If You Want Something Done Right, Do It Yourself!!
Posted Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 4:27:45 PM
That embittered battle cry of many a frustrated marital rendez-vous has become the guiding philosophy of the UW Foundation when encountering similar hesitation from its supposed partner, the state Legislature. Last week, the UW Foundation unveiled its shiny new fundraising initiative, titled “Great Place, Great People.” The objective is to raise $40 million dollars to ameliorate the damage done by chronically low professor salaries and rising tuition. Or, if the donor is a person of truly discerning character, more disposed towards superficialities than any improvement of genuine substance, he or she can funnel money down the figurative toilet of campus renovation. However, for convenience’s sake, one must assume a semblance of reasonability on the part of the University’s potential benefactors.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the initiative — and its most appealing one — is its resemblance to an earlier proposition brought forth by state Representatives Joe Parisi and Spencer Black, which, if passed, would have matched any increase in student tuition dollar for dollar, essentially freezing tuition rates at their current level. The bill was considered dead since the announcement of a cataclysmic $652 million dollar budget deficit and the spree of relative fiscal conservatism that followed. But in this resurrection of a form of that bill, there is unique brand of “if you can’t do it, I will” sort of practicality that bodes ill for a Legislature already so close to being effectively divorced from well nigh 40,000 of its constituents — in Madison alone. If the Legislature can not or will not provide the funds for cash strapped students and dissatisfied professors, the university will engage in an unfortunate but necessary act of monetary Darwinism, seeking ever larger private sources of funding while scaling back its reliance on an inconsistent state government.
And so, like an inept lover spurned for his inability to perform when the heat was on, the Wisconsin Legislature has unwittingly taken another step in the short path to watching from the sidelines. Whether our politician friends will deliver in the future through a volatile mix of higher taxes and decreased spending is irrelevant. The UW foundation is starting the long process of spelling out the writing on the wall, and its conclusions for the legislature and its halfhearted love affair with the university are ugly: you have to pay to play.
Posted by Sam Clegg.
Anonymous (July 3, 2008 @ 12:06am):
See Jack, now I know about a UW issues that I might not have otherwise.
Sincerely,
People who are wondering a little less why they are bothering to check the BH website over the summer
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