The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents convened in Madison yesterday, discussing civic responsibility in college education and administrative pay raises, after spending last month’s meeting at UW-Superior.
Board members met with Dr. Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, to discuss liberal education in the 21st century. Schneider shared recent feedback she had received from a student-focus group, saying students found developing civic responsibility and orientation to public service was the least valuable outcome of their college education.
Schneider also said the regents played a crucial role in making these objectives important. She said the UW System must move away from comparing itself to other peer universities.
“Make yourself the locust for this [public] discussion between the academy and the state,” she said.
The board’s Physical Planning and Funding Committee also met to discuss several building projects in Madison. The committee gave approval for phase one of Madison’s School of Medicine Interdisciplinary Research Complex to be built mostly on the west side of campus. The board granted the UW School of Business approval to proceed with an expansion of Grainger Hall, providing new space for graduate school programs.
The Board of Regents may soon resort to asking the state to support more funding for university employees, after the regents’ Business and Finance Committee met today. The committee proposed a report that found the salaries for staff, faculty and other academic leaders within the UW System are falling behind those of other universities. “We must compare apples to apples, engineering professors to engineering professors, and university administrators to university administrators,” Mark Bradley, committee chair, said.
Bradley explained state statute requires the board to take steps when adjusting compensation levels for university employees. Those steps include setting salary ranges for chancellors, two vice chancellors, one senior executive, and the UW System president; recommending salary ranges for vice presidents and vice chancellors for consideration by the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Employee Relations; and recommending a pay plan for faculty and unclassified academic staff.
The committee voted yesterday for the approval of resolutions setting new salary ranges and salaries for seven of the UW System’s chancellors and recommended a 2-percent pay-plan increase in each year for the 2005-07 biennium for faculty, academic staff and university executives. This 2 percent increase, when joined with an earlier regents’ recommendation included in the biennial budget request, will draw the total pay-plan increase to approximately 5 percent.
Members from several Madison student institutions were present and recognized the 5 percent increase could pose a threat to tuition. Stephanie Hilton, president of the United Council of UW Students, said students understand the UW System needs to be competitive, but funding should not be drawn from student tuition.
“If you keep your word on the 5 percent tuition cap, students will be there with you throughout the budget process,” Hilton said.
Several regents emphasized discovering the method of paying for increased salaries was not necessarily a clear road. Regent Roger Axtell of Janesville said recommendations would be approved “in pencil.”
“There are a lot of erasers down the line. We’ve got a lot of variables in the air. There is no magic formula,” Axtell said.
Regent Jesus Salas of Milwaukee suggested savings made from administrative efficiencies could go toward the salaries, thus alleviating tuition-drawn funds.
Several other regents found the threat of raising tuition alarming. Regent Peggy Rosenzweig of Wauwatosa proposed a motion to reaffirm the board’s commitment to keep tuition rising only up to 5 percent for today’s regents’ meeting.
Regent Elizabeth Burmaster of Madison said the board must “give many … the peace of mind” and “not increase weight on the back of students.”
