And you thought Nass was bad

At least he makes coherent arguments. I think I might have found someone even worse:

State Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) is raising concerns about Biddy Martin’s support for bringing domestic partner benefits to UW faculty and staff. Grothman says it’s disappointing that so soon after the voters of Wisconsin rejected same-sex marriage in a Constitutional amendment, the new leader of the Madison campus would take such a divisive issue to the taxpayer.

Martin, currently provost at Cornell University, will become the first openly-gay chancellor for the Madison campus. She has expressed her support for trying to bring the benefits to the UW in order to help keep quality staff members from leaving for other universities that make them available.

I have yet to address is the issue of domestic partnership benefits UW staff members on this blog and in light of the recent selection of Biddy Martin as chancellor I think there will plenty of opportunities for that later. What I would really like to point out is the ridiculousness of the arguments he uses to justify his position. As much as I disagree with his positions, there are some legitimate arguments to make in favor of them. He just doesn’t happen mention any of them.

To say the passing of the constitutional amendment a some kind of referendum that supposedly means people don’t support domestic partnership benefits for UW staff is a statement that flat out doesn’t make any sense. Gay marriage and domestic partnership benefits are clearly two different things that, while related, are different enough that people can have varying opinions about both of them. In fact a clear majority of Wisconsin residents supported domestic partnership benefits in 2001

Domestic partner benefits were once controversial, but today it’s becoming unusual not to provide them. More and more employees expect it, and the public supports equal benefits. A 2001 statewide poll of 600 people conducted by Chamberlain Research Consultants found a majority (59 percent) of Wisconsinites support domestic partner health insurance coverage for gay couples. The sheer number of companies offering the benefits also suggests that most of them have decided domestic partner benefits help their company’s image rather than hurt it. This is a mainstream business practice, and there’s really nothing controversial about it.

And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that the number of people who support domestic partner benefits has probably increased over the past 7 years. To criticize to the chancellor for trying to do what she thinks is best for the university is also absurd. It shouldn’t be the job of the chancellor to base their decisions on politics, that’s ought to be left to the politicians.

His comments on domestic partnership benefits aren’t even the worst of it.

Grothman also criticizes Martin’s interest in increasing faculty salaries. He says university leaders shouldn’t be talking about pay hikes during these difficult economic times.

I can’t imagine a statement that would show someone was more out of touch with the UW than that one. Readers of this blog should know very well by now the arguments for increasing faculty salaries. They are everywhere, I’ve even pointed out how raising them would SAVE us money, so I won’t spend my time repeating them.

The idea that the chancellor shouldn’t be at least interested in a proposal to improve the university is preposterous, regardless of the reason. I might have missed the memo on this one, but I would say having a chancellor who is discussing ways to improve the UW is probably a good thing. Not wanting to raise taxes to fund a pay increase is one thing. Saying one of the most pressing concerns of the university shouldn’t be discussed is another. If he had his way I guess we wouldn’t be trying to increase private donations to increase salaries. Or trying to take more proactive approaches to retaining professors. Both things that could only have a positive effect on the economy of Wisconsin and would cost the state 0 extra dollars. I expect more from an alumni of our law school.

He is not even criticizing potential solutions to some of the UW’s problems. He is saying that they should not even be talked about at all. Elected officials who are so out of touch with what is best for this university and the state of Wisconsin as a whole as to suggest that we shouldn’t engage in a dialog about how to fix them don’t deserve to hold office at all. Luckily, Senator Grothman is up for reelection this fall, though at this point he only has one challenger, independent Greg Dombro. A quick google search reveals that the opposition in the Wisconsin blogosphere is pretty well organized there is a blog entirely devoted to criticizing him and a post on another blog detailing some of his worst votes. It might be time to start doing some campaigning this summer residents of Sheboygan and Fond du Lac.

Would this fulfill the ethnic studies requirement?

Somehow I don’t think so, but if it were brought to UW it might be the first proposal ever that Steve Nass would favor increasing UW funding to support.

That the University of Colorado is raising $9 million to endow a professor of conservative studies is rather delicious in its ironies. It smacks of affirmative action and casts conservatism in the syntax of departments decried by conservatives for decades: women’s studies, gay studies, African American studies, Chicano studies and so on.

Furthermore, the idea of affirmative action for conservatives seems gratuitous. These other groups may be oppressed, but conservatives run whole wars, black site prisons, sprawling multinational corporations. In fact, if these other groups are oppressed, it’s conservatives who are the oppressors, which may render faculty meetings a bit tense.

AFT-Wisconsin union president Bryan Kennedy on a UW faculty union

Over the past week or so this blog has started to discuss the issue of the collective bargaining for a faculty and academic staff union. The original article that inspired the post features comments from the AFT-Wisconsin union president Bryan Kennedy. In an email correspondence, I asked him how the issue affected students and this was his reply:

For the past decade, the University of Wisconsin has been slipping in its national ranking. This is due in part to the system’s inability to attract and retain top-notch faculty and academic staff. The UW system has dropped to the fifth quintile nationally in terms of faculty and academic staff salaries. In order for our children to continue getting the kind of stellar educational experience that the UW system has been known for, the university is going to have to examine how it funds and how much it funds those who teach.

A integral part of improving the working conditions on campus and in boosting compensation packages lies with faculty and academic staff being able to advocate for our own needs through collective bargaining. Without the right to form a union and to work with the strength of a union to meet our needs, we as faculty and academic staff will never be able to adequately address issues of morale, low pay, and lack of professional advancement. We currently have no seat at the table in these discussions. Students should be concerned when they see their best professors and top-notch researchers leaving the UW for other states where public education is more highly valued as evidenced by those states compensating their faculty and academic staff sufficiently. Any candidate for UW Chancellor should embrace the concept of faculty and academic staff unionization because it will empower those who will work most closely with the chancellor.

While I think our faculty ought to have the right to unionize and collectively bargain, I am still skeptical that collective bargaining would be successful in raising faculty salaries and the research cited at the bottom of my original post backs me up. I think the administrators of the university fully understand that we need to pay our professors more, the UW is a private company that profits by keeping the wages of its workers low. The problem lies not in the lack of desire to increase salaries but in the lack of available funding. I can’t see how collective bargaining would convince the state to increase funding or entice private donors to give more money to up professor salaries.

However, I think there are benefits to unionizing. One would be in the potential to improve faculty input in the governing of the university over the current Faculty Senate. As for whether there needs to a better structure for input from faculty, I have no idea. Kennedy’s comments above make it seem like that is the situation, but yet I never heard it expressed as a concern from anyone during the chancellor search. Another potential benefit to a union would in more organized and effective lobbying efforts in the state legislature. That, however, is something that definitely needs improvement on all fronts, not just from the faculty.

That same research I cited before on unions in higher education provides further evidence that the benefits of unions are in areas other than increasing wages:

The current focus of unions in higher education is to do interest-based bargaining.⁵⁹ The idea behind this concept is to go beyond the industrial mindset of negotiating only for salary and benefits to that of bargaining for appropriate resource allocation to achieve educational goals that help the faculty and students.⁶⁰

A faculty union with collective bargaining rights might be good for the UW, especially if professors want them as this letter suggests, just don’t expect it be the answer to our sub-par faculty salaries.

It’s not us, it’s you

For all the talk about fixing relations with the state legislature on the UW side of things lately, you’d think that everything was our fault and to fix things all we need to do is apologize for whatever we did. Then they would begin to fork over the millions of dollars in funding that the UW needs. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. However, one Assembly Democrat thinks that the majority of the blame for the strain in relations lies on their side and that things might be about to change with the coming Assembly elections this fall.

If Democrats take control of the Assembly this fall, they could change the tone of the relationship between the UW System and state Assembly. Democrts need three seats to take the majority.

But Vinehout said the issues will remain the same no matter who controls the Assembly.

“Both Republicans and Democrats need to address these problems,” she said.

But Rep. Sondy Pope-Roberts, D-Verona, the ranking Democrat on the Assembly Education Committee, said she expects relations between the Assembly and the UW to thaw — not because of the arrival of Martin, but because she expects a change in Assembly leadership.

“I don’t think it’s the chancellor’s problem,” she said. “I think it’s who was steering the ship” in the Assembly.

I definitely agree with the part about the blame being significantly on the side of the state legislature. While Chancellor Wiley might have not been the best at dealing with the state legislature, but they aren’t cutting funding simply because they didn’t like our choice of chancellor. I think there is much that could be done as far as lobbying efforts on behalf of both UW-Madison and the UW System as a whole, but that the strain in relations was as much a result of who was in control down at the far end of State Street as who was in control on our end. No matter how good a chancellor is at handling relations, I don’t think people like Steve Nass are ever going to be convinced to change their views on funding higher education. If you are unfamiliar with Rep. Nass’ views on the UW, I really recommend this Isthmus article.

As for the Democrats taking control of the Assembly, I don’t have any predictions to make at this point, but there are 99 districts and the Democrats only need to pick up 3 seats, so it is a definite possibility. The filing deadline isn’t even until July 8th, so at this point we don’t even know who all of the candidates are.

Biddy Martin is the next UW-Madison Chancellor

She may have not been my first choice, but the callings for “Biddy or Blank” were answered. I have to say I can’t complain about the choice.

Carolyn Martin has been named the next UW-Madison chancellor, pending Board of Regents approval, an informed university source told The Capital Times.

Martin, the provost at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., is expected to be officially approved at the next Board of Regents meeting June 5-6 at UW-Milwaukee. A Board of Regents search committee and UW System President Kevin Reilly decided Tuesday to offer the job to Martin.

[Edit] I know College Jeopardy is over, but I have one last question. What do the President and CEO of the Wisconsin Alumni Association, the Director of the University Research Park, a member of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Board of Trustees, the President of the University of Wisconsin System, a former president of the UW System Board of Regents, Chancellor Wiley and Suchita Shah have in common?

…

They’re all important enough to have their comments on Biddy Martin displayed on the official “Comments about Biddy Martin” page of the chancellor search website.

Suchita Shah

UW-Madison student and member of the UW-Madison Chancellor Search and Screen Committee

(Biddy Martin) was definitely energetic and passionate about the job, about students and about the university experience. Her level of intellect and her ability to analyze and understand all aspects of the university was amazing. Even if we didn’t necessarily agree with her, she could convince us of the importance of her view to the future of the university in the long term.

She emphasized that retaining professors and improving campus climate as a whole would be important not just to professors and staff, but it trickles down to the students as well. It makes our experience here better.

(Students) want someone who can energize us and who is transparent in their leadership style, and (Martin) definitely has both those qualities. She appears to be very inclusive in her decision-making. I think she can really connect to every facet of the university community, especially students.

Also check out how it’s one of the 3 comments highlighted on the main chancellor search page.

Differential tuition for engineers a good idea – if the money is used properly

An idea that has been talked about as one solution to help alleviate some of the universities financial woes is getting a vote from the Board of Regents.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is reviving a proposal that would require engineering students to pay $1,400 more in tuition than other undergraduates.

The Board of Regents is expected to vote on the proposal next week. If approved, tuition for engineering majors would go up $600 next fall and $400 in each of the following two years.

The College of Engineering will not be the first to implement differential tuition, business majors already have to pay an extra $500 a semester. In case you didn’t already know, I am an engineering student and despite not wanting to pay those extra couple of hundred dollars a year, I think it is a necessary change for the College of Engineering. As several of the chancellor finalists have already pointed out, our tuition is very low in comparison to our peer institutions and our College of Engineering is the only one in the Big 10 to not charge extra. The one condition I place on my endorsement of this differential tuition is that they need to use the money to increase the number of sections they offer of high demand courses. The money is coming directly from students and thus should be used exclusively to improve the education of all students. I can’t think of a better way than increasing the offerings of the most popular courses. The article makes it seem as though that is exactly what a significant portion of the money will be used for.

The engineering proposal is expected to eventually generate $3 million per year. The money would go toward hiring more engineering faculty to teach high-demand courses and updating the curriculum to reflect technological advances.

There are several courses in the College of Engineering that either are requirements for every engineering student or a significant portion of them. The most notable example of this that I can think of is a class called EPD 275: Technical Presentations. Every engineering student is required to take this class and as a result getting into it can be a nightmare. The recommended course sequence suggests taking the class the first semester of sophomore year. But, the reality is that it takes a minimum of junior standing to stand a chance of getting into any section of the class. Having tried to get into the class the past two semesters, I can speak on this from personal experience. The curriculum demands of getting an engineering degree makes trying to graduate on time a scheduling nightmare. I have 128 credits required to graduate. 16 of them are general education requirements, including the humanities, social sciences and ethnic studies requirements. The remaining 112 are basically entirely required classes divided between engineering, math and science classes. As a result of the number of required class and the number of prerequisites for some of the classes, not being able to fit a single class into your schedule as early as freshman year can mean pushing back graduation by an entire year. The student testimonial from the article rings very true:

Senior Craig MacKenzie, a civil engineering major, said he favors the plan as a way to increase funding. He expects to graduate in December but said he could have graduated this month if required courses were offered more often.

So if raising tuition means increasing scheduling flexibility and as a result allowing engineering students to graduate earlier, then it is a necessary change that would benefit every single engineering student. Other improvements like retaining the best professors, increasing funding for research and improving labs are great, but they only affect those students who take classes with those professors or those particular lab courses. Thus the extra money ought to be spent with improving high-demand course offerings as the highest priority.

And besides, when you’re getting the highest paying job with just a bachelors, you can afford to pay a bit more while you’re in school.

Chancellor selection down to 3 choices

Tim Mulcahy, who spent 20 years in Madison before leaving to become vice president for research at the University of Minnesota in February of 2005, has withdrawn his name from consideration.

“I was deeply honored to be selected as one of four finalists for the position of chancellor at UW-Madison, an institution with which I have long personal and professional ties and where I count many friends and colleagues among the faculty and staff,” he said in a statement. “However, after carefully considering my personal and professional interests I made the difficult decision to withdraw my name from consideration and notified the selection committee of my decision. … In the end, my personal desire to enjoy quality time with my wife, children, and grandchildren, combined with my professional interest in advancing a wide range of initiatives I have started at the University of Minnesota, led me to this decision.”

An interesting decision this far along in the process, it was his choice to fill out an application and come interview, but he wasn’t my first choice anyways.

1 Month Anniversary

One month ago, on April 27 at 1:46 pm I made my first post on this blog. Back then I never realized how much I would enjoy blogging or how much of my life it would begin to consume. 31 days, 34 posts, 111 comments and 3,816 hits later it has exceeded all of my expectations. Now that there have been enough posts for everyone to get a good idea of what this blog is all about, I have a favor to ask of all of you. As this is my first attempt at blogging, I would like to have some reader feedback. What do you as a reader like or dislike about my blog? I’m not promising to change anything, it is my blog after all, but I would still like to hear what people think. Any and all feedback would be appreciated. Comments left on the blog or emails sent to fearlesssifting@gmail.com both work equally well. Thank you in advance for the feedback.

How big of an issue is a UW faculty union?

I’ve shared some of my thoughts on recent comments by Rebecca Blank and Timothy Mulcahy on UW faculty labor organization. I really didn’t think too much of the issue at the time, but I recently came across this letter that had been posted on another blog.

Subject: New Chancellor must respect democratic workplace rights
From: “Chad Alan Goldberg”
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 3:33 am
To: chancellorsearch@bascom.wisc.edu

Dear Chancellor Search Committee members,

As a tenured faculty member at UW-Madison and a union member (UFAS, AFT Local 223), I am writing to express my dismay and outrage at remarks made by two finalists for the position of UW-Madison Chancellor.

It has come to my attention that Rebecca Blank reportedly said that unions foster “adversarial” relations and work best for workers who are “lower on the totem pole” than faculty, and that Tim Mulcahy reportedly vowed that he would oppose “faculty and academic staff organizing at all costs.”

These autocratic attitudes are unacceptable. Indeed, it is precisely attitudes like these that push faculty and academic staff to join unions in the first place. To oppose the right of faculty and academic staff to organize — a right that is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the laws and traditions of the great state of Wisconsin — is a situation abhorrent to democracy. I fear that if Rebecca Blank or Tim Mulcahy were to become Chancellor, it would foster disruptive conflict rather than cooperation at our university, cause irreparable harm to the reputation of UW-Madison, and make it difficult for the university to recruit and retain the best faculty and staff. In short, it is not unions that pose a threat to UW-Madison, but the aggressive union-busting advocated by these two candidates. I urge you to do the right thing now rather than foster antagonism and undermine the morale of the educators and staff on whom you depend: Tell Blank and Mulcahy that their adversarial and reactionary attitudes toward unions make them unfit for the position of UW-Madison Chancellor.

Sincerely,

Chad Alan Goldberg
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
George L. Mosse Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, Israel (spring 2008 )
8116B William H. Sewell Social Science Building
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Home page: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~cgoldber/

The letter certainly makes it seem like a decisive issue for some of our faculty members. I think that Professor Goldberg’s characterization of the comments by Blank is not quite the correct representation of them based upon my reading of the original story. The comments by AFT-Wisconsin union president Bryan Kennedy seem to better represent her view of academic staff labor organization.

“She was very respectful,” Kennedy said. But Kennedy said his union maintains differences with Blank over the wisdom of campus faculty and academic staff unionization with collective bargaining rights.

As far as whether or not this issue ought to be a large one for the university in general and more specifically in the chancellor search, I think is a relatively minor one. I think issues such as private fund raising, support from the state legislature and faculty salaries dwarf it in comparison. Judging from the fact that Mulcahy made his original comments at the luncheon the Wednesday before finals and I had not heard about it until last Friday in a single news story, it isn’t the most pressing concern for very many other people either.

A Cornell perspective on losing Biddy Martin

While we on the UW side of the chancellor search are blogging about the prospects of hiring Biddy Martin, it’s natural that bloggers from Cornell are doing the same about potentially losing her. I must confess I only found this blog when they linked to me today, but it was still pretty interesting to read a Cornell blogger’s thoughts on potentially losing their provost.

The first post when the news broke that she was a finalist.

The second speculation on the odds of losing her.

The last one today with some speculation from the Wisconsin side.

All of them speak very highly about Biddy Martin and reaffirm my thoughts that she would be a solid choice for chancellor.

Another interesting read is the Cornell Daily Sun’s article about Martin being named a finalist. The quote she gave them makes it seem like she would not take the job if it were offered.

Although Martin’s status as a finalist has made news across the Midwest, Martin seems less preoccupied by the selection.

“As an experienced provost of a major research university, I frequently get inquiries about presidencies and chancellor positions at other institutions,” Martin said. “I love Cornell and am very happy in the provost’s position, so was not ‘looking to leave.’”

…

Martin added that it is too early to tell whether she will take the position at UW-Madison if offered. However, she stated that Cornell has not begun the search for a replacement for the provost.

Which brings up an angle that I think has been missing from the UW perspective: none of the finalists have committed to accepting the chancellor job. We could potentially end up with a scenario where one or more of the finalists are offered the job and turn it down.

Another thing that I have yet to hear mentioned is the fact that she would be taking a pay cut to come be our chancellor

According to The Sentinel, the maximum salary that the next chancellor of UW-Madison would make would be $452,000. Martin currently earns over half a million dollars at Cornell. She told The Sentinel that salary is not a concern for her in making the decision.

While that proves that we don’t need to offer the highest salaries in order to find very qualified chancellors. It makes me wonder if it would have been a different story had the pay not been increased from what Wiley received. Taking a pay cut of tens of thousands of dollars when you make that much is one thing. I would imagine that taking a $200,000 pay cut just might be another. I don’t know if it would affect her decision, but how many people are willing to take a 40% pay cut to take a new position?