Wisconsin Faculty Fighting the Destruction of Public Higher Education
A faculty vote of “no-confidence” is the nuclear option on campus— the “delete your account” of academia. It says publicly, loudly, and collectively that professors no longer believe their president or other leaders can give students what they need.
This spring, an unprecedented wave of thousands of faculty on University of Wisconsin (UW) campuses, plus the 13 two-year UW System Colleges, have voted no-confidence in UW System President Ray Cross and Board of Regents. Fed up with devastating state budget cuts, attacks on tenure and shared governance, and also what they see as the systematic demolition of one of the world’s finest public universities for political purposes, they have said enough is enough.
“By voting no confidence, we protest the intentional destruction of our internationally recognized university system,” UW-Milwaukee professor Rachel Ida Buff told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
In Milwaukee, the largest meeting of UWM faculty in decades or possibly ever—nearly 300 people—voted unanimously in May. Their vote was preceded by the initial action at UW-Madison, the system’s flagship university, and also UW-River Falls and UW-La Crosse, and then quickly followed by similar censures on other campuses. “This resolution is an expression of frustration…over what has happened to public higher education [here] over the past year, 18 months, whatever,” said Mitch Freymiller, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Senate chair, to Wisconsin Public Radio.
Meanwhile, key UW faculty members have thrown up their hands at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker—the architect of these university “reforms”—and quit UW altogether. “At my new university in another state, I will have stronger tenure protections than I now have here. I will earn about 50 percent more than my current salary for the Wisconsin Faculty Fighting the Destruction of Public Higher Education: