<p>Wis75-</p>
<p>If it’s a matter of proving one’s bona fides, my wife and three of her sisters are UW graduates; my brother-in-law was an instructor there for many years until just this year; I have nieces and nephews at Madison West; and I probably know 100 graduates. My daughter didn’t apply to UW on a whim; she picked it on our recommendation because she wanted a large, well respected public university with big time academics AND big times sports, our in state version of such a school happens to be highly selective (and not a sure thing), and we knew lots about UW.</p>
<p>By my count at least three posters on this thread are current students or parents of current students who do happen to think that going to football games is an important part of the UW undergraduate experience and lament their inability to get tickets. Again, it’s dismissive to tell them simply to get over it, and it’s arrogant to suggest that your years of experience makes you qualified to tell them what they should or shouldn’t care about and what they should or shouldn’t think. And telling me to bug off simply because my daughter chose to go elsewhere is equally inappropriate.</p>
<p>In short, it’s not me who doesn’t get it – it’s you. No matter; this is my last post on the subject and the last time I will respond to anything from you. There’s nothing more exasperating that arguing with someone who thinks they know it all.</p>
<p>None of what you just posted makes sense, wis75. A handful of posters actively pursue the silencing of dissenting opinions on this forum. That sure seems like forced conformity. </p>
<p>Not everyone will agree on any particular issue. Why can’t everyone just accept that? This is one of the very few forums on CC where alumni actively attack dissenting opinions. Doesn’t sound like “sifting and winnowing” to me, though you are free to disagree. ;)</p>
<p>It does call to mind UW’s administration’s lack of an open, honest, and informed discussion on the Madison Initiative as described here:
[The</a> Education Optimists: I (Finally) Figured Out Why I Want Tenure](<a href=“http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-finally-figured-out-why-i-want-tenure.html]The”>The Education Optimists: I (Finally) Figured Out Why I Want Tenure)</p>
<p>…and here:
[The</a> Education Optimists: What is the Evidence on High-Tuition High-Aid Models?](<a href=“http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-evidence-on-high-tuition-high.html]The”>The Education Optimists: What is the Evidence on High-Tuition High-Aid Models?)</p>
<p>“Sift and Winnow” is a nice catch phrase and sounds noble, but that concept seems to have “left the building” at UW Madison, so to speak. UW’s “Sift and Winnow,” as evidenced by the admin cramming the Madison Initiative through without adequate research, examination, and debate, and the attacks on dissenting opinions here on CC’s UW forum, and the animosity and schism between “sconnies” and “coasties” on UW’s campus, seems more like “conform, or else…” or “it’s my way, or the highway,” as another forum contributer has already observed.</p>
<p>Maybe some of that “Bucky Pride” could be more positively turned to the pursuit of the resolution of some of the issues noted above. No need to attack the messenger; it’s more productive to address the problems.</p>
<p>I’ve noticed a lot of empty seats in the student sections at Camp Randall. It would seem as though a student without season tickets could find a way to buy one at face value.</p>