Fearless Sifting

They issued their first press release about 2 hours ago. This hopefully represents what will be the first step towards improving ASM press relations. I’m also glad to see that the press office is reaching out to bloggers as well as the student papers.

ASM APPOINTS DIVERSITY COMMITTEE CHAIR

‘Reshaped Mindset of Diversity’ Tops Chair’s Priority List

ASM appointed a new Diversity Committee Chair at the Student Council meeting late Wednesday, voting in first-year marketing major Steven Olikara. The decision came after a debate and question and answer section about how the candidates would improve diversity on campus.

Olikara said that although his official appointment took effect Wednesday, he has spent the last two months preparing to make an impact on the campus.

“I decided to meet with as many people in as many corners of the university as possible in order to broaden my perspective of diversity on the UW campus,” Olikara wrote in his proposal.

A common theme Olikara reverted to throughout the question and answer section was changing the perception of diversity on campus.

“My vision is a reshaped mindset of diversity at Madison so it is a natural (not separate) part of campus life, as well as a changed perception outside of Madison so we can attract larger applicant pools and a more diverse faculty,” Olikara’s proposal stated.

Olikara said he will work to establish a Diversity Committee Board that would consist of “outreach, communications, Senior Advisors, etc.”

When questioned about what he thought an ideal diverse campus would like, Olikara said that the idea of diversity extends beyond just race and ethnicity.

“Students who are constantly challenging each other’s ideas and views [create a diverse campus]” Olikara said.

As far as the content goes, the choice of a first-year student makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I’m skeptical that someone so new to campus is ready to lead such a committee or has the campus experience neccessary. I do however, really like his attitude on diversity. I for one think that race and ethnicity are some of the least important parts of diversity. The different experiences and worldviews that can be caused by differing racial makeups are what really contribute to diversity, not race itself.

Another perspective on this appointment is that despite beginning the 15th session of ASM in May, this committee is just now getting a chair. Literally halfway through the year. In a way through suceeding, ASM has just managed to highlight one of its failures. Maybe not the best choice of topic for a first press release.

Gov. Doyle may not be headed to Washington as part of the Obama administration, at least one person with a UW-Madison connection will be:

Barack Obama’s transition team has announced the officials who will review personnel and policies at federal agencies for the new Administration, including dozens who will begin visits to examine the work of science agencies this week.

…

One reviewer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, parent agency for the National Institutes of Health, is former NIH Director Harold Varmus, who headed Obama’s scientific advisory group during the campaign. That group shaped the candidate’s stances on issues such as a proposed doubling of basic research over 10 years, lifting the limitations on stem cell research, and funding comprehensive sex education. Another is R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, whose support for research using human embryonic stem cells reflects Obama’s position on the controversial work.

[Edit] More from the UW press release

My Badger Herald column ran today.

I’d like to thank my editors for the great article title.

University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said Monday she’s building a relationship with the state’s largest business group, which her predecessor has slammed as an impediment to economic development.

Martin said she’s had separate meetings in recent weeks with the board of Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and its president, Jim Haney. She said she’s tried to focus on common interests of improving the state’s economy.

…

WMC spokesman Jim Pugh would not comment on the impact of Wiley’s criticism. But he said the group was interested in building a stronger partnership with the state’s flagship university, which he said creates the workers and leaders of its members.

“We have a very strong and vital relationship and we think that’s only to grow under the leadership of Chancellor Martin,” he said. “We’re going to look for ways that we can partner on projects and ideas.”

Only time will tell if Chancellor Martin’s much heralded talents in building personal relationships will be able to repair the damaged relationship the UW has with the WMC. At this point both sides seem to be saying all of the right things, but that is to be expected.

But after growing criticism from Wiley and others, WMC toned down its tactics during this year’s election cycle in which Democrats won control of both houses of the Legislature.

Right now is about the only time we have to evaluate the effects of Wiley’s hardball strategy at the end of his tenure before the changes brought by Biddy’s tenure start to sink in. I think that analysis above is spot on. Compared to the Gableman-Butler election in April the WMC was virtually non-existent leading up to this November. While it obviously can’t be definitively attributed to Wiley’s scathing column, it definitely speaks well of his confrontational approach.

There isn’t much to be said about the initiative itself that hasn’t already been said by other bloggers or the campus papers, but I think the manner in which is passed helps tell us it’s author.

In my mind Ald. Eli Judge has now had two big proposals that he authored and really pushed to get passed: the photo ordinance and now the Downtown Residential Lighting Initiative (DRLI). The photo ordinance passed unanimously and now the DRLI passed 19-1. Agree or disagree with his political beliefs, I think this says quite a bit about our esteemed Alder. Either he has an innate ability to work accross partisan lines to gain widespread support for his policy initiatives or he only authors such common-sense proposals that people can’t help but support them. Both of which speak well to current state of representation on Madison’s Common Council in District 8.

This quote from the Cap Times live blog of last nights meeting sums it up pretty well:

Actually, I need to check through the final votes when the minutes for this meeting comes out, but if I had to guess at one alder that has consistently moved across the lines of council factions, it would be Ald. Eli. Judge.

While she wasn’t selected to be our next chancellor, finalist Rebecca Blank might have a future in the Obama Administration. (and thanks to Erik for finding this)

But equally important indicators of his concern are the advisors he’s surrounded himself with during the long campaign. Here’s some of the folks whom we think might be leading candidates for the transition team or for senior positions in the Obama Administration.  All are top-notch, and all really care.  BTW, in no case has OOTS approached the folks listed below for confirmation; not after one insider responded, “If I told you who was on the transition team, I’d have to kill you.”
Here’s a baker’s dozen of the folks whose names OOTS hears are, or should be in play:

…

7. Becky Blank probably isn’t a transition team type, but if the Obama people are smart – and we know they are – Becky will be on the sort list for any number of cabinet or almost-cabinet-level positions in the new administration. Now at Brookings, Becky returns to Washington after a seven-year stint as dean at the Gerald R Ford School of Public Policy in Michigan, where she took a good program and made it great. Prior to moving to Ann Arbor, Blank served on Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors and taught at both Northwestern and Princeton. Arguably the nation’s top labor and poverty economist, Becky (a Spotlight advisor) is one of the folks leading the effort to overhaul the federal poverty measure. Smart betting is that she’ll succeed.

from the Chronicle of Higher Education

Democrats fared well in many state elections last week, with the party gaining full control of state governments (winning majorities in both chambers of state legislatures where Democrats hold the governor’s office) in three places where Republicans had led at least one part of those branches. The three states are Delaware, New York, and Wisconsin, according to stateline.org.

That brings to 17 the number of states where the governor is a Democrat and both houses of the legislature have Democratic majorities. Republicans control all three branches in eight states, says stateline.org.

The change in control of the Wisconsin Assembly and the New York Senate from Republican to Democrat means that two prominent leaders of higher-education committees will no longer hold their posts as chairmen.

In Wisconsin, Rep. Stephen L. Nass will no longer lead the Assembly’s Committee on Colleges and Universities. The Republican has been an outspoken critic of the University of Wisconsin, criticizing its decision to adopt a freshman-admissions policy directing campuses to consider the race and ethnicity of applicants. He also called for the system to fire an instructor who had argued that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were orchestrated by the U.S. government.

Control of the Assembly is also at stake. There isn’t a whole lot of predictive information available about how close any of the races are, but I did find this interesting answer from about a month ago in a State Journal interview.

What will be your first piece of legislation?

Nass: I will re-introduce my proposal for a 4 percent, 4-year resident tuition and fee cap in the University of Wisconsin System. This proposal passed the Assembly in June 2007 as part of the state budget process. However, Gov. Doyle threatened to veto the provision by request of System administrators and it was kept out of the final version of the budget. The fight to control the cost of public higher education in this state is vital for middle-class families that can’t afford average annual tuition and fee increases of more than 9 percent.

While it’s nice that Steve Nass wants to keep higher education affordable, this would be a bad idea on so many levels. The first one is that the 4% cap would be completely arbitrary and makes no sense in light of inflation that has been at 4.9% over the past year. Secondly, the state legislature shouldn’t be tieing the hands of the UW administration like this. And if they are, there ought to be some kind of accompanying guarentee of minimum increases in state funding that would be needed to continue to subsidize low in state tuition rates. No one in the UW System wants to make tuition unaffordable (see the comments from Biddy Martin in my last post), but tuition increases are likely neccessary to avoid sacrificing the quality of education provided. If Steve Nass is really concerned about keeping tuition affordable, he has the power to do so, through the state budget every other year.

After several weeks of being quite busy and over a week of not having my computer (Thanks DoIT), I’m back.

Reading this recent news release got me thinking…

Business magazine Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranked the University of Wisconsin-Madison No. 14 in a national ranking of the best values in American public universities.

Kiplinger.com analyzed records for about 120 universities, focusing on measures of academic quality, overall cost and financial aid availability. For example, the magazine looked at standardized admission test scores, student-faculty ratios and overall graduation rates to determine quality, while focusing on tuition, available need-based assistance and average debt after graduation to determine affordability.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was deemed the nation’s top value among publics. UW-Madison is the highest-ranked Big 10 campus, followed by Michigan (26th), Ohio State (27th) and Indiana (40th). UW-La Crosse (38th) and UW-Eau Claire (65th) also made the list.

UW-Madison ranked 14th in affordability for in-state students and 15th overall for non-resident students.

I think there is a growing consensus among UW administrators that tuition needs to be raised. Business School Dean Michael Knetter made comments saying exactly that in September and the current bargain of a UW-Madison education was his primary reason.

Knetter said there are two options for trying to solve the funding situation at UW: Raise taxes for residents or raise tuition for students.

Jacob Stamper, professor emeritus of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, said Knetter was trying to “brag” about the quality of programs UW offers, especially compared to how much other competing schools charge for tuition.

“[Knetter], I think, is looking at [tuition] like a corporate executive-type,” Stamper said, adding UW has the second-lowest tuition in the Big Ten, next to the University of Iowa.

“The popular perception in Wisconsin is [tuition] should be lower,” Stamper added. “In these hard times, when the Legislature does not want to give us any money, [tuition] is the place to get it.”

Biddy Martin has also not been shy about her desire to see tuition increase.

One of UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin’s top priorities is keeping the university affordable through need-based financial aid, she said Thursday in a speech at an event formally welcoming Martin to Wisconsin.Less important, she said, is an unrealistic goal of keeping tuition flat or decreasing it.

She said the university must raise more money for need-based aid and envisioned a sliding scale of college tuition.

“Those who can afford to pay more should pay more,” Martin said. “Those who can afford less should pay less; and those who cannot afford to pay anything should pay nothing in actual dollars but should be allowed to contribute to their own education through work study.”

The arguments for tuition increases are only going to get stronger as the troubled economy hinders the ability of the state to fund the UW System. Accessability and affordability are worthwhile goals, but should not at expense of the quality of the education. The UW needs to get money from somewhere and if the state isn’t going to provide it then some of it has to come from tuition.

I’ve been having some issues with my hosting service over the past couple of days, the servers have been down quite a bit. I’m in the process of getting the blog hosted in a different place. Hopefully it will be completed within the next couple of days.