Many years ago, when I first hit the job market after completing a post-doc, I applied for positions at many universities…but my top choice was UW Madison. I didn’t think I had a chance, so I was thrilled when I actually got as far as landing an interview there. I didn’t get the job obviously, but I was happy to just get a shot at it (maybe too happy: I was so wound up, my interview went dismally).
If I were back in that same position today, though, the last place I’d apply to would be UW Madison. It’s still a great university, but I wonder for how much longer — the state seems committed to gutting it.
Lawmakers on the Legislature’s powerful budget committee trimmed Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million two-year funding cut to the University of Wisconsin System to $250 million, which if it stands would be tied for the largest cut in System history and would mark the fifth time in the last six budget cycles that the universities took a significant funding cut.
Of perhaps even more consequence, the committee approved significant changes to faculty tenure, removing it from state law, and to shared governance that would take away some decision-making power from faculty, students and staff and give more sway to campus chancellors and the UW System Board of Regents, who are appointed by the governor.
Oh, yeah: authoritarians who reject science are consolidating their control over the university, are trying to kill tenure and governance, and on the way, hey, let’s destroy their budget. The chancellors and regents, bean-counters who know nothing about academic priorities, claim they’re going to make local changes to restore tenure, are still going to have to deal with the power given the fuckers.
Meanwhile, one of the two longest and most detailed items in the bill, item 39, is basically a step-by-step guide for firing tenured faculty. The circumstances under which the Board can do this, per JFC’s wording, are essentially limitless: “a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection”. Look for the Legislature to direct the Board to make broader use of these powers in the future should it prove insufficiently keen to do so at the outset.
Thanks, Scott Walker and the Koch brothers. With so much instability and so much animosity from the state government, you’d have to be totally oblivious to reality to take a job in the Wisconsin university system right now. I wonder if there’s much of a scramble for existing faculty to find jobs out of state? That would be a hard step to take — UW Madison has a wonderful campus and some phenomenal researchers.
Ye gods, that’s sickening. And this anti-braining cretin wants to run for President?
Maybe the best one can hope for is that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. Unfortunately a lot of people will be hurt in the meantime.
It would be sweeeet to see Walker running v Sanders for POTUS. with Walker so anti-college and Sanders proposing to tax Wall Street to fund all colleges to make tuition free to all comers.
Such a pairing could not work out too good, so I’ll maintain it as ONLY a fantasy with only that single issue up for debate.
I wonder if Yoshi Kawaoka (Ebola and pandemic influenza research. Brilliant stuff I tell you) will go back to Japan. Might go to NEIDL in Boston.
re 3:
to expound on my fantasy scenario: my fantasy sees Walker saying he ain’t anti-college, just anti state funding college. Taxing Wall Street to pay for it is a-okay (if Wall Street volunteers), as no State funds would be used, that would instead be going to reduce-the-debt. IOW Walker will just spin himself into triple speak, pretzel logic, to win against (that commie) Sanders.
sheesh, imagination is workin overtime, sheesh
… UW Madison has a wonderful campus …
And it’s even warmer than Minnesota!
Remember, ignorance is strength!
Looks like Scott Walker is an avid fan of Orwell.
UW Madison was a world class research university. They even had a Nobel prize winner, Howard Temin.
1. Universities are known drivers for economic growth. Silicon Valley is near Stanford, Berkeley and several other universities. There is no Silicon Dogpatch or Silicon Boondocks, Arkansas.
2. The amount spent on science R&D is highly correlated and causal with GDP growth. This has been known for decades. The USA is one of the highest which explains our leading economy.
3. Scott Walker is setting up Wisconsin for third world status. And it is working. Wisconsin is one of the leading states in shrinking the middle class and not recovering from the Great Recession.
4. This is basically a slow moving economic suicide program. It’s just strange that the voters of Wisconsin, the ultimate cause, just don’t care.
The attacks on the universities are happening in all the christofascist Tea Party states.
1. Such as Kansas, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. Jindal has done an amazing job of hammering on the state universities there.
2. It can take decades to build up a world class research university. You can destroy it in a few years. There is a lot of competition for the top academic scientists. And these days, a lot of that comes from…China and other Asian countries.
What is it about education that Republicans so desperately hate?
re @
Yes, very much so, even goin back to the inception of technology, here at the ‘Tute, cross the river from Bostone, ie MIT. The highway round the hub of the universe was christened “The Technology Highway” back in the ’50’s, as all those maverick technophiles founded startups on that, oh so convenient road, that mooned Bostonia. SillyCon Valley is just a pale imitation…
excuse my nostalgia promotion of my alma mater, (and not so subtle jab at our rival CalTech)
@raven #9 – I wish it weren’t just Tea Party States. Washington has been dominated by Democrats for nearly 20 years, and yet the Legislature keeps making deep cuts to the university system to pay for tax exemptions to companies like Microsoft and Boeing.
Irrelevant. The UW student union serves beer, and has a magnificent view of the lake.
OK, who cares about the view. You can get a pitcher of beer on campus. Paradise!
re @10
Let me guess::::
— It teaches people how to THINK,
IE Repubs don’t want audiences that actually think, they only want the audience to emotionally react to all their fearmongering, with unthinking FEAR (and pearl clutching, etc)
Gregory in Seattle @ 10
They don’t hate education [1]. They just don’t think it’s necessary for 99% of the population, and have a deep-seated aversion to paying for anything that doesn’t directly benefit themselves, And don’t understand or don’t care about the significant indirect benefits of having an educated population.
[1] Although I suppose there are the ones who think that any learning beyond memorizing the Bible is sinful and wrong. They probably hate education, at least as it’s structured at most tertiary institutions today.
“Irrelevant. The UW student union serves beer, and has a magnificent view of the lake.
OK, who cares about the view. You can get a pitcher of beer on campus. Paradise!”
PShaw… The University of Chicago operates it’s own Pub, though recently it’s been managed by a local restaurant/bar. Unfortunately, there is no view of the lake from the Pub.. but should there ever be a view from a good pub?
I suspect UChicago recruiters are looking at Madison’s demise with a mix of sadness and glee.
Victor’s gone? I can’t imagine The Pub without Victor.
Is my age showing?
When I was a postdoc at UW in ’68, some Republican in the State Senate got all worked up over the fact that there were some members of the faculty who were drawing larger salaries than the Governor. “Who is this “Har Gobind Khorana anyway?” he asked, stumbling over the name, unaware that the Governor had just held a banquet honoring Khorana’s recent Nobel Prize. Khorana, not being an idiot, read the tea leaves, and packed up and moved his entire Institute to MIT.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
It used to be that professors who weren’t tenured or tenure-track weren’t eligible to apply for the big NSF/NIH grants. The agencies wanted the stability of knowing that the professor would still be employed for the duration of the grant.
And, the overhead rate at Madison must be at least 70% (?) Or somewhat close?
So, for a standard three-year $850K NSF grant to a member of the (very top-ranked) chemistry department, that’s ca. $595K straight to the university. For every science professor, that’s roughly how much the university, and the state, is going to lose, if the faculty are no longer tenured or tenure-track. A lot more for life sciences professors.
And more: any tenured professor who has always been getting summer salary from grants will take a automatic 25% salary cut. How many of them will stay there?
My department’s been looking to hire, and we’d love some of the top-flight people from Madison. Doesn’t sound like it’ll cost us that much to get them.
It is my profound belief that the reactionary republican politicos as exemplified by Scot Walker and his “fellow travelers” do not really accept democracy or the purpose of government as set out in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States.
They are the direct decedents of those who opposed resisting the King and the British colonial authorities.
They have had the luxury of being born and raised under the Constitution.
They will say anything and do anything for their own personal gain without once giving serious thought to how
they’re only real goal is personal fame glory and power
uncle frogy
what is this I can’t even
And why aren’t such things regulated at the federal level? Why are they state affairs? That’s ridiculous all on its own.
People who learn that reality has a well-known liberal bias tend to stop voting Republican. Their ignorance is the Republicans’ strength.
That, BTW, is horrible.
Minor detail of the US constitution. All things not explicitly stated as part of the constitution (interstate commerce, defense, etc.) is left to the states. Which is voting rights is up to the states, except where it infringes upon the US constitution and laws derived from it.
I would think their accrediting body would have something to say about that. I know mine would.
Let’s see, they’re accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Let’s look at some of their criteria: (bold mine)
I highly doubt they’ll score well on those counts.
It also has program accredited by ABET, which states in its criteria:
I might dare say that the school will not be able to attract, retain, and provide for a qualified faculty if those regulations are in place.
The University of Chicago also has a cafeteria whose entrance has a large sign saying REPENT over it.
Killing tenure is a permanent goal of administrators who don’t understand academia. An academic friend described it this way: in industry and in government, you keep mediocre people around forever. In university, you get one chance to show them the door.
I should be said that Scott Walker is a drop out of Marquette University. A small catholic university. He attended one semester before dropping out to become a thrall of Koch Brothers. I probably should do my PhD elsewhere.
Hilariously the College
sociopathsRepublicans support every detail of this plan and got indignant for the student council for protesting it because it was “political.” It’s peculiar when one party does it’s best to destroy a university they’re called out by the student council.Gaaaah, god damn it. I live within 10 walking minutes of that student union and follow the university regularly. Walker is an idiot; UW produces far more money than it takes in, and even a cursory glance at the figures shows this.
I really think he’s doing this on purpose. He, or someone over him, has a deliberate and long-standing agenda to make it all but impossible to get a college education. Can’t have an educated populace after all :/ They might not vote Republican!
Gah. I remember having a beer there with Skatje and Nerull and Alex and now-Mr.-Skatje and my ex-girlfriend, insane as she was. It feels like something’s been lost.
David Marjanović @21, do you mean that the practice of professors getting summer salary from grants is terrible? It’s really fairly justifiable.
Professors get paid for teaching only, you get paid by the university for nine months of the year (although, they usually spread out the paychecks over the whole 12 months). The three summer months, you are unemployed, and can take any other job. Research professors spend those months working full-time on their research, so the agency funding it pays their salary, in return for their 100% time. It’s always worked like that, for the last fifty years at least.
The agencies pay you the same monthly salary that you get from the university, so all research professors get 25% of their annual income paid from the funding agency, not their university. Imagine you’re a famous senior researcher at Madison, being paid perhaps $90K/year from the university and $30K/year from grants, and that’s been the case for, maybe, the last decade of your career. Suddenly, you’re not eligible to get your funding renewed when the current grant ends, and your income will drop $30K/year.
But if you move to another university, your current grants move with you, and of course you’ll be eligible to get them renewed, as always. Who would stick around for a 25% pay cut (not to mention having to disband your research program?) Who would take a job there, knowing that you’ll have the opportunity a) to do research, and b) to get paid another 25% of your salary?
I meant that last sentence to end “…at a different university?”
Unless your university puts a lower cap on it – 20% isn’t uncommon.
(oh, I see you were basing it on a 9 month contract – some places have 10 month contracts, so the amount allowed for summer is lower because it’s a shorter part of the year)
@carlie, yeah, that’s right. I think 10-months is actually becoming more common now. But it’s still a big loss of salary. Not reasonable to expect people to put up with it.
@8 Actually, 3 Nobelists: Howard Temin (discoverer of reverse transcriptase), Har Gobind Khorana (the genetic code), and Joshua Lederberg (bacterial genetics). When I was a grad student there, they bragged that UW had more research biologists (ag, medicine, and basic science) than any other spot in the “free world” except for NIH. Those positions were funded in part by the discovery of enriching vitamin D in milk, which created the huge Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) there (and also the patent on Warfarin).
Kudos to you, PZ, even for getting an interview!
Research universities all over the country are salivating over the chance to nab researchers from UW, and to get ahold of the companies they’ve started.
Scott Walker really does hate education, according to people I’ve met who claim to have known him; he’s jealous that he couldn’t hack it (as #25 points out). He’s even willing to destroy the biotech industry there to gut UW, with a probable result of necessitating higher taxes in the future.
Indeed, but UW-Madison is likely to retain most of its prestige and coffers. Their high standards for acceptance means they have high graduation rates, and consequently large numbers of wealthy alumni who can help close the gap. It’s obviously unfortunate for it to come to that, but they have options.
However, I don’t see a way for schools like UW-Parkside to survive this. They proactively recruit students who are low-income, minorities, first in their family to attend college, etc., which means they will be first on the chopping block due to the consequently low retention, GPAs, and graduation rates.
The entire UW system is (was) an exceptional, world-class institution. absolutely a gem of my state. Even from a conservative standpoint it’s a tragedy: the UW system is an enormous economic driver, fostering entrepreneurship, adding skilled labor to the workforce, and drawing notoriety to the state.
*spits*
As has been stated, Republicans hate education because it teaches people to think. And thinking can lead to CHANGE. Which is perhaps the thing they fear the most.
Well, “to the States, or to the People”. Doesn’t the meaning of “people” extend to national legislation that has passed the House and the Senate?
What.
This is outrageous.
The point of a university is that the teaching there is done by people who actually do actual research themselves; that’s what distinguishes it from highschool. Every university, therefore, has a vital interest in the professors doing research; it’s part of their job description, so it’s part of what they’re paid for in other countries.
The same here at research universities like UW Madison. Officially, they may say 60% teaching, the rest research/scholarly, but in reality teaching is only 30-40%.
What pisses off know-nothings like Walker, is that at UW Parkside (the nearest one to me here in northern Lake County, IL, they have nothing but teachers like PZ. Research, while not forbidden, is something they do in their spare time. Walker sees somebody like PZ teaching 5 classes a year, and wonders why the UW Madison profs can’t do the same. Different responsibilities and expectations. Walker just expects cheap and overworked.
When I went from academia to private industry, two big things happened. My salary went up 50%. and my hours dropped from 55 to 40. Nobody on the authoritarian RW/liberturd end of the political spectrum believes it. And they aren’t looking at reality.
It hasn’t been interpreted that way. Generally when Congress has gone beyond its traditional power it’s used the Commerce clause for justification. I guess it’s hard to justify control of education on the basis of interstate commerce. (To the extent that the Feds influence education, they do it by withholding funds.)