The Problem that is Provost Paul DeLuca

Let me tell you, it's an incredible experience to chair a university committee for multiple years, work very hard to serve at the request of your university, produce a thoughtful report with that committee, and then have the Provost of your institution attack it in the media without ever bothering to even speak with you about it.

Welcome to UW-Madison and the passive-aggressive machinations of Provost Paul DeLuca.

UW-Madison has serious problems when it comes to state relations and this Provost has a lot to do with that.  Time and again he has treated the Wisconsin public, its reporters, and its legislators as if they aren't smart enough to merit straight talk about hard issues.  Instead he smirks, waves his hands, and says he doesn't know what all the fuss is about. He dismisses any critique of the university as uninformed, offers "explanations" without any factual basis, and looks away when anyone asks a hard question.

I've witnessed this time and again over the past several years-- through debates over his efforts to instigate the restructuring of the Graduate School, the separation of UW-Madison from UW-System, the Human Resources Design debacle, and most recently as he's attempted to cover his tracks while advancing an enrollment management agenda initiated when Biddy Martin was chancellor, all the while pretending to be simply responding to new demographics. In the most recent example, instead of raising concerns in a professional manner with a university committee on admissions practices with whom he apparently disagrees-- for example by seeking a meeting with its members or the chair (me) --he dismisses the committee's latest report in the media as "narrow and short-sighted" and then blatantly spins the press about the reasons for changing enrollment patterns (see below for more examples).   Just Monday he sat idly by as the same report was presented in Faculty Senate and said nothing.  This is how he treats his faculty.

The evidence is clear.  The words and actions of Provost Paul DeLuca Jr. reveal a lack of commitment to and respect for shared governance, a disturbing paternalism when it comes to racial/ethnic students and the working class (see below for more), and an outright smug elitism when it comes to answering important questions.  He is harming the institution, tarnishing our reputation for sifting and winnowing, and it's long past time for him to move on.


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Want to know more about DeLuca?

Check out what DeLuca said to the Wisconsin State Journal about the reason for the sharp uptick in international student enrollment at UW-Madison in fall 2012.

Here is my letter to the WSJ in response:


Dear Editor,

I appreciate your coverage of the recent report issued by the UW-Madison Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions, and Financial Aid. But I am mystified by comments made by Provost Paul DeLuca in response.  He reports that the growth in the percent of admitted international students who decided to enroll in UW-Madison this past fall (the “yield rate”) was “unexpected” and there was “no purposefulness to it.”  This statement sharply contrasts with the explicit goals and travels of former Chancellor Biddy Martin, who sought to increase enrollment of international students, and flies in the face of publicly available data.  

This document shows that in 2012, UW-Madison experienced a 4% growth in the rate of applications among international students, and matched that with a one-year increase of 53% in the acceptance rate of those students, jumping from 26.9 to 41.3% between 2011-2012 (the average increase in the acceptance rate over the prior 5 years was 34%). Even if the applicant pool was somehow much more qualified, this decision to accept more international students undoubtedly contributed to the higher representation of them on campus. In addition, 30.6% of those students accepted the offer of admission and enrolled—at a rate that DeLuca found surprising, presumably because the rate in 2011 was 20.5%.  However, the average yield over the prior five years was 30.2%-- almost exactly the yield in the single year 2012! The only way the Provost could have been genuinely surprised by the outcome is if his enrollment management team used just one year of data rather than a longer-term trend to do their planning.  Given their expertise, this seems highly unlikely.

Most troubling, Provost DeLuca made these same statements last fall when asking the UW System Board of Regents to raise the cap on non-resident enrollment, a request that was initiated because of this “surprising” turn of events.  Given our commitment to seeking and reporting the truth at this great research university, these repeated assertions are disconcerting.  The UW can decide its future and its enrollment, but the Wisconsin public deserves transparency and accuracy in reporting about how outcomes are achieved.

After reading all of the stats, you deserve a break so check out these photos from Paul's most recent trip to China!

Then, take a look at what we recommended regarding ending reciprocity for Minnesota students at UW-Madison, and next consider his response.

Notice that DeLuca expresses concern that ending reciprocity would mean only wealthy MN students could apply to Madison, conveniently overlooking the data in our report that indicates that the students from MN are much wealthier than Wisconsin residents to begin with. Table 2 shows that the average family income of a MN student at UW-Madison is $105,000, compared to $80,000 of WI residents at UW-Madison.  In other words, the reciprocity agreement is regressive.

Second, with regard to the concept of ending reciprocity at the flagship, DeLuca says ""Every now and then, someone makes a suggestion like that," DeLuca said. "That's a very narrow, short-sided perspective."  First of all, the phrase is "short-sighted." Second, this proposal hasn't been made before-- this isn't about ending reciprocity for the entire state-- it's about exempting ONE campus--Madison.  Wisconsin is highly unusual in including it's only flagship in such an agreement.  The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has never analyzed the costs of keeping it in-- those costs, Deluca fails to note, add up to $40-50 million a year for Madison.  This is a new idea and not a short-sighted one, all about the long-term ability of Madison to serve the state residents.

And, incredibly, the Provost manages to equate Milwaukee and "diversity" with "students who aren't prepared to succeed" and in the ultimate display of hubris, says it is "immoral" to bring them to Madison.  To be clear-- we recommended that the city of Milwaukee's residents have greater opportunities to attend UW-Madison.  We did not suggest they come unprepared.  But DeLuca lept immediately from Milwaukee to "diversity" to under-preparation.  Amazingly, he suggested that our committee didn't discuss academic preparation needed to succeed at Madison-- again, outright false-- it's mentioned throughout the report-- over and over again.  But DeLuca thinks in terms of test scores, not extraordinary performance, not uncommon life circumstances, and when he sees "color" he thinks "under-prepared." That is really something. Is it any wonder that during his period of "leadership" the percent of students of color on campus has declined, organizations working to improve campus climate have felt entirely unsupported by the university, and morale among faculty and staff of color is reportedly at a low point?

Finally, please note again that this Provost has representation on our committee, saw the report in advance, and yet never raised any questions about the data or the proposals.  Of course, not til the reporters called.

Hard Questions About Teaching at UW-Madison

I received the following letter this morning from a colleague, and with her permission I am reprinting it because  the message it contains is a critical one for our community to hear and discuss.  

Dear Sara,

First, thank you sincerely for your courage to stand up for your convictions, and to air them at the Faculty Senate and in your blog.

Please allow me briefly to share my personal experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison concerning attitudes toward undergraduate education and inequity in faculty salaries, and how, from my perspective, these affect the budget of the university, the future of our children, and the economics of our State/country.

I have been on the UW-Madison faculty of the School of Medicine and Public Health (Medical School) for twenty years.  The Medical School employs scientists with expertise found nowhere else on the campus (or even the world) and pays salaries that are considerably higher than those of faculty in many other schools here. 

Yet, amazingly, Medical School scientists, despite their unique expertise and high salaries, have minimal-to-no obligation to formally teach in the classroom and no obligation at all to teach undergraduates – in fact, we are discouraged from doing so.  Many of my colleagues earn in excess of $150K and carry out no classroom teaching (though, as suggested by our colleague at the Faculty Senate meeting yesterday, let’s formalize the data).

It is well known that undergraduate-level biology courses at the UW-Madison are bursting at the seams, and are often taught by non-tenured faculty who are outstanding educators. Nevertheless, is it my imagination, or is the university duplicating salaries to pay non-tenured faculty to teach undergraduate courses that salaried tenured faculty could teach, but do not? 

I do not understand the rationale for this. 

I feel that, were the public aware of this situation, they would embrace a solution in which every faculty member on this campus contributes something to undergraduate education, and in which every Department on this campus, whatever its School affiliation, allocates some portion of its budget to formal undergraduate classroom teaching. 

Why can’t we all roll up our sleeves and help undergraduates get more for their tuition dollars?  In the Medical School, a relatively small number of courses is taught to medical students- the hundreds of surplus science faculty within this School could contribute to the large undergraduate biology courses, bringing down class numbers from the hundreds to 20-30.  We can also carry out the jobs of teaching assistants, and/or offer tutorials to supplement lectures and labs.   I am not asking medical doctors to do this, but the scientists - we know this stuff.   

Unfortunately, there is great resistance in the Medical School to teaching undergraduates.  I spent two years chairing a task force within the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center (SCRMC) to develop an undergraduate Stem Cell Sciences (SCS) Certificate.  The SCRMC consists of a campus-wide faculty with expertise in various aspects of stem cell biology.  My committee decided that the most appropriate administrative home for the SCS Certificate would be my Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology within the Medical School. 

Our request for help to administer the Certificate was turned down by Deans Robert Golden and Rick Moss, on the basis that we do not have the resources to be involved in undergraduate education.  Yet, undergraduates work in our laboratories in the Medical School; their labor fuels our research programs and grants.

I then approached Interim Chancellor David Ward for help, who sent me to Provost Paul DeLuca who sent me to Dr. Aaron Brower.  Rather than support the Stem Cell Certificate for undergraduates, Dr. Brower’s suggestion was that we create a Capstone course, in which recent graduates would pay for a short-term course in Stem Cell Sciences. In essence, squeeze the recent graduates and their families out of more money post-graduation, having already diminished the value of their four years of tuition dollars by ignoring their need for a formal experience in Stem Cell Sciences as undergraduates.

Fifteen years after Dr. Jamie Thomson’s report of the isolation of human embryonic stem cells, there is neither a course in Stem Cell Biology for undergraduates at the UW-Madison nor a Certificate in Stem Cell Sciences.   It is not for want of trying; rather, it is because most of the stem cell expertise lies within a Medical School that does not support undergraduate teaching. Under the circumstances, my SCRMC Education Committee is offering the best we can to undergraduates in the hope that it will help them with job recruitment:  an unofficial letter from Dr. Tim Kamp, Director of the SCRMC, stating that a small number of courses was taken which included some reference to the concepts of stem cell biology.

As my daughter’s graduating class from West High School are about to enter college, neither she nor many of her friends will attend the UW-Madison, despite the counselors' best efforts to direct them to the UW System schools. Rather, they will spread out to private LACs, most on the East coast, where teaching is a priority. Thus, the statistics that you presented at yesterday’s Faculty Senate meeting on the ~10% decline in the number of Wisconsin residents attending the UW-Madison over the past decade was striking – what is the reason for that decline? Does lack of access to teaching by expert faculty, and thus, providing less for more money, have anything to do with it?

Now, as I am daring publicly to reveal that many of our faculty do not teach or teach very little, despite their large salaries, I wonder what action the taxpayers and our State legislators will take?  Are undergraduate tuition dollars at this university, which keep increasing, providing the most bang for the buck?  From my perspective, the answer is a resounding "no".   The State of Wisconsin can, and should, demand so much more from us.

Sincerely,

Karen Downs

Professor, Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology

University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health

Not in Our Names

I have said it before and will say it again:  Please do not conflate the beliefs and actions of University faculty, students, or staff with the beliefs and actions of the Administrators.

Today I am flat-out embarrassed by the possibility that anyone might think that the educators, staff, or students of UW-Madison uniformly support the latest shenanigans perpetrated by our administration.  Three such action are especially revolting.

1. Administrators sent threatening letters to our students who are working diligently to ensure that those "in charge" uphold the ethical code of conduct governing UW-Madison's business relationships, rather than kowtow to the business owners of Milwaukee.   More on that in the coming days.

2. The Interim Chancellor played "holier than thou" in a reprehensible letter published Friday about the words of a faculty member, Lydia Zepeda, chair of the shared governance committee on Labor Codes Licensing Compliance. He used the race card against her, calling into question a statement that makes complete and utter sense--and in doing so suggests that he is allowed to stand in judgement of what is "becoming" of shared governance leaders.

3. Tomorrow, Administrators will issue a press announcement in which it will attempt to deflect critique of UW-Madison's substantial rainy day fund, by asking campus "leaders" to show all of the ways in which the money is being used for "good cause." You can bet that the announcement will say nothing about the fact that the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates has failed to address students' major needs, including removing bottlenecks in course access, because the money has been distributed in non-transparent ways, including contributing to this rainy day fund.  Try to look inside Madison's budget-- try asking "what's the real cost of an undergraduate education" and how does this compare to the price being charged? You'll get nowhere.  Defensive budgeting may be expected given the behavior of the Legislature, but it remains detrimental to all of the university's publics.

Sadly, you'll likely see little of our internal dissent revealed at tomorrow's Faculty Senate meeting because shared governance, constrained as it is by fear and conservatism all around us, will be a short and sweet "front" to what's really going on.  Amazingly, this is the last meeting we'll hold until OCTOBER, showing you just how seriously this system is taken.  In the meantime, a new Chancellor and her people will come in, take over, and make a million decisions while most of us are scattered elsewhere, working frantically to get our research done.  Come fall, no doubt more surprises will be revealed.

As he leaves this second term of office, I am left wondering: Why isn't Chancellor Ward choosing to leave the University the proud, ethical institution it has the opportunity to be?  Why not do right by the exploited workers of Palermo's? Why not praise his students and faculty for speaking truth to power in this terrifying age of attacks on academic freedom?  Why not push the subsequent UW Administration towards greater transparency, not teach them how to hide?  Why act like one of the crowd, rather than a leader for the greater good? Carpe diem, Chancellor.

A Letter to Chancellor Ward

This letter went to Ward this morning.  Yesterday's Capital Times noted that a key issue here is a failure on the Administration's part to listen and communicate with campus the same way it does with business. I couldn't agree more.

May 3, 2013

Dear Chancellor Ward,

We are deeply troubled by your latest statement on Palermo’s Pizza, in which you conveyed a continued refusal to acknowledge the findings of the National Labor Relations Board and Worker Rights Consortium. UW-Madison has a history of upholding our Code of Conduct, which the university adopted for a reason.

You have repeatedly claimed to not have enough information to take action toward Palermo’s. This is despite the fact that last November, the National Labor Relations Board found Palermo’s in violation of numerous counts of violating federal labor law, including worker intimidation, physically blocking workers from going on strike, and illegally terminating 11 workers. Though the NLRB may have absolved Palermo’s of other charges, the threshold for warranting a contract cut is one violation. Additionally, on March 11, another unfair labor practice charge has been filed to the NLRB involving the firing of a worker for their union activity.

In addition to the NLRB decision, the Worker Rights Consortium, after an investigation of the Palermo’s plant, determined the company to be in violation of our university Code of Conduct, which establishes a higher standard of labor practices than the NLRB. To be clear, the Worker Rights Consortium performs their inspections contingent upon international labor law, and not the National Labor Relations Act.

We would like to remind you that the Worker Rights Consortium, on February 5th, 2013 recommended: “The WRC concluded that the company must take two key steps to comply with university codes of conduct. First, Palermo must promptly reinstate the striking employees it terminated or permanently replaced employees, with full back pay.” Palermo’s has made no effort to remedy neither the charges of the NLRB, nor the Worker Rights Consortium.

While you claim to be ‘deeply engaged on this issue,’ and to ‘have discussed this issue repeatedly with students, faculty, staff, and campus governance,’ you seem to have a misconstrued impression of what discussion actually entails. Members of the Student Labor Action Coalition first approached you on this issue in a letter on September 24, 2012. In the over seven months that have passed since then, we have consistently written to update you on the situation, with no response from your office.

On Monday, April 29th, students sat-in in your office because for over 200 days you have brazenly ignored our attempts to engage in a conversation on this issue, but even then, you chose to arrest these students, rather than engage in a dialogue with them. This was also your response in 1999 and 2000, when students raised the issue of worker rights, and now you have successfully cemented your legacy at UW-Madison as an anti-worker, anti-student Chancellor. Despite your overly severe reaction to the students who occupied the anteroom to your office on Monday, we will continue to defend the moral compass of the UW-Madison from your efforts to tarnish it.

Sincerely,

UWMAD@Palermo’s Coalition

The Resource Costs of UW-Madison Diversity Programs: A Response

This morning, Emeritus Professor of Economics Lee Hansen released a WISCAPE paper about the "resource costs of minority and disadvantaged student programs at UW-Madison" and in about an hour he will host a brownbag on the topic in the Wisconsin Idea Room at the School of Education.  I am on a flight to LA and thus will miss it; therefore I offer my perspective here.

I have a wide range of experience that I can bring to bear on these issues, having analyzed the reports of UW-Madison and UW System myself for nearly a decade, chaired the Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid shared governance committee for many years, and engaged in numerous analyses of the costs and benefits of higher education programs throughout the nation. I also know Lee, both personally and professionally.  As I offer these thoughts, I want to note the sincere belief that he seeks to improve the ways in which we serve minority and disadvantaged students in this country, and does not seek to exclude them from opportunities.  However, on the most effective and appropriate  mechanisms through which this should be achieved, he and I disagree sharply.

There are 5 things you should keep in mind in reading his report.

1. It is imperative that more faculty at UW-Madison and UW System get involved in analyzing the practices of our institution.  We are key shareholders, the most important and long-standing actors, the educators, and we are smart, critical, and essential.  We should support Lee's demands that we be provided with data to facilitate a closer look at how resources are used.  There is abundant evidence that they are not being used well.

2. The debate over the public and private benefits of higher education is far from resolved. Lee has staked out one side of that debate for many decades; in fact he led the charge nationally in the late 1960s, along with Milton Friedman, for a move to the private financing of higher education-- with financial aid distributed in the form of vouchers to facilitate choice.  We have Lee to thank, in part, for today's system in which students and families bear 2/3rds or more of the costs of attendance, while government picks up an ever smaller fraction.  His beliefs in this regard are reflected in the questions he raises about whom the benefits of diversity programming accrue to-- who should pay, he thinks, depends on who benefits. And, he thinks, educational benefits can and should be evaluated in this way too.  I sharply disagree-- education is a citizen's right, it is (unfortunately) America's only real effort to ensure equality of opportunity for a decent life-- and as such it should be publicly supported.  It has been a political choice to devote little time and resources toward documenting the public benefits of higher education, instead allowing the focus of labor economists like Lee to hammer on the private benefits over and over again.

3. The type of cost-benefit analysis undertaken in the paper gives the aura of science when in fact it is art.  Like all social scientists, Lee is relying on numerous assumptions about what should and shouldn't count when accounting for all of the costs. He is including ingredients in his model that obviously the accountants at UW-Madison and UW System left out-- on both side those are choices, but there is no clear right or wrong here.   Thus, it is merely political rhetoric on Lee's part to claim that UW has failed to be transparent in its accounting-- the Legislature itself failed in clearly specifying its expectations.

4. The timing of this report release and brown bag reeks of political motives as well, coming just weeks or even days before the pending Supreme Court ruling on Fisher vs Texas, in the midst of UW's diversity planning, and right after UW System was taken to task for another accounting "snafu."

5. The report repeatedly cherry picks evidence on the benefits and costs of diversity, ignoring entirely the recent paper issued by other UW-Madison economists, Bobbi Wolfe and Jason Fletcher, on the consequences of racial diversity.

All that said, I do think Lee is providing one important service: asking us to take a hard look at our activities beyond admissions.  As Doug Massey has written, affirmative action programs come in three flavors-- the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The best ones generate compositional diversity and leverage that diversity to improve the learning environment for everyone.  The bad ones do the former and not the latter. The ugly ones don't succeed at either.

We are currently in the ugly category at Madison.  We bring students to campus and throw resources at them but fail to give leaders in this area sufficient stature and power to effect real change.  We have segregated classrooms and living spaces, and we tokenize our racial-ethnics.

Since this report is now in the public eye, I make the following recommendations:

1. UW-Madison and UW System should take seriously the contention that faculty, staff, and students deserve greater access and involvement in how resources are spent. I think that a cabinet of social scientists advisors should supplement the UC, and that incoming Chancellor Blank should convene this group. This group should have methodological, disciplinary, and substantive heterogeneity and expertise.

2.  A discussion of costs and benefits should be undertaken for all sorts of programs on campus, including Athletics, Greek Life, faculty professional development etc.  Minority programming is not our only expense, nor our most expensive.

3. This report should not be merely ignored or dismissed as nonsense by Administration.  Use the opportunity to have a conversation about diversity and how we can do better in utilizing it to enhance our educational experiences.  Also leverage this chance to have a discussion about public and private goods.  A report I will make to the Faculty Senate on Monday about the characteristics of incoming students, developed by CURAFA, should help move that conversation forward.


I wish you all well at today's brownbag, and look forward to hearing about the discussion.

The Wisconsin Idea: Student Fee Allocation Norms in Wisconsin Surfacing in Other Big 10 Schools

This post is authored by Maria K. Giannopoulos,  Vice Chair of the Associated Students of Madison at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be reached at mgiannopoulo@wisc.edu 

In an article published by the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this week, Anil Wadhwani of Northwestern and Jonathan Green of Cambridge describe how the Northwestern University administration is giving students a voice in the college budget process.

To some, giving students a voice regarding the use of their fees may be a no-brainer, but at many institutions administrators and staff unilaterally decide the distribution of fees and ideas for student services. The authors cite "shortsighted vision" and high student turnover as possible reasons to limit student engagement in the fee process. But at Northwestern, administration finally realized that despite these potential issues, student input was valuable and attainable.

In Wisconsin, our conception of student power is even stronger. The power of allocating and deciding on the use of fees is codified in state statute and in University of Wisconsin (UW) system policy. Chapter 36.09(5) in state statute declares, “Students shall have the primary responsibility for the formulation and review of policies concerning student life, services, and interests." Under Financial Policy 50, set by the UW System Board of Regents, Segregated University Fees (SUF) are allocated by students in consultation with the chancellor and subject to the final confirmation of the Board of Regents, in accordance with the statue mentioned above.

The system afforded by Wisconsin’s higher education governing documents highlights the shared governance that we students, faculty, staff, and administration use to make decisions. When all voices are present at the table, an outcome more fitting of the representative groups comes to fruition, rather than decisions made in the absence of key stakeholders. In the case of student fees, students allocate money to student groups and services. Who knows better than students about the needs and requirements of student life and services? No one.

Wadhwani and Green note that the committee at Northwestern is one that mirrors the SUF Allocation Committees across the state of Wisconsin. “The committee isn't a focus group, and it doesn't merely rubber-stamp the decisions of higher-ups. Rather, it allows Northwestern students to suggest concrete solutions to real problems with the undergraduate experience.”

This is a promising victory for student power in private colleges. Northwestern is the only private university within the Big 10, although University of Michigan and Penn State have private roots. Even though many private universities do have student input, they may only be bound to Trustees or a Board of Directors instead of a state statute or Board of Regents like we have in Wisconsin. The same could also be said for public institutions in other states nationwide.

Students in Wisconsin have a voice on how their money is spent, and it's about time that other institutions emulate the model we have here. 

Advice for Chancellor Blank from a UW Employee

This afternoon I received the following email from a UW employee who, unlike myself, does not enjoy tenure and thus prefers to convey this advice to the incoming chancellor anonymously.  I recognize and sympathize with that concern, and thus am simply reprinting it here in full.  I believe this advice, coming from someone with plenty of experience at the institution, is worth full consideration. If you have your own words of advice to share, please send them along!

Dear Dr. Goldrick-Rab –

If Dr. Blank is willing to listen to you, and I hope she does, one thing you might want to suggest is that she does not start calling herself “Becky” but instead be referred to as Rebecca when she wants to go “casual.”

David Ward was never been referred to by anyone as “Dave,” and if John Wiley had a nickname or pet name as a child, he certainly did not use that on his official correspondence or when he was quoted in the press.   This is, after all, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   Excellence in teaching and research is how we convince people to give us their money or send us their children to educate. 

Trying to be cute or folksy is not what the alumni, citizens, or corporate  and foundation donors are looking for.  Two of my children were enrolled at UW-Madison when “Biddy” was the Chancellor, and neither one of them understood where the widely reported “love” that all the students at Wisconsin supposedly had for Biddy came from.

Thank you.

On Process

Paul Fanlund's column today on the process through which Rebecca Blank was selected as chancellor raises some very important questions.  These strike me as the sorts of questions that one should ask regardless of whether or not they agree with the choice of Blank.  After all, these process issues go to the heart of how we select a chancellor at a shared governance institution.

1. How are we to know whom the campus "unanimously" supports?

The current practice is that the process of official input from shared governance bodies ends when the search and screen committee names its four finalists.

When that committee meets with the Regents special committee, it is to provide input on what people on campus said about all of the candidates.  At no point in the Blank search did the search and screen committee have the opportunity to tell the Regent committee whom the campus "unanimously" chose. Moreover, the search and screen committee did not have a clear selection of a candidate-- there was widespread disagreement.

This should be changed to allow the shared governance search and screen the chance to officially vote on a candidate after campus visits, just as they do when hiring a faculty member.  At the very least, that official vote could be conveyed to the Regents.

2. Why is the campus asked to write in with their comments about candidates if there is no official process through which that information is compiled and shared?

Comments were received through 5 pm Thursday evening. The shared governance committee met with the Regents Friday morning, and the decision was made that same day.  What was done with all of those submitted emails in the meantime? Were they counted?  Did they reflect "unanimous" support from campus groups?

This has the potential to greatly reduce campus involvement in the process.  There should be a transparent process through which feedback is collected and the information systematically made available to decision-makers well before the decision is made.

3. Which campus groups are prioritized in the selection of a chancellor?

Fanlund's article says that Blank was unanimously supported "by the various campus constituencies that include campus deans, the University Committee, which is the executive committee of the Faculty Senate, as well as affiliated entities such as the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and the Wisconsin Alumni Association."

What about the Associated Students of Madison?  Academic Staff? These are two of the three shared governance bodies and yet are not mentioned, while WARF and WAA, not part of shared governance, are.  Who are Fanlund's "not for attribution sources" and what does this set of priorities reflect?

The shared governance bodies should have clear priority in this effort.

4.  Is it appropriate for the shared governance Search and Screen Committee to be forbidden by the search firm from exploring the candidate's background (aka conducting "due diligence") other than through their written materials?  Why does that committee's last vote come without full information?

Again, this is a recipe for disaster. It should not be allowed in future searches. Frankly, the search firm should not be allowed to do anything more than recruit candidates.  Members should not attend interviews or create rules for a shared governance committee.

Finally, as someone who appreciates empirical evidence, I have just two last remarks.  I am struck by the fact that Fanlund opens his article by noting that Blank met with the Regents "without seeming to survey eyes around the room to gauge what interviewers wanted to hear" and finished 20 minutes early, and yet was judged to be an "effective listener.""Her ability to communicate" was judged of key importance.  How is this possible?  Not only do these observations stand at odds with the characteristics of good listeners, but many people, including Professor Chad Goldberg, student committees, and I all observed a pattern of not listening and not answering questions in a straightforward manner.  Since we all entered the process very excited to have a liberal social scientist become chancellor, it seems unlikely that we ignored strong communication skills. How can we make sense of this?

In a similar vein, what information did the Regents use to conclude that Blank was comfortable with shared governance?  The only available statements from shared governance members indicate significant concerns with her interactions with those members.  What assessment protocol did they use to determine this was incorrect?

Given that, as Fanlund notes, "there seemed to be much focus during this process on not repeating what was now regarded as a mistake in having hired Martin in 2008" and given that the known mistake was in the Regents' selection of Biddy Martin over Rebecca Blank (the campus pick)-- and that fast forward several years it seems we may be here yet again, with Rebecca Blank chosen over Michael Schill (whom I'm told by my 'sources' was the pick of many, many people on the search & screen, and the students), well...this is all quite odd.  What's also amazing is the amount of attention the media has devoted to covering the outcome of the search, rather than doing the kind of investigative reporting needed to ensure that major social institutions are accountable and responsive to their publics.  I imagine that when you know no one will ask questions, it's awfully easy to act as if you'll never have to provide answers.

A Delicious Revenue-Generating Idea for UW-Madison

This story in today's New York Times made me happy because it emphasized an approach to revenue-generation consistent with the mission of many public universities, especially land-grant institutions: develop ways to produce excellent agricultural output.   Washington State University is selling beef, including Wagyu, and marketing it to alumni-- among others.

This is a perfect fit for UW-Madison, which could strategically expand its exist talents via the Babcock Dairy (ice cream and cheese) and Bucky's Butchery, as well as the excellent crops that could be produced by star faculty.

Here's a sample line of potential UW-Madison products that could be marketed throughout the Midwest and indeed across the country to our adoring alumni. 

1. Ice cream It's already available, but why not ship it to alumni who miss it? As a friend put it, who wouldn't want to try ice cream made by the flagship university of America's dairyland?
2. Cheeses (we have award winning cheddar, already in gift sets, but why not market this in tandem with the book store?)
3. Cuts of beef, pork, and lamb --all of which Bucky's already offers; this need only be scaled up.
4. Bucky sausages (these already exist)
5. Bucky's Hot Sticks (these already exist)
6. Former Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Bill Tracy's famous corn (and canned corn)
7. Professor Irwin Goldman's beautiful beets (and canned beets)

Moreover, the  Madison community could easily facilitate a community-supported agricultural model, which might also produce food for the campus and the child care sites therein.

This is the kind of money-making activity that benefits the school without compromising any core values and actually growing educational opportunities for students in an area highly-supported by the state legislature. It's worth serious thought.

ps. I've been informed by uwbadger74 on Twitter that a UW Regents policy prohibits these sorts of activities because they compete with private businesses. That policy is here, and should be revisited.

Equity, Performance, and Employee Compensation

Every employee at UW-Madison believes they deserve to be paid more, and the vast majority are right. It's time we recognize and begin to address the fact that most workers across Wisconsin are underpaid--in UW and far beyond. Increasing compensation for everyone in the bottom half of the income distribution should be a state and national priority, especially given the evident and long-lasting consequences of widening income inequality.

Unfortunately, the HR Design plan at UW-Madison is nearly silent on the issue of raising compensation for all currently underpaid employees. Instead, it focuses on how compensation levels will be determined and how raises will be distributed when money is available.  It does nothing whatsoever to make sure more money is available. Remember that-- don't allow the desire for more pay to lead you to blindly accept the terms of a plan that doesn't bring more pay but rather changes the terms on which you are paid.  

The biggest change related to compensation in the HR Design is the new and explicit attention to "market competitiveness" in setting compensation levels and determining raises. This is a response to the status quo, which has been identified as a problem with this statement:

"State law prohibits UW–Madison from giving unclassified employees performance-based pay raises unless they are part of an annual pay plan—and there has not been a pay plan in four years" (p. 24).  

What exactly is the problem?  Is it that performance pay cannot be given outside of annual pay plans? Or is it that there hasn't been a pay plan in 4 years? These are two separate issues, and should be tackled separately.  The first is about pay equity, and the second is about the consequences of austerity agendas.  Current discussions conflate these issues-- employees are upset about the lack of a pay plan and thus some are desperate to agree to anything that leads to pay, for anyone, no matter the consequence. That's a recipe for disaster.

It seems the HR team has concluded that the former issue must be addressed and therefore proposed mechanisms for awarding performance pay even in the absence of a pay plan by calling for a model that "balances market competitiveness and internal equity."  Essentially, instead of developing a new model for UW-Madison that leverages scarce resources for fair and humane treatment of all employees, this model opens the door to further growth in salary inequities across and within units.  It does this by promoting salary increases based at least partly on market competitiveness without explicitly requiring attention to internal equity, as part of both the compensation philosophy and the roles and responsibilities of managers.

The reasoning provided for this approach is fallible. We are told that employees want their pay based on market competitiveness-- yet the survey questions utilized in the employee polls ask about these issues in isolation. A better approach would ask employees to rank their preferences-- a pay plan distributed equitably, with some additional pay for performance; pay distributed inequitably, with no overall pay plan provided, etc. In other words, when presented with a false choice, it isn't at all surprising that employees choose to protect themselves. But what we're given here isn't our only option.

A review of extant research leads me to conclude that pay for performance has uneven effects in environments like UW-Madison. The main issue at Madison and across Wisconsin is that pay levels are low-- not that they aren't tied to performance.  Tying pay to a combination of performance and equity will reduce, not enhance, the transparency of the compensation process, and thus likely increase the sense of injustice that already pervades campus.  Basing pay on an unspecified assessment of market value will lead employees to feel even more left out of the process, making them even unhappier. In other words, it is likely that HR Design will do nothing to improve the feelings among UW employees that their compensation levels are unfair and inappropriate.   It may even make things worse.

As an alternative, I therefore propose the following revisions to the HR Design's compensation plans:

(1) Make internal equity a priority in the setting of compensation by describing it as an explicit priority central to the compensation philosophy and part of the compensation function's roles and responsibilities.  Educational institutions are unique environments that place a priority on collaboration, including across disciplines, and it is for the good of our teaching and research at UW-Madison that we be allowed to prioritize internal equity when distributing any and all forms of compensation.  This is an essential revision of state statutes and one we should fight for.

(2) Clearly define the terms "market," "performance," and "merit" in the plan and delineate among them. Be clear, which types of pay result in base increases, and which do not?

(3) Provide explicit guidance to managers working with employees who work across units or in interdisciplinary settings. These areas are where pay based on markets are likely to do the most harm - imagine the sociologist teaching alongside the economist in the same department, where the latter professor (most often a male) out-earns the former (usually a female) 2 to 1. It happens under our current system, and is demonstrably counterproductive. These are the types of problems we can and should fix in order to enhance our ability to retain workers and ensure their flourishing.

(4) Include all employees-- included contracted employees--in the plan to provide a living wage.
 The only people who will clearly benefit from HR Design in terms of current base pay are those at the bottom of the pay scale who will remain university staff and will now receive a living wage under this plan.  The number of people meeting that description is not mentioned in the plan.  That number should be considered in relation to the likely number of jobs that are currently university staff jobs and will instead be contracted out to save the university money. The City of Madison pays living wages to all contractors on contract over $5,000.

UW-Madison should take the lead in reducing income inequality in Wisconsin, not exacerbating it. We are national leaders when it comes to our collective devotion to our work, and that strong intrinsic motivation should be leveraged whenever and wherever possible.  No, it should not be exploited--as it now is-- to justify underpaying us. But do not let the poor practices of our neighbors compel us to lose what's great about our community--we have no desire to become a "winner take all" society.

Back to College

UW-Madison students are happy students, as we recently learned from the Huffington Post. This high ranking of our institution is a coup when it comes to attracting more applications, and since we rise in rankings by rejecting more applicants (and rightly care about happiness), this will likely be seen as a good thing.

Of course I'm delighted that our students are happy. Pleased as punch that they rate our sports culture and political activity highly (a 9 and an 8 out of 10 respectively), and the opportunities for things to do "endless."  It's wonderful-- they are spirited, free-thinking, and enthusiastic, and as all of my students well know, I love to teach them.

But with love (yes, really) I need to offer a little constructive critique. We have some things to work on and they directly pertain to the educational mission (and indirectly the affordability mission) of our school.   In that same set of rankings we scored just a 6 on "professors accessible" and a 7 on "intellectual life."  Maybe I'm hopelessly old-fashioned, but those are the things that students and families are purportedly paying tuition for-- courses and learning.

Or not.  I suppose, really not.  If you take a look at the latest video produced by the UW-Madison Administration, apparently my framing is not theirs, and a high-quality education offered by professors is not the message Madison seeks to attract and retain students with.

Here is WELCOME BACK to UW-MADISON.  It's definitely maximizing the sports culture rating. But I'll buy you a scoop of Babcock ice cream if you can glean any sense of an academic message about school from it.

Renewing the Commitment

This piece is cross-posted from the Chronicle of Higher Education, where it originally appeared as part of a forum on higher education and inequality. I highly recommend reading the full set of posts contained on the COHE website.

In 1947 the historic Truman Commission called for national investments in higher education to promote democracy by enabling all people to earn college degrees. Subsequent expansion of community colleges, adult education, and federal aid occurred not in the name of economic stimulation but to reduce inequality and further active citizenship.

Those ambitions have been steadily corrupted. Today the Tea Party casts the college-educated as snobbish and fundamentally disconnected. Many four-year colleges and universities reinforce that perception by focusing on rankings and alumni satisfaction rather than affordability and national service. Educators speak about business objectives, maximizing revenue through models that charge high tuition and give high aid to needy students, and using a meritocracy narrative that denies the strong role played by a family's ability to pay. The results are stark: Among high-achieving students, just 44 percent of those whose families are in the bottom 25 percent of annual income attend college, compared with 80 percent of those whose families are in the top 25 percent.

In this new world, market-based solutions increase inequality by design. As David F. Labaree documented in Someone Has to Fail, credentialing has replaced learning, and as a result, many students are derided for being what the authors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa dismiss as Academically Adrift.

The current model ensures that private returns in the form of high-paying jobs accrue only to some, and it justifies minimal public investment in education.

Corporations act as gatekeepers, insisting that only degrees from elite colleges matter, while refusing to pay higher taxes to adequately support public higher education. It is to their advantage: They benefit financially from the for-profit colleges that are filling a void they helped create. The reality is cruel: Many families now dream the same college dream families always have, but run in place in their efforts to achieve it. Heavy debt even drags some backwards.

Colleges and universities vigorously participate in this process. As they lose state support, public flagships turn inward rather than to their communities, focusing on the self-preservation and pursuit of prestige that led them astray. Private universities help their public counterparts fail by promoting idealistic standards of "quality" and practices (such as offering grants rather than loans) that the public institutions simply can't afford. Too many leaders of public universities make common cause with elite private colleges rather than with their public brethren.

Underneath it all resides a fear-driven backlash against educational and economic opportunities for people of color and the working class. Since the civil-rights movement, and especially during President Ronald Reagan's tenure, a focus on private rights and personal responsibilities has replaced concern for social welfare. Remarkably, Reagan convinced the nation that individuals should pay to achieve the American dream. No president since has managed to combat that narrative. In today's focus on paying for performance and metrics, we hear echoes of President Bill Clinton's efforts to reform welfare by telling poor mothers to work for it.

Such rhetoric is fundamentally un-American. As John Dewey reminded us, sustaining democracy requires that we collectively provide for all children what we want for our own children. Anything else simply isn't fair. The politics of austerity have resulted in a paucity of active citizens pursuing democratic ideals by maintaining and expanding public investments. In that climate, New York State stands out for bucking the trend and promoting public higher education with limited reliance on tuition. So, too, do the university presidents urging President Obama to put into effect maintenance-of-effort requirements—requiring states to finance public colleges at a minimum level—to renew the social compact on which our great higher-education system was built. They are bravely rejecting the claim that private markets hold the key to great public needs. In doing so, those leaders may help bring the country back together.

Wisconsin Supports UVA

The nation is waiting on the UVA Regents to do the right thing.  There is plenty of action afoot at UW-Madison to weigh in on these key issues of money and power, and you'll see more in the coming days. In the meantime, let's make this point loud and clear whenever and wherever possible.

‎"In solidarity with our colleagues at the University of Virginia, we affirm that a public institution of higher education is not a business."


Here are initial signatories-- please comment on this post to add your voice.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education, UW-Madison
David Ahrens, President, Wisconsin University Union
Charity Schmidt and Matt Reiter, Co-Presidents of the TAA
Seth Hoffmeister, President, United Council of Students
Beth Huang, Incoming Vice-President, United Council of Students
Sara Goldrick-Rab, Chair, UW-Madison Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions & Financial Aid

More on the Efforts to Marketize UW-Madison

A few months ago I wrote about the HR Design process at UW-Madison.  Some readers questioned the accuracy of my assertions.  We have new confirmatory information obtained via open records requests.  It seems the Huron Engagement has been expensive, indeed.   In the following memo, the Wisconsin University Union summarizes what we now know. It's a bit long, so I have underlined and bolded key points.


To: Interested campus employees
From: WUU
Date: June 20, 2012
RE: Memos from Huron Consulting Group

As you may know, Wisconsin University Union (WUU) has filed a series of open meeting and open requests to UW administration to gain access to information on the HR Design Project (the Project).  We initiated these requests because we believed that the effects of the Project will likely be far-reaching and long-term and that despite the administration’s attempt to project a gloss of participation and transparency to the process, it was fundamentally top-down and opaque.

When the administration finally complied with our request, we were disappointed, though not surprised, that most of the documents added little if anything to our knowledge base. For example, minutes of meetings described the topics under discussion but gave no account of the discussions themselves. The exception to this lack of transparency were memos from Huron Consulting Group (HCG) to the Project managers. These memos very briefly summarized the week’s events and posed concerns and questions on the future work of the Project.

For this reason, a month ago, we filed a new request for records specifying HCG memos to administration along with a request for their billings to the UW. After a month wait, we received the records this week.

The memos did not disclose a “smoking gun.” Instead, they confirmed much of what we know about the potential effects of the recommendations.  The following are excerpts of the HCG memos:

(5/3/2012) The work teams are proposing a “contemporary” but not radical approach to HR management at a research university. The model puts greater emphasis on performance and employee development and shifts the focus from internal equity to external competiveness.

The implied shifts for HR management implied (sic):
• Greater emphasis on data and analysis (over set rules)
• Greater reliance on the skills of managers/supervisors
• Ongoing development of central HR as a center of excellence

I (from the HCG staff member) don’t have a good sense of the project team’s appetite for this type/level of change. If this does turn out to be the direction you choose to go, substantial pieces of it will be phased in over time. Still, it represents a significant amount of change that will to be championed by OHR and supported through the application of potentially significant resources.


(5/10/12) Compensation, Performance Management and Workplace Flexibility all have suggestions related to boards or committees being involved in appeals of decisions that impact employees. Ongoing governance (small “g”) of HR functions and processes will be a topic that we need to address over the summer. This is an area where I expect that the campus community will want more specificity in the fall.

Understanding our resource requirements for the summer will evolve as our project plan evolves. At the same time, I would suggest that adding resources is an opportunity to start to build the long-term capabilities of OHR in areas such as compensation.

*****

These excerpts confirm a few of the central objections we have made in prior analyses:
• Salary equity will be abandoned in favor of labor market “competitiveness.”

• Compensation based on labor market analysis will require a substantial on-going investment to build capacity. It is difficult to estimate the cost for new HR staff members or more likely, consultants, to conduct wage and benefit analyses for hundreds of job titles.

• Supervisors and managers will have substantial new powers due to the major shift in compensation responsibility along with new discretionary authority in promotion, hiring, etc. This will require a major investment in training and, one would hope, oversight and supervision of the supervisors. What will be the safeguards against favoritism, discrimination and other adverse effects?

• HCG advises that, that because these new offices will be “substantial”, HR should build its new “empire” slowly and incrementally so as not to call attention to its long-term costs.

• Committees acknowledged that some form of dispute resolution methods will be necessary but have either not specified how this might occur or recommend that the dispute process be overseen by HR. The HCG seems to recognize that employees will likely want better answers.

Consultant Costs:
Billings to UW from HCG:
Nov. 2011: $32,751
Dec. 2011: $154,738
Jan. 2012: $61,714
Feb. 2012: $93,798
Mar. 2012: $89,976
Total:     $432,977

The Travesty at UVA-- Commentary from Judith Burstyn

Today I welcome guest blogger Judith Burstyn, professor of chemistry and former chair of the University Committee at UW-Madison.  She has a short commentary in today's Chronicle of Higher Education, and with her permission, I am printing the entirety of that piece here. Judith was a faculty leader in the battle over the New Badger Partnership, and remains a key player in the efforts to preserve shared governance on our campus. 


Apparently, at today’s University of Virginia, business values trump all. There is a troubling recent trend toward viewing all public institutions in market terms, where value is measured by dollars produced. In recent years, UW-Madison has felt this too, as some of our leaders focus on efficiency via new “flexibilities.” But universities are not businesses. The proper role of universities is the creation of knowledge for the public good, and education of the new generations of citizens and leaders for civil society. Business management approaches are ill suited to nurture the intellectual expansiveness that underlies great scholarship and deep learning. Reliance on narrow, industry-driven curricula simply won’t do. Great universities encompass a wide variety of disciplines, methods and perspectives, irrespective of the marketability of the knowledge they create. Nourishment of the young minds of our future leaders is invaluable to our country, and the University of Virginia and UW-Madison are shining examples of excellence in this regard. I worry that this excellence is at risk.

Without the human capital embodied in their faculty, universities have nothing to offer the students who enter their doors. Great scholars are in high demand, and competition to hire and retain them is fierce. As President Sullivan said yesterday, “At any great university, the equilibrium - the pull between the desire to stay and the inducements to leave - is delicate.” If faculty members feel unsupported in their scholarly pursuits at one institution, they will move to another where there is greater support. The best scholars are the ones with the greatest number of opportunities; therefore, maintaining an outstanding cadre of faculty is an ongoing challenge. Money, as salary or support for scholarship, is only one of many parameters that influence an individual’s decision to stay at an institution or leave it.  And perhaps some of those who threaten UVA know this—aiming to drive out many of the full-time faculty, creating the opportunity to replace them with bottom-line focused adjuncts.

It is far easier to lose stature as a great university than it is to gain it; wise university leaders understand this, and they bring change to their institutions through steady and deliberate engagement of faculty, staff and students. This was precisely the type of leadership that President Sullivan appeared to be providing. Meaningful participation by these stakeholders in institutional governance is a hallmark of universities that are the most productive in terms of scholarship, and where faculty are most likely to happily reside throughout their careers. The courageous opposition to President Sullivan’s dismissal by the University of Virginia faculty senate and its executive committee, and the student council and their leadership, speak of an institution where shared governance is valued and appreciated—if not respected by its Board of Visitors.

The unilateral decision to remove a sitting university president, in the midst of a summer weekend no less, is unprecedented. Despite objections to the firing of President Sullivan by faculty and student leadership, including a vote of no confidence in the board itself by the faculty senate, the board continued its takeover. Acting like a cabal of thieves, they met late into the night, emerging with an egregious decision to replace Sullivan, a sociologist of work, with an interim president: Carl Zeithaml, F.S. Cornell Professor in Free Enterprise and Dean of the McIntire School of Commerce. This action is inimical to their responsibility as the governing board of a university.  In the words of Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the prestigious Association of American Universities and former president of Cornell, “This is the most egregious case I have ever seen of mismanagement by a governing board.”

Last year UW-Madison engaged in many discussions about the creation of its own governing board. The actions at UVA leave great cause for concern. As University of Michigan professor Michael Bastedo has written, governing boards are increasingly embedded in money and politics, engaging in self-interested decision-making.  They tell us “it’s for your own good” in an attempt at moral seduction, and a desire to appear ethical.  Intelligent communities like those at UVA and UW-Madison do not buy this. And they shouldn’t, if they are to remain the excellent and public institutions we can all respect.

It's Time to Wake Up

The smoldering ashes of public higher education can be seen and smelled across the nation, as the once much-lauded, now much-decried University of Virginia goes up in flames.

Pardon my French, but it's about time everyone opened their eyes, ears, and mouth. This stuff stinks!

It's impossible to count how often during the past several years those of us residing at her sister public flagships have heard UVA held up as a model, a "best-practice" of public higher education for the 21st century.  Haven't you heard all about her wondrous break from state government that allowed her the "flexibility" and "innovative freedoms" to raise tuition while expanding affordability, thriving when the rest of us starved?  We at UW-Madison got an earful of it from ex-chancellor Biddy Martin during the fiasco known as the New Badger Partnership. And true believers abounded.

As I said then, that emperor has no clothes.  UVA hasn't been a true public university in some time. It is not a democratic institution where the voices of all constituencies are honored. It is not succeeding in expanding affordability with Access UVA, an ineffective sinkhole into which millions of dollars have been thrown.   It is not flourishing with strong academic programs and a great faculty retention rate.  It is not innovative, not independent, and not a model.  No, it is a rich man's campus, run by millionaires and political conservatives, who are driving agendas disconnected from the needs of educators and students. And those elites just got their way, evicting a president who appears to have stood up to their efforts at "strategic dynamism"-- e.g. the crappification of all that is good and meaningful, and worth investing in in public higher education.

The people governing UVA are like so many of the so-called "reformers" who think efficiency and flexibility are magical words, and who have conveniently but very wrongly diagnosed the challenges facing colleges and universities as residing in the "inmates" -- i.e. the faculty.  These boards and trustees have an unbelievably disrespectful attitude towards the teachers to whom they pay tens of thousands of dollars to educate their children in what they fondly call an "asylum."

The conservative agenda to defund public institutions at all possible levels has created this situation-- not the faculty.  Don't fool yourself -- those who advocate for "holding the line on college costs"  are not doing it for the good of the students but for the good of the corporations who seek to benefit from the rapid growth of the for-profit sector. It is nothing short of devastating that this agenda had confused the public from embracing a genuine affordability agenda, such as the one I support, that works with educators to find affordable approaches to high-quality education and a system of paying for it that maximizes the enrollment and success of students who will benefit most.

Institutional insiders-- high-level administrator types-- have too-easy embraced (sometimes unwittingly) the conservative agenda because they are paid handsomely to do it.  Heck, if they don't oblige quickly, it's clear they'll be fired! After a bit, they begin to enjoy drinking that kool-aid, since they are ensconced in fancy homes, taken to lovely meals, and sent on jaunts to Paris. It's far easier to embrace the business people than to labor in the trenches doing battle with state legislators who fear college's so-called liberalizing tendencies (what we call "being educated").   It's not surprising that the Board at UVA assumed Teresa Sullivan would go along with them.  It's pretty clear that Biddy Martin would've.   But they made a mistake, since as a sociologist Teresa has a knack for using her skills as an "outsider looking in" as well as an "insider looking out."  She's a sociologist of work and organizations and no doubt saw their scheme for what it was, refusing to play along. After all, she views the university as a "compact among generations," not a compact between business and politics.

She was ousted. Good for her.  Twenty minutes of good hard labor in public higher education is worth far more than decades of pandering to the likes of business school deans, Bob McDonnell and Scott Walker, and wealthy alumni.

Want to be a 'Sconnie, Teresa?  We'd love to talk.

ps. For more superb reading on the UVA drama, I recommend these astute commentaries:

Kris Olds-  a friend, a colleague, a genius
Dagblog -- this guy even uses the word 'neoliberalism'