OPINION & EDITORIAL
In defense of the Wisconsin Idea
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Also by Rob Hunter:
- Patient Abandonment Bill targets women's rights (April 21, 2005)
- Read ID Act goes too far infringing upon civil liberties (April 28, 2005)
- Gay rights needed to protect equality (May 5, 2005)
- Evolution not about free speech (March 17, 2005)
Related Stories:
- Chancellors' salaries should be cut, not increased (November 14, 2003)
- Debate over Regents' decision highlights Governor Doyle's hypocrisy (September 29, 2003)
- Bad timing, bad politics (February 5, 2002)
- Direct election wrong for Board of Regents (February 20, 2006)
- New bill will undermine UW System (October 7, 2003)
by Rob Hunter
Tuesday, October 7, 2003
Last month, the Board of Regents voted to pass a new set of pay raises for the 35 top statewide administrators and executives in the University of Wisconsin System. Overall, the new pay ranges increased both the minimum and maximum pay levels for most chancellors, vice chancellors and system leaders.
Board President Katherine Lyall defended what were, in effect, pay raises for the leaders of Wisconsin’s state university system, arguing they were necessary to stay “competitive” in the face of higher salaries at other systems’ campuses. That much may be true; the UW System recently lost chancellors at UW-Milwaukee and UW-Stevens Point to more attractive positions outside the system.
All the same, few can disagree that the Regents’ decision was poorly timed in the face of Wisconsin’s (and the UW System’s) current budget woes. Services have been cut, budgets for state- and local-level programs reevaluated and reduced, and, as you no doubt have noticed, tuition has risen sharply both for in- and out-of-state UW students. Now, on top of all that, taxpayers will foot the $100,000 cost of a new pay increase for UW administrators.
Virtually every leading personality in the Capitol, joined by three dissenting Regents — notably Regent Nino Amato, in particular — weighed in with criticism and invective. Many were angry not so much with the decision itself as with the fact that it had been made via teleconference, without a public hearing and was carried by a mere voice vote on a razor-thin quorum. Others, such as Gov. Doyle, attacked the move as irresponsible in the face of tuition hikes.
Strong words for someone who recently signed a budget that cut $250 million from UW System funding. The loss has resulted in fired employees, reduced class availability and skyrocketing tuition.
Recently, legislators began pondering ways to enforce greater accountability on the Board of Regents, threatening them with bills that would strip the Regents of the ability to unilaterally adjust salary ranges, expand the open meetings law to all university functions currently exempted from it, and to require roll-call voting rather than voice voting in Board of Regents decisions.
This is all well and good. None of these bills, however, will recover the $100,000 that will be funneled to administrative salaries or the $250 million lost before that.
The Regents believe that the pay raises are necessary to attract top talent — titular and actual figureheads who will serve as weather vanes and lightning rods for UW campuses, putting a human face on System policies, defending controversial decisions and appointments, absorbing criticism and drawing other executive and professorial talent into the UW fold.
Like much of corporate America, the Regents have bought into the cult of personality: the belief that a single leading figure — whether she is a CEO or a university chancellor — can, through force of will and charisma, serve an organization by attracting energetic and capable people and motivating them to contribute their best ideas and bring them to fruition. Ultimately this will result in benefits for all of the organization’s members, whether it’s a business, an educational institution, an army or a nonprofit. It’s the trickle-down theory of management.
That’s really too bad, because it’s not at all the way the University of Wisconsin was supposed to be run. The Wisconsin Idea, a statement of progressive principles and an article of civic faith articulated during Wisconsin’s great Progressive Era a century ago, states that, “the borders of the university are the borders of the state.”
Fighting Bob LaFollette and other unsung legislative heroes helped to give the University of Wisconsin its unique position as both the educational voice and ear of the people of Wisconsin, conducting research that would improve the lives and well-being of Wisconsin citizens and training new generations for the economic, political, moral and educational challenges of the future.
We live in a state with world-class university resources founded on the principle that education is a lifelong, statewide process. The University of Wisconsin System is an enduring legacy of the Progressive Era, an institution meant to develop our best, brightest and most motivated students into engaged citizens and productive members of Wisconsin society.
It is not a state-run corporation or a private institution, presided over by “competitive” individuals who concern themselves with cost-reduction, streamlined “production” and personal gain rather than the idea of a shared educational endeavor. If they felt committed to the latter, perhaps unilateral pay raises wouldn’t be necessary.
Certainly, the University of Wisconsin has changed over the past century, and we have become somewhat estranged from the rest of the state. Our outlook is more global, our student and faculty bodies more varied and diverse, our universe of research and inquiry expanding far beyond the borders of the state. If the university sees its own mission as different from the state, then no one group of people — from administrators to faculty to students — is free from blame in pursuing their own interests single-handedly without any regard for the greater Wisconsin community.
We have a long way to go toward rekindling the flame of the Wisconsin Idea. Rather than continue to raise administrators’ pay in the hopes of attracting some as-yet unknown executive talent, let’s focus on making the most of what UW does have and make education a truly Wisconsin-style experience again.
Rob Hunter (jameshunter@wisc.edu) is a junior majoring in philosophy and political science.
