By using more efficient management practices and innovation in tuition, personnel policies, facilities management and purchasing, the University of Wisconsin-Madison can be part of the solution to the state’s economic problems. With a stronger and more flexible business model, we can deliver more graduates, create more jobs and find cost savings – all while preserving the public accountability of UW-Madison. Read more »
In a campuswide message, Chancellor Biddy Martin discusses Friday’s legislative compromise that will help campuses develop better, more effective ways of operating. She also terms the agreement in the Joint Fiannce Committee a “promising first step.”
The Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee was expected to take action Friday on the budget for the University of Wisconsin System. An agreement reached by the committee removed a proposal to create a public authority to govern UW-Madison, but does offer varying degrees of administrative flexibilities.
Here’s a roundup of news coverage of the agreement:
Associated Press: Budget deal keeps Madison campus in UW System but gives it, other campuses more flexibility
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:UW-Madison to stay in system, budget panel says
Wisconsin State Journal: UW-Madison independence idea officially dead, legislators float alternative
Capital Times: Campus Connection: Some freedoms from state oversight to be granted to all UW campuses
Campus Connection: Higher education game changer?
WisPolitics Budget Blog: Madison won’t be split off, but flexibilities will be offered to all UW campuses
WISC-TV: Budget plan keeps Madison campus In UW System: Committee approved budget measures
As state lawmakers continue the budget process, UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin says she is optimistic that legislators on both sides of the aisle have heard the call for greater flexibilities for UW-Madison, as well as for all other UW System institutions.
“I’m confident that some of the important items that could improve the way we operate — something that I’ve been advocating for months — will be part of the budget,” Martin says.
Strachota
State Rep. Pat Strachota, R-West Bend, says the matter of giving UW-Madison and UW System more autonomy is not settled, according to a report in WisPolitics.com. A Joint Finance Committee vote on the issue is expected next week.
Chancellor Biddy Martin is asking that those who agree that the New Badger Partnership and the public authority model are crucial to the future success of UW-Madison speak out as individuals, citizens and taxpayers, and not on behalf of the university, and support more openly and vigorously by contacting state lawmakers. With your own time and resources, she’s asking that those who support the New Badger Partnership tell lawmakers that we need their support of the public authority model in the current state budget, not only for the good of UW-Madison, but for the good of the state.
Details about how to contact members of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance can be found on the Legislature’s website.
The Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association sent a letter to the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to support the governor’s budget proposal for UW-Madison flexibilities.
“We believe that as state support continues to decline the UW-Madison needs to be positioned to manage these reductions while at the same time competing for resources worldwide,” wrote Tom Lochner, the group’s executive director. “The New Badger Partnership proposal has provided the catalyst for a thorough legislative discussion of this extremely important issue.” Read more »
Kalil
In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel guest column, Ronald Kalil, a professor of neuroscience in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at UW-Madison, argues that “public authority status will let UW-Madison control its own destiny, operate with greater efficiency and with new financial support.”
Columnist John Roach, writing in the June edition of Madison magzine says, “in a time of unprecedented political polarity brought about by a once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse, Biddy has her sleeves rolled up and is working in a bipartisan fashion to move things ahead for all…”
A story posted at ibmadison.com examines the New Badger Partnership and how it affects the business community. Read the entire story here.
Chancellor Biddy Martin was interviewed about the New Badger Partnership on this week’s “UpFront with Mike Gousha,” which airs in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Wausau, La Crosse and Eau Claire.
Brower
In a column in The Capital Times, Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning, states his case for granting public authority status for UW-Madison.
“The New Badger Partnership and public authority status — built on our strong foundation of the Wisconsin Idea — provide UW-Madison with the incentives, public responsibilities, and flexibilities that would allow us to chart a future where we can continue to best educate and serve our students and the citizens of Wisconsin,” he writes.
A resolution by the Industrial Advisory Board at the College of Engineering lays out the board’s support of the New Badger Partnership. Read the advisory board’s resolution.
The Board of Visitors for UW-Madsion’s Department of Geoscience has written to the co-chairs of the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee to support the New Badger Partnership and public authority status for the university.
Thousands of Badger alumni from across Wisconsin joined in a town-hall phone conversation with Chancellor Biddy Martin on Monday night for a question-and-answer session regarding the New Badger Partnership.
Listen to that conversation, sponsored by the Wisconsin Alumni Association:
The New Badger Partnership has won the support of the School of Education’s Board of Visitors, which joined a number of other boards in endorsing the concept and its establishment of a new business model for the university.
The Board of Visitors at the School of Veterinary Medicine has passed a resolution supporting the New Badger Partnership and the benefits it will bring to UW-Madison and the state of Wisconsin.
Members of the Board of Visitors of UW-Madison’s largest college — the College of Letters and Science — are urging state lawmakers to pass the New Badger Partnership.
The board’s letter states that the New Badger Partnership is “vital to preserving and enhancing UW-Madison’s contributions to Wisconsin’s economic growth and community well‐being. Increased flexibility and public authority status will help UW-Madison by addressing problems and costs associated with operating within large, and at times cumbersome, bureaucracies that can be at odds with the efficient management of a major research and educational institution.”
A letter signed by 42 UW-Madison members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine urges the co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee to back the proposal for public authority status for the university.
Martin
With the 2010-11 academic year drawing to a close, Chancellor Biddy Martin took time to look back on the year’s remarkable events and look ahead to the future with a discussion of the New Badger Partnership.
The School of Pharmacy’s Board of Visitors has joined supporters of the New Badger Partnership, adopting a resolution that backs the idea of public authority for UW-Madison.