Walker’s executive budget (see below) amends Sec. 1111 of the statutes to remove language specifying that the UW system has a public service mission to “extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campus" and to “serve and stimulate society.” He strikes language ensuring that the mission of the UW is to extend “training and public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition,” as well as the language specifying that “the search for truth” is “basic to every purpose of the system.” - See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2015/02/12724/walker-strikes-truth-wisconsin-idea-university-budget#sthash.wV9Mim5F.gYmBR0yz.dpuf
It’s a rough day in Wisconsin for people who believe in higher education.
Hmmm, is Pennsylvania his model, where the most “complete” state universities are only “state-related” and too expensive for many lower to middle income students, and even the more limited state universities being on the expensive side?
I noted that the “news article” failed to mention that the ongoing tuition freeze in the UW system was instigated because of annual tuition increases while the UW system was drawing a full share of state funding while sitting on a $600M+ surplus. Why exactly should the taxpayers of WI have to pay for a full share of state funding when the UW system already has the surplus cash on hand?
I don’t see the removal of flowery verbiage from the mission statement to be a significant impact to the quality of education provided.
Breaking news: after a day’s worth of blowback, Scott Walker says the change in mission was a “drafting error.”
This was a huge incident in Wisconsin. Academics and people interested in education generally are going ballistic.
As a reminder, Governor Walker does not have a college degree. He hopes to run for POTUS.
@wolverine86, with all due respect, you clearly do not understand the relation of this mission statement and deliberate languaging to the purpose of UW, and its relation to the state of Wisconsin. Particularly so, vis a vis the history of public policy and outreach in Wisconsin dating back to the 19th century.
The very quick backpedaling of the SW gang on the mission languaging is but one sign of how profoundly deaf they are to the values of the UW community – values which penetrate the state in ways the gang is probably only belatedly awakening to.
Then again, it never seems inappropriate to mention SW is a college dropout, who now proposes to take UW hostage as leverage for his national campaign aspirations.
A “drafting error”? What a crass alibi. Yikes.
Language specifying that “the search for truth” is “basic to every purpose of the system” is not flowery verbiage - if it is there and you remove it, it indicates an active desire to support alternative allowable missions, perhaps related to teaching of (unnecessarily) controversial subjects such as evolution.
Then why did they go out of their way to propose the change ? (I’m going to go way out on a limb and suggest that it wasn’t a drafting error at all.)
This is not an irrelevant accolade, given the current strip-mining proposals at hand:
Madison ranked top metropolitan area in U.S. for STEM graduates (Feb. 4, 2015)
http://www.news.wisc.edu/23471
One hopes, perhaps in vain, that these following cautions from the Brookings report are not lost upon said deaf ears (per above):
"Yet the report cautions that the long-held advantage the U.S. has had in these industries is in jeopardy. It calls for renewed cooperation and investment by state and local leaders [sic, anhydrite] and the private sector.
‘Today, after decades of offshoring and disinvestment, America’s advanced industry clusters are in too many places thin or eroded. It is therefore critical that firms and public-sector leaders work together to renew the vitality of the nation’s regional advanced industries ecosystems, the most durable foundations of U.S. competitiveness,’ the report says."
Wolverine86–do you have any idea that such maintaining reserves is totally SOP for colleges and that Michigan has double that size in such reserves? Also those tuition increases took place when the budget also received significant cuts. Profs had had virtually no raises in 6 years. Uninformed my friend.
I sense Walker and his cohort have finally overplayed their hand and their true agenda to dismantle the UW has been exposed and even the common folk in WI are not for that.
At least he didn’t blame Autocorrect.
Since the taxpayers are contributing, the University should have a public service mission!
Is U of Wisconsin a land grant institution?
The University of Wisconsin is a founding land grant institution, yes.
And @Irishmomof2’s line of thinking is hopeful. I too was thinking that – what with all of the legal and historical precedents, and the collective mind-hive that is the UW community-at-large – some smart workarounds may yet exist to exert pressure on SW and his cronies.
Why engage bullying and brute force (and those for the most contemptuous of ends), when there could be violations on their behalf that nullify their proposals? They do seem stupid enough…
What I really do not want to see from all of this is outstanding faculty being scared off from the bullying – either those currently at UW, or those who might in the future consider a faculty position, in one of UW’s many fine departments That would be just inexcusable, and it is worth fighting for.
Then it’s an obligation that they have a public service mission.
The most significant issue when the “reserves” were brought to light was not the fact that there was over $1 billion on hand, but the lack of transparency. That’s why it got labeled a “slush fund”.
At this point, all of that has been worked out, the UW system and the state can account for every dollar.
I guess not, same with Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Turner, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, etc.
The language is a side show. The only issue that matters is the final budget that gets approved. Since the UW system doesn’t currently have a lot of fans in the legislature, I’m sure it’s not a budget they will find much to be excited about.
Oh, please, Gator88NE. Which of the technical wizards you cite made such an egregious, overtly political maneuver to dismantle public education writ large?
And to be more precise, SW was asked to leave for unsavory dealings at Marquette. The others left predominantly of their own volition, to work on their own entrepreneurial and technological innovations. I seem to remember Bill Gates, for one, supporting education.
“Language is a sideshow”? Apparently so, when you set up false equivalences per above.
=))
It is very often mentioned that Bill Gates, for example, is a college dropout. But he dropped out to pursue knowledge and innovation at an even higher level. He didn’t flunk out (or close to it) and go on to make anti-intellectual assaults on a major university.
I used to be proud of my home state. Walker is trying to ruin it. The UW mission has meant a lot of education resources for all residents throughout the state. The ideas are not just “flowery language”- they involve the spirit of the university being for the whole state’s benefit, not just who attend college on campus.