National Politics Roundup, UW Professors Leaving, State Supreme Court Denies Governor Oversight Of DPI Rules

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A number of high-profile faculty members are leaving UW-Madison this summer amid disagreements among faculty, UW leaders and state lawmakers. One of the departing professors explains why she’s leaving. We also get the latest news from the world of politics, and we talk to WPR’s Capitol Bureau Chief Shawn Johnson about the news that the state Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that denied Governor Scott Walker oversight of the state Department of Public Instruction rules.

Featured in this Show

  • UW Professor Explains Why She’s Leaving Wisconsin

    Some members of the University of Wisconsin System’s faculty have been actively looking for jobs elsewhere after the latest state budget cuts from the Legislature and ongoing tension between faculty and staff and Gov. Scott Walker.

    In some cases, faculty members have received job offers from institutions looking to lure them away. That’s what happened to Caroline Levine, who is currently a professor and chair of the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but she’s leaving the state to take a job elsewhere.

    “The constant attacks on the university from the Legislature have really had a bad effect on morale,” she said.

    She recently wrote an opinion piece for The Capital Times about her decision to leave and why she says the Legislature wants the UW System to deliver value like a business, but blocks the tools necessary to make it run like one.

    One of those necessary tools is the ability to increase tuition. Legislators have capped tuition for UW System schools. The professor said costs for new technologies go up, like for the latest software for engineering or other fields.

    “If you put a cap on tuition, then there’s absolutely no room for the university to move except by cutting somewhere else each time a price goes up,” she explained.

    The argument from legislative leaders or the governor on that point is that there’s room to cut. They say the university has too much administrative overhead.

    “Wisconsin does not have huge administrative overhead compared to its peers. We’re way lower in terms of administrator per student than other institutions,” Levine said.

    Another hole in this argument is that some of what is considered administration is advisors for students. She said studies show good advising for students mean they can complete their degrees in less time, which means less student debt.

    State lawmakers also argue the faculty at the UW System are overpaid when discussing cutting higher education costs. Levine said looking at market values will debunk that claim. She added that Wisconsin routinely pays less than the mean across the country for faculty.

    Out-of-state students, who pay more tuition, are another tool the university could use to raise revenue. There’s been a limit to the number of students from outside Wisconsin to only 27.5 percent of total enrollment at UW-Madison.

    “If Madison took more out-of-state students, then the campuses around the state could take more in-state students because the ones who weren’t at Madison would go to Milwaukee or they’d go to Whitewater or they’d go to Eau Claire, and that would actually even out the outcomes for the state a little bit better,” Levine said. She added that she thinks it makes sense in terms of keeping the whole university afloat together to allow Madison to take more out-of-state students.

    The professor emphasized the importance of these issues for the whole state, not just students and their parents. She said the highly educated are the most likely to be innovative. People with advanced training in the sciences, a law degree, an engineering degree, or other advanced education are going to be solving the problems of the future.

    “When you have an institution like the University of Wisconsin, which generations of Wisconsinites have invested in … it’s surprising how short a time it can take to destroy that,” Levine said.

    She added that she worries it will be hard to come back from these attacks on the UW System.

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    Harry Enten, senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight, joins Central Time for our weekly look at the most pressing issues in national politics.

  • Professor Shares Why She's Leaving UW-Madison

    In the wake of budget cuts and sparring between the legislature and UW faculty and staff, faculty retention has become an issue at UW-Madison. We hear from the chair of UW-Madison’s English department about her choice to leave and why she says the UW is expected to run like a business but isn’t allowed to do the things that businesses have the freedom to do.

  • State Supreme Court Denies Governor Oversight Of DPI Rules

    On Wednesday the state Supreme Court issued a ruling that denied Governor Scott Walker oversight of the state Department of Instruction rules. The split court determined a law Republicans passed in 2011 that would have given lawmakers and the governor more of a say in education policy was unconstitutional. We talk to WPR’s Capitol Bureau Chief about this news.

Episode Credits

  • Rob Ferrett Host
  • Veronica Rueckert Host
  • Veronica Rueckert Producer
  • J. Carlisle Larsen Producer
  • Amanda Magnus Producer
  • Caroline Levine Guest
  • Harry Enten Guest
  • Shawn Johnson Guest