Walker's proposed cuts to UW System (Madison, Eau Claire: attorney, school, community college)

[earthlyfather]

Inability to answer is all the answer to the question needed to prove the point. Hyper-partisan hyperbole and chicken little sky is falling. You walkerphobes are a riot.

Originally Posted by MaseMan

Who is really supposed to be able to answer that question? Is there actually a website that tracks the type of specific data you requested? If you're so genuinely interested, do your own research.

[earthlyfather]

Ahhhh, such a touchy group.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by earthlyfather

Inability to answer is all the answer to the question needed to prove the point. Hyper-partisan hyperbole and chicken little sky is falling. You walkerphobes are a riot.

You fiddle, while Wisconsin burns. I guess you like having your state devalued.

Wait 'til Walker's billions-in-the-hole debt mismanagement is foisted on the national screen..

[MaseMan]

Originally Posted by earthlyfather

Inability to answer is all the answer to the question needed to prove the point. Hyper-partisan hyperbole and chicken little sky is falling. You walkerphobes are a riot.

Actually, you did get an answer (a good one, too), but it didn't fit into your right wing talking point box, so you dismiss it out of hand.

Has any right wing source disputed the fact that for every dollar we put into the UW system, we get a return of $24.00 back into the economy? Doesn't that in fact mean it's "cheaper to keep it", to use a recent phrase from Governor Walker?

[thefragile]

Originally Posted by MaseMan

"cheaper to keep it", to use a recent phrase from Governor Walker?

Lol, worst. slogan. ever. Seriously, could he be more of a clod? Just sounds so uneducated, knuckledragging. Like his "open for business" slogan for the state. What an absolute embarrassment. Can't wait to get rid of him.

[MassVt]

Originally Posted by thefragile

Lol, worst. slogan. ever. Seriously, could he be more of a clod? Just sounds so uneducated, knuckledragging. Like his "open for business" slogan for the state. What an absolute embarrassment. Can't wait to get rid of him.

This is the same guy who compared lowering property taxes to fighting ISIS.

Walker is a clod.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by earthlyfather

Inability to answer is all the answer to the question needed to prove the point. Hyper-partisan hyperbole and chicken little sky is falling. You walkerphobes are a riot.

I gave you a list with close to 100 of them.

[thefragile]

Originally Posted by MassVt

This is the same guy who compared lowering property taxes to fighting ISIS.

Walker is a clod.

Lol, right?? He fancies himself a freedom fighter. Good grief.

[adele115]

Originally Posted by redguard57

I work for a community college, not a university, but the principles at work operate similarly.

Those of you advocating cuts to the university system will not get what you want. You think this is going to cut those elitist liberal professors down a peg? LOL, no. Yeah they may have pay $100 more per month on their health insurance, big whoop. Keep in mind that most universities operate on a majority part-time teaching model. The tenured professors are kind of like the foremen in a construction firm. They've got the full time job and they manage all the day laborers brought in to do the grunt work when things pick up and there are more jobs to get done. There is only one of them per "team" and their numbers remain constant for the most part. Almost all universities already operate as lean as possible when it comes to the tenured and tenure-track profs. However, their proportional numbers compared to volume of students has quite significantly remained steady or even dropped

Like every business out there, the productivity of tenured profs has skyrocketed. They write more books and more articles than ever before. In my discipline (history), I'm continually amazed at the quantity and quality of work coming from younger professors. They are doing almost double what their predecessors from previous generations were in part because technology enables access to data in a way not possible in the last generation but also because U.S. News and Princeton Review rankings are driven partly by a peer reputation score, creating a kind of research arms race. A drop of ONE spot in U.S. news rankings has profound effects in student recruitment, so you will always have a corps of tenured faculty who mostly research to maintain that score. The top 20 schools in the U.S. News rankings are the only ones where quality of academics actually drive recruitment (sales, if you will).

No, this is the kind of thing that happens in response to these cuts:
1) Fewer classes offered. First to be cut will be those day laborers (adjuncts). That means fewer classes offered at fewer times.
2) Increased class sizes.
3) Higher tuition and/or fees
4) Cuts or elimination of small programs. Your kid likes chess? Sorry, no money for the chess club. You have a daughter that likes to play golf? Sorry, there's only money for equipment for 15 female golfers and your daughter was the 16th applicant - men's sports are the ones that bring in money (unless you've got a 'name' women's program like UConn or Baylor). Sometimes even foundational subjects - pure, theoretical arts and sciences like mathematics, physics, philosophy, will see cuts because they are not "sexy" and don't have dynamic enrollment numbers.

You will NOT see reduction in things like new buildings. You know why schools build big fancy buildings and put climbing walls in? It's not because of vanity. It's because of market research. I've seen it. Prospective students and their parents respond to those kinds of visible items. We know exactly what sons (sports, athletic amenities like the gyms), daughters (apartment style living accommodations), mothers (dining halls, community centers, also accomodations) and fathers (computer labs, impressive infrastructure) respond to. They don't respond to quality of teaching faculty. No.

Administration will find money for those kinds of infrastructure projects until the last dime is gone. They would have students who just passed a class working as TAs for your kids' class in the next section so they could pay half of what they currently pay to graduate student TAs in order to safeguard money for the next upgrade to the Business Center. The reason for that is because that's what YOU - prospective students and paying parents - respond to. Only the very top universities truly have an ROI on their academics. For most schools, we've done extensive research that things like the quality of the Saturday morning tailgates, student life infrastructure, an impressive lobby in the business school building - that is what really makes people choose University of Wisconsin over University of Illinois when push really comes to shove. I should know because I did some work doing that kind of research while I was searching for a full-time professor job. It's an even more pronounced phenomenon for non-flagship schools. Then the quality of amenities really comes into play. At the flagship level there is still some competition over academic reputation but not that much.

So you see, these cuts that you champion will only serve to exacerbate the very problems you decry.

Very accurate description of what occurs as a consequence of these cuts. Those who abhor the "ivory tower elitists" imagine those profs will get punished by teaching more classes or getting a pay cut. They fail to comprehend that obtaining a Ph.D. and maintaining an active research and publishing program is a very demanding and refined skill set. They think that if they see the prof in the grocery store at noon they must be an overpaid bum. So, those "bums" go where they are valued (such as MN). Why stay where they aren't supported? So, as per the article, they take their research grants, their doc students, and their innovation to other states. Rankings drop, and the tide starts turning, and what once was the gem of WI will be gutted by the college dropout governor.

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by adele115

Very accurate description of what occurs as a consequence of these cuts. Those who abhor the "ivory tower elitists" imagine those profs will get punished by teaching more classes or getting a pay cut. They fail to comprehend that obtaining a Ph.D. and maintaining an active research and publishing program is a very demanding and refined skill set. They think that if they see the prof in the grocery store at noon they must be an overpaid bum. So, those "bums" go where they are valued (such as MN). Why stay where they aren't supported? So, as per the article, they take their research grants, their doc students, and their innovation to other states. Rankings drop, and the tide starts turning, and what once was the gem of WI will be gutted by the college dropout governor.

I could definitely see it hurting UW's ability to recruit and retain top faculty. If they have a choice between Wisconsin and some other non-messed up state they'll take the other.

I was on a hiring committee last year for faculty and at the community college level we rarely get apps from current university faculty - but we got several from the University of Wisconsin system - I don't remember which schools, they were smaller and in the western part of the state. I think Eau Claire and La Crosse, places like that? In any case I was pretty shocked to see these university profs who had decent time in service applying for a community college faculty position in another state. It must be bad for them to want to "move down" like that.

It wouldn't be so sad for many states - but in Wisconsin you were known as having one of the best university systems in the country.