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by Badger Herald Editorial Board

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

It's no secret that when it comes to competitive salaries, the University of Wisconsin scores below average. That's why system officials have decided to try to make it harder for other universities to steal faculty members and staff.

The system's master plan to protect some of its most precious assets: remove salary information from the Internet.

While such information is still available upon request — it is a matter of public record, after all — those seeking to find out what a given professor makes per year will just have to work a little harder to find what they are looking for.

It seems like a strategic, common-sense move for the UW System to keep secret the statistics that have proven to be its Achilles heel. However, by limiting outsiders' access to public information, the system is sending several bad messages to its employees and the general taxpaying public.

The measure does not stow away salary numbers in a hidden lockbox; institutions that are determined enough will merely have to jump through a few hoops to find the information they need — and most of them certainly have the chutzpah to do so.

While the university system is rightly worried about losing faculty due to a lack of competitiveness, it should continue working with the state to acquire more funding. Making public information harder to come by is not the answer.

And for those who believe faculty members' salaries should be obscured as a matter of personal privacy, taxpayers' rights supersede this argument. Professionals in Wisconsin's world of academia know full well that they are state employees, and they knowingly forfeit certain protections upon signing on the dotted line.

The UW System should be moving toward policies that promote transparency rather than paring it back. Following several incidents that strained the relationship between the UW System and the Legislature, the system should be doing everything in its power to mend the gap, not widen it.

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Anonymous (March 14, 2007 @ 12:24pm):

Good Editorial, if the public pays they have a right to know where it goes.
- Germain E. Stemme

Anonymous (March 14, 2007 @ 2:13pm):

Good editorial. The state needs to increase funding to the UW system big time. If the DINOs (Doyle and his ilk) and Republicans in the state government have anything to say about it, in a few years the UW's reputation will be so bad, my degree won't be worth the fancy paper its printed on.

Z

Anonymous (March 14, 2007 @ 6:12pm):

The UW dosn't have to have one on the cheapest tuitions in the Big 10, does it? I know that the out-of-state is out-of-sight but in-state is relatively cheap. Maybe higher tuition would give students more motivation?

Anonymous (March 15, 2007 @ 9:10pm):

Higher tuition is the dumbest suggestion I've ever heard.

Anonymous (March 16, 2007 @ 9:05am):

"Higher tuition is the dumbest suggestion I've ever heard."

Spoken like a true consummer looking to pay as little as possible for their goods and services, but free (or cheap) goods are always wasted.

Somebody has to pay the bills, why not the person receiving the services?

Anonymous (March 16, 2007 @ 11:40am):

Actually, higher tuition IS a pretty dumb idea. Tuition has been steadily, and drastically rising for the past several years, for both in-state and out-of-state students, making it increasingly difficult for people of lower income to afford tuition, especially since Congress cut Financial Aid.

Education isn't a privileged good to be consumed, it's a right. Also, students aren't the only people who receive benefits from the presence of a prosperous University; the state exports millions, if not billions of dollars worth of research, both technological and academic, every year.

It is the obligation of Congress and the taxpayers to adequately fund the University of Wisconsin, because it benefits the state as a whole.

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