The Badger Herald: News: Group opposes new aid plan

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Group opposes new aid plan

Faculty Senate committee questions moving money from faculty retention to students

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By Taylor Cox
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:00 a.m.

2 Vote 0 Votes

A group representing the University of Wisconsin faculty voiced opposition toward the proposal to reallocate the Faculty and Staff Retention and Recruitment fund toward student financial aid Tuesday.

The Public Representation Organization of UW’s Faculty Senate decided the $15 million in question would be more effectively spent toward faculty retention and recruitment, though it does care about college affordability, said Louise Robbins, director of the School of Library and Information Studies.

“Without it we have no way to get additional money for recruitment and retention, and our students and alumni said they value the quality of our education and if there is no faculty and faculty diminished then the quality of the institution decreases,” Robbins said.

According to Robbins, teachers and professors have been working to raise money directed toward unrestricted need-based aid for students.

Through the Great People, Great Place campaign of the UW Foundation, the group has raised about $1.8 million dollars thus far, Robbins said.

Robbins added professors across the UW System have been underpaid in comparison to their peer institutions, and the loss of this money could be detrimental to faculty retention and recruitment as well as the quality of the university.

“It sounds politically popular to shift funds from this fund to financial aid, but it’s a dangerous road to go down because these funds are so important to the university — it’s so important to be able to recruit and retain the best people as faculty,” Robbins said.

The Association of University of Wisconsin Professionals endorsed the proposal earlier this week, and members said though they think the money would be better spent for student financial aid, they also agree the governor and Legislature should focus more money toward faculty retention through a different outlet.

“Wisconsin has gone astray in terms of budget priorities,” said Mark Evenson, president for TAUWP. “The fact is we can’t have a quality system when we’re in the bottom fifth of university systems nationwide (for faculty salary). You can’t have that and say you’re a quality university.”

Evenson said going to the Legislature and discussing the deteriorating quality of the universities, emphasizing the importance of higher salaries for teaching faculty and staff, and asking for more resources would be a more beneficial plan of action.

Evenson added he thinks the recruitment and retentions act is nothing more than a “public relations gimmick.”

The real challenge is to address the low compensation for faculty and academic staff, not to distract people from that issue by giving money to a small percentage of those people who are in the classroom,” Evenson said.

2 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | April 29, 2009 8:27 AM | Reply
IP hash: 18fad8d1

Come on, how can you not mention the single most important point of this story: the TAUWP has no UW-Madison faculty members - it’s the group for all of the other universities in the UW system.

Mark Evenson is a Spanish professor at UW-Platteville. I doubt Harvard or Stanford is trying to pick him off, or any faculty members at UW-Platt. Of course TAUWP is going to whine about the retention fund, it hardly helps any of their members.