A few minutes ago, I posted a blog that appeared on the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education, stating that the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin was trying to save tenure from the onslaught of Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the Legislature.
I quickly heard from Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor at UW, who warned me not to believe it:
“Thanks so much for posting the blog tonight. However, it is incorrect. The UW Regents aren’t trying to save tenure- that’s not what they voted to do. This is a Board full of Scott Walker’s appointees and what they did was vote to adopt a fake version of tenure that is called the same thing but still allows for massive layoffs. It is a carefully worded trick and the media fell for it.
“More here:
“Please help your readers remember that the Regents, the President of UW System, and yes even the Chancellor of Madison are approved by Walker. None are to be trusted, unfortunately. And all are frantically spinning the story to suggest faculty, staff and students are overreacting.
“Thanks
“Sara”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Scott Walker, GOP presidential contender. According to recent buzz, near the top of the pack. We already know what he’s done for, er I mean, TO education in his state; his ‘accomplishments’ rival Jindal’s. The only other thing I can find out about him [aside from being a h.s. grad] is that– altho he’s he’d some modest success in lowering debt & taxes, & lowered unemployment from 7.9 to 7.3% [which could be accounted for merely by overall slight upswing of national economy]– during his 5 yrs in office, WI slipped from 45th to 50th place for business start-ups [entrepreneurial activites].
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think Hillary could eat this guy for lunch.
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The Koch brothers have supported Scott Walker throughout his career and may throw their billions behind him should he run for President… and here’s a factoid I learned the other day: the Koch brothers’ father was a major donor to the John Birch Society… This telegenic, manipulative, anti-government social Darwinist is the perfect vessel for the Koch brothers ideology…. and as some pundits have noted he beats ANY Democrat in a face-off… If HE gets elected we’ll be having fond memories of Arne Duncan
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“If HE gets elected we’ll be having fond memories of Arne Duncan”
Democrats were complicit every step of the way. The truth is they back Walker’s education policies. They’re quibbling over technocratic details, but they’ve wholly adopted Walker’s approach. Democrats are now reduced to “re-branding” vouchers in an effort to pretend they have some kind of public education theory all their own.
President Obama is right now traveling the country attacking labor unions to promote his trade deal. As he said, he’s run his last campaign. He doesn’t need them anymore.
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so TRUE!
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The logical question is, if it’s unimportant and the regents can just restore tenure, then why did Walker fight so hard to change the law?
Obviously he (and the rest of the ed reform crowd in Wisconsin) think it’s important. Why? What do they plan to do with it?
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Walker’s initial proposal was to give the UW-System and the regents much more autonomy over a swath of important area like tenure, tuition, construction projects, etc by making it a public authority. The UW System had requested public authority status to gain more ability to manage itself and somewhat buffer the severe cuts to funding. The GOP legislative leadership did not want to cut the university loose from state control and in the end made very few governance changes except for tenure.
The change to tenure proposed for the UW System is two-fold. Tenure and shared governance had been guaranteed in state statute. One part of the erosion of tenure eliminated it from state statute and devolved it to the regents and UW System policy. The second, and in my mind more critical, part of the erosion was that the new provision loosened the restrictions on when a tenured professor’s position could be eliminated. Formerly, this could only happen in case of financial emergency. Now, a tenured professor’s position could be eliminated merely for the “modification or or redirection” of their department or program. This new language completely sharply diminishes stability because the position is subject to the whims of university administration and undermines academic freedom. Sorry Professor C, we are reducing the lean towards Keynesian macro and adding more entrepreneurial micro so we are eliminating your position in the economics department. Sorry Professor G-R, we are reducing our emphasis on research in access to higher ed and more on leveraging technology and streamlining costs so we are eliminating your position the the education policy studies department. Radical stuff that threatens the institution itself and every pixel that has been used criticizing it is merited.
These are not hypothetical concerns. The proposed budget eliminates the research scientists from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. As far as anyone can tell, this is in retaliation for accurate research on water quality, endangered species, and wildlife management that some Republicans found inconvenient and embarrassing to their economic development notions. The chance that a university department could be “modified or redirected” is real.
Of course the regents and the chancellors will publicly discount its impact. As Sarah notes, most of the regents have been selected by the governor. And what is the chancellor to do when the phones and inboxes of her professors are saturated with job feelers? Naturally she is going to try to find the sunny side of the street to stem the exodus.
A few years after Act 10, the Wisconsin GOP decided that state and school employees were losing some of their appeal as a issue. Once you have neutered public sector unions, railing against them gets less mileage with the voters. So, the focus shifted to the university.
The GOP is telling the public that no other state enshrines tenure in statute and the change is much ado about nothing. If that is all that it was, they would have a point although the presence of tenure and shared governance in statute was regarding as a positive factor that somewhat offset the years of cuts to the university and the generally below average compensation compared with peers. However, the proposed changes go well beyond that are are an assault on academic freedom and the stability to develop and maintain strong teaching and research programs.
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UnKochmyCampus.org
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A state law is a stronger protection than an administrative or board action.
That’s the bottom line they’re trying to obscure.
You see the same kind of deterioration of rights for workers happening at the federal level. They’re pretending that an executive action or agency rule change is sufficient protection, but it’s not.
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The ultra conservatives have several objectives. The first is to keep university programs only if they contribute to the economy of the state where they are located. This is the message of Ohio’s Kasich. Programs in the arts and humanities are on the chopping block. Deans are being asked to track the employment and salaries of their graduates in the new system of accountability.
The second is to install faculty who will do the ideological bidding and/or comply with the quirks of big donors, including for example, the Walton-funded Department of Educational Reform at the University of Arkansas with named professorships and an in house PR experts.
A third is to eliminate tenure protections so that scholars who raise questions and do inquires that offend the sensibilities of politically appointed overseers of higher education can be fired at will and entire programs eliminated. This is the return of McCarthy-like intimidation. You can be sure that programs such as gender or Africana studies will be cut, also anything addressing global warming, renamed climate change to minimize what is happening.
A fourth is to extend the practice of hiring adjuncts and free-lance scholars who will have short term contracts, no benefits, and do the lion’s share of instruction. That has been happening for a long time.
Fnally, there has always been some political cronyism in the university system, whether public or private. The era ahead will be as devastating to higher education as the last fifteen years in K-12 education. At the federal level, cuts in research funding for the social sciences have already been made.
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Excellent enumeration and explanation.
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I would tell any young person to move to Germany. College is free for any student (even foreign students). The government also gives you health care. There has never been a better time to move to Germany. Many programs are taught in English. So you can take your time learning German. You can tutor English to survive or get a job. This is easy as a student. Germany needs intelligent workers. There are quaint towns with walking town centers, and large, diverse cities with excellent infrastructure. Walmart didn’t make it in Germany. Go visit Germany for yourself. If you live there a year or two you won’t want to come back here to the 2nd world. If I were young and starting out, I wouldn’t hesitate to go to college in Germany. We all know what path America is going down, and you don’t want to go there. So there is hope, it is just not here in this “country.” Hope lies elsewhere, and you have to be courageous to go out and make it happen. Just like you grandparents came to this country. You have to have the courage to do it again. Don’t be nostalgic for America of the 1970s or even 1980s. That time is gone forever. You don’t want to raise children over here. It’s going to be a nightmare, unless you’re rich.
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Agree with you but, the US/British oligarchs’ war is international.
No country is too big nor, too impoverished, to feel their boot prints and, to be bled dry.
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I think that’s the part that bothers me the most. This group of adults benefited from the public investment in public education, but they are unwilling to extend that benefit to the next generation if it means paying taxes. It came time for them to pay up for the next generation and they said “no”.
It’s incredibly selfish. I’m ashamed.
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Reblogged this on National Mobilization For Equity and commented:
Another item on UW tenure for the growing #WalkerWatch list
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