Last semester, Chancellor Biddy Martin set forth a proposal to reshape the undergraduate experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The plan was ambitious, controversial and costly, requiring incremental tuition hikes of $250 and $750 per year over four years for in-state and out-of-state students, respectively. Immediately, it was clear Ms. Martin would have to work hard to sell the Madison Initiative to the student body.

She certainly did her job last spring, relentlessly publicizing the plan, engaging students and even handing out cookies. It seemed that Ms. Martin genuinely cared about student input on the Madison Initiative, which is why the university’s approach to its latest reorganization project is so confusing.

On Sept. 8 Provost Paul DeLuca, Jr. unveiled a plan to add a vice chancellor for research as part of a greater restructuring of the graduate school.

And no one has heard of it.

It is at the very least odd that not one of the campus or city papers — until yesterday — had reported on it. When she met with this editorial board Sept. 29, Ms. Martin failed to even mention the plan.

Just because this will not affect undergraduate pocketbooks does not mean it is not relevant to students across campus. As a slideshow buried on the provost’s website makes clear, our prevalence in research has been one of the primary sources of prestige for this university over the last 20 years.

All students have a stake in these changes. Graduates are directly affected, as their support, research and advisers will all be subject to the modifications proposed by the provost. Undergraduates are affected, too. Many work as research assistants in labs across campus and the quality of the graduate school (at least partially) determines the quality of their professors and TAs. Just because this doesn’t involve a bigger tuition check doesn’t mean undergraduates won’t care, and at least some effort must be made to include them.

As with the Madison Initiative last spring, there should be a huge push by the administration to inform all students of the plans for restructuring. Instead of guest columns and cookies, we’ve gotten … nothing.

To date, there have been three town hall meetings to discuss the proposal and the student body has barely heard a peep. A UW spokesperson said Monday that the Provost’s Office sent off two rounds of e-mails informing graduate students of the sessions and has a memo to faculty and staff posted on their website. Mass e-mails are fine and dandy for career fairs and encouraging students to come to the game on time, but a major restructuring involving pretty much every department on campus deserves something more.

This is a serious reorganization of the university, and if it is as critical to our survival as a top research institution as the administration is making it out to be, the whole student body deserves an opportunity to give its input. So, Mr. DeLuca and Ms. Martin, do your best impressions of Marvin Gaye and talk to me, so we can see, what’s going on.