Chair’s Report for
Senate update
1.
Important
links to agendas, minutes, Chair's Reports and other sites of interest are
available
on the Senate web site: http://www.uwec.edu/Usenate.
Senate Chair’s Report will be available on this site by
2.
During
debates, Senators may speak only twice to any motion or amendment. Each
speaking term is limited to 10 minutes. The Chair will add names of those
wishing to speak to a speaker's list upon recognition.
Other Items discussed
with the Chair
{Request
for distribution by a Senator.}
CHICAGO
— When a parent calls to complain about overcrowded classrooms or a reduction
in courses and thinks to cinch the case by saying, "After all, I'm a
taxpayer and I pay your salary," I respond by asking a question: what
percentage of the university's operating costs do you guess are covered by public
funds? Almost always, the answer is something on the order of 75 percent. When
I say, no, the figure is just 25 percent and heading downward — and add that in
some states the figure has dipped below 10 percent — the reaction is usually
equal parts surprise and dismay.
I
follow up with another question: what percentage of the cost to educate a
student do you guess is covered by tuition? Again, the parent is usually
shocked by the answer: if you include not just classroom education but the cost
of everything that must be in place for that education to occur — a library,
laboratories, computer centers, building maintenance, utilities, safety patrols
and more — tuition covers only 26 percent. At this point in the conversation
the unhappy parent is beginning to see what public universities are facing
these days: "You're telling me that state funds are being withdrawn at the
same time expenses are exceeding tuition by a factor of three to one. How can
you stay in business?"
That's
a good question. It is, however, one that two Republicans on the House
education committee, John Boehner and Howard McKeon, do not seem to have spent
much time considering. Rather, they have issued a report, "The College
Cost Crisis," holding that "institutions of higher learning are not
accountable enough to parents, students and taxpayers — the consumers of higher
education." This conclusion is not backed by any analysis, except for a
couple of references to "wasteful spending." But the message is
clear: universities should operate more like businesses and become more
efficient. If they don't, Mr. McKeon has the answer, a bill that would cut
federal financing to colleges whose tuition hikes are more than double the rate
of inflation or the consumer price index.
But
this remedy won't do anything except make the situation worse. If there is a
crisis in college costs it has not been caused by price-gouging or bureaucratic
incompetence on the part of universities; a better analogy would be the mass
circulation magazines of the 1950's like Collier's and Look, which folded at
the very point when they had more readers than ever. The problem was that
production costs far outpaced the revenues from subscriptions and advertisers,
and every new reader actually cost them money.
This
is just what is happening at many public universities. More people want the
product — applications to my university are up 35 percent in the past two years
— but as the demand for it rises the government
support for delivering it is withdrawn. The result: each new student we take
increases the number on the debit side of the ledger. Moreover, the costs that
neither tuition nor public dollars will cover are rising exponentially. Even if
states impose salary and hiring freezes, they would be more than offset by
increases no state government can control: raises mandated by union contracts,
skyrocketing utility and insurance rates, the cost of replacing worn-out
equipment, the cost of replacing equipment declared obsolete after three years,
the cost of buying equipment that didn't exist 18 months ago, the cost of
maintaining a crumbling physical plant, the cost of security measures deemed
necessary after 9/11.
And
now, on top of this, comes the threat of Mr. McKeon's bill. First of all, it
seems curious to find members of the free-market Republican Party advocating
price controls. In fact, it is downright unbusinesslike.
Because if a business were to find itself with rising costs and falling
revenues it would lop off unprofitable lines, close units, downsize the work
force, relax quality control and, of course, raise prices to whatever level the
traffic would bear. In university terms, this would mean offering fewer
courses, closing departments, sending students elsewhere, skimping on advising,
hiring the pedagogical equivalent of migrant workers, eliminating remedial
programs, ejecting the students for whom remedial programs are necessary,
reducing health and counseling services, admitting fewer students and inventing
fees for everything from registration to breathing.
Now,
if a university were to offer this list as its plan to be more businesslike,
Representatives Boehner and McKeon, the rest of
If
the revenues sustaining your operation are sharply cut and you are prevented by
law from raising prices, your only recourse is to offer an inferior product.
Those who say, as the state has said to the University of Illinois, "We're
taking $200 million from you but we expect you to do the job you were doing and
do it even better," are trafficking either in fantasy or hypocrisy. I vote
for hypocrisy.
Stanley
Fish is dean of the
Faculty Reps Meeting –
Teleconference October 3
Board of Regents Meeting
– October 9 & 10 in
Legislative Update
The Senate will
meet Tuesday, Sept. 23 to take up, among other things, SB-85.
This proposal would add to the Board of Regents a non-traditional
student selected by the governor.
Assembly Colleges and
Universities
will meet at
AB-366, a proposal that would
require the Board of Regents to accept all credits transferred within the UW
System, including credits transferred between the two-year UW Colleges, and all
credits transferred from the technical college system.
AB-377, a measure requiring
the Board of Regents to offer paid sabbatical leave funded by gifts and grants,
instead of general purpose revenue, as it is now funded. (The committee may exec on the above items.)
Proposals Circulating
for Co-Sponsorship
UW Salary Adjustment
Oversight
(Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford) LRB 3238/2
This bill provides that
the Board of Regents of the UW System must propose salary ranges and
adjustments to the salary ranges for these UW System senior executive
positions, but that no salary range or adjustment may take effect until
approved by the Joint Committee on Finance.
Roll Call Votes (Rep. Kitty Rhoades,
R-Hudson) LRB 3271/1
This bill would require
that every vote by the Board of Regents be a roll call vote.
Open Meetings (Sen. Tom Reynolds,
R-West Allis and Rep. Suder) LRB 3220/1 and LRB
3303/1
This bill would expand
the open meetings law to include all university departmental committees,
subcommittees and similar bodies which are currently exempt.
UW
Employee Code of Ethics (Rep. Sheryl Albers, R-North Freedom and Sen. Reynolds) LRB
0165/3 & LRB 3213/1.
This bill would create a
UW Employee Code of Ethics to require that all unclassified personnel annually
report to the System income received from any source other than direct pay by
the UW System. This could include income from patents, royalties, honorariums,
consulting services, and grants that are a result of the employee’s
professional experience and expertise. The proposal bill also directs the state
Ethics Board to maintain or participate in a site on the Internet where this
information is to be posted and to charge the Board of Regents costs for
services rendered.