaged students, making the university accountable for how it creates and distributes financial aid to these groups.

While Badger Impact got some of their information correct, much of their information and all of their analysis was off base. While I encourage debate of the issues, please, make sure you are using factual information when making your arguments. I’m pretty sure I know who made this website, and I know that he has heard me say these things, with factual evidence like I presented here, many times before. I’ll challenge him again to read the legislation, and supporting documents, and then tell the truth.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering

This morning, WisPolitics came out with a preview of what will be included in the Governor’s budget. Specifically they say:

The UW System is looking at a cut of about $250 million with UW-Madison taking the biggest hit of the campuses. To help offset that reduced aid, Madison would be spun off from the rest of the system into an independent authority, according to WisPolitics.com sources.

This was pretty much all expected. Rumors have UW Madison receiving a $50 million cut out of that $250 million. Madison has already released how it would handle this cut, but it will be interesting to see how system reacts to the $200 million cut.

Also, the Governor’s office has released some excerpts of his speech tonight. Again, a specific passage relates to education (and I am assuming that it is specifically relating to higher education):

Just as we reform our entitlement programs for the 21st century, we must also reform our education system.  Clearly, we have to produce graduates who are able to compete ‐ not only with their peers from Chicago or Des Moines ‐ but also from Shanghai or Sydney.

This rhetoric is very interesting, particularly because it sounds very similar to Chancellor Martin’s talking points about the New Badger Partnership, at least the second half. Unless something crazy happens in the next hour, which I hear happens all the time with the budget, it looks like we will have final confirmation that Governor Walker will propose a split between Madison and the rest of System.

That’s all that I have for now. Check back later for a summary of the actual speech, and then a summary of the legislation.

An Inexperienced Leader~Samuel Seering