UW must strive to preserve academic reputation

by Guest Columnist

Monday, May 7, 2007 00:00

The University of Wisconsin is drawing the curtain on yet another eventful academic year. Faculty, students and staff have earned recognition for their work, and our sports teams collectively lead the nation. On the surface, all appears well above Mendota's waters. But two gathering dark clouds threaten our well-being.

First, due to a variety of factors (the matter is not simple), the brain drain of faculty to other institutions appears to be accelerating. Empirical examination of the extent of this problem is in order, but many faculty members feel a growing sense of unease. I have been informed of major losses in departments in the social sciences and humanities. Closer to home for me, my own department, Political Science, has been leaking for several years. This year the dam was seriously ruptured. As of this writing, seven esteemed senior faculty members have decided to leave for greener pastures next year, only one for reasons of traditional retirement. Nothing close to this situation has transpired since my arrival here 22 years ago, and it is the talk of the department.

Many factors account for this predicament. In my view, one key reason is the university's policy of giving meaningful raises only to those who obtain outside offers. This policy encourages colleagues' eyes to wander, leaving departments in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Another factor is the perennial shortage of money. This problem takes many forms. One form is the cancelling of important journals by the library system. For example, the library recently cancelled the leading political science journal for Asia, a move that has disconcerted my colleagues who work in that area. And resources to replace departed faculty members are increasingly hard to come by.

News is getting around the country that social science and humanities departments at Wisconsin are bleeding, increasing the incentive of other institutions to poach. Meanwhile, we ask for more money from the Legislature, but we have not succeeded yet in the difficult task of building trust with that institution, much of which is separated from us by experiential, cultural and philosophical divides.

The second ongoing problem is something I have written and spoken about a lot over the years: the status of academic freedom in the classroom in relation to the ethic of sensitivity. Academic freedom in the classroom has been secure enough in recent years, especially because of pro-free speech movements on campus and the beneficial tenure of Chancellor John Wiley, who has stood up for academic freedom on numerous occasions. But the handling of the recent Leonard Kaplan case in the Law School (which is still festering) demonstrates that we have a deeper institutional problem that should be faced. Recall that Kaplan was accused of making insensitive comments about the Hmong community in a class dealing with cultural differences and the law.

The problem is not which side should have prevailed in the Kaplan case, but rather something deeper: Much of the dialogue, politics and decision making that have surrounded the case have reflected an insufficient appreciation of (or emphasis upon) the importance of academic freedom, and the reasons for it. Without such appreciation, we lack the intellectual and moral frameworks by which to draw responsible lines. Perhaps these principles are simply taken for granted; or perhaps they have slid into secondary status in some domains of the campus.

This lack is not necessarily an accident. In political science, we are taught that "following the money" provides an operational indicator of where true social and political preferences lie. At UW, we behold numerous programs and bureaucratic bodies expending substantial resources and effort to promote sensitivity in a variety of forums, but nary a penny to promote academic freedom principles. Thus, when a conflict arises between academic freedom and sensitivity, academic freedom positions often find themselves at a comparative disadvantage, and we try to find our way without an effective compass.

This situation has exacted a price in this instance. Considerably more faculty members from across the political and ideological spectrum have expressed serious concerns to me about the status of academic freedom in the wake of the Kaplan case than in any previous such conflict I have witnessed, all raising the same refrain: "What would happen if I were to say something deemed offensive or politically incorrect in lecturing about a touchy subject? If a conflict arose, would my department, program or school give academic freedom the weight it deserves?" Such doubts should not exist at a great university.

When I arrived at Madison in 1985, a leading journal had just published the findings of a survey of 50,000 professors across the land. When asked which institutions of higher learning in America had done the most in the 20th century to push the frontiers of knowledge, this group placed the University of Wisconsin in the top four. We have always been renowned for our scholarly prowess and robust discourse. Let us hope that we can keep it that way.

Donald Downs (ddowns@wisc.edu) is a political science professor at UW-Madison.