The regents are in the midst of a two day meeting. Yesterday, they approved the end to backup jobs and an investigation of student fee increases.
All of this appears to be a cave-in to the university-hating, sensationalist wing of the republican party in Madison. Neither will necessarily improve the quality of higher education in the state. More likely, the new policies will convince good candidates for administative jobs to look elsewhere and reduce options available to students.
- Day 1 Regents meeting news summary
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5 comments:
Why are you against an investigation of student fee increases? Strictly speaking, it doesn't impact you, because your salary and your department's funds don't come from those fees.
Of course, judging by your previous posts, you have no problem soaking students with never-ending tuition and fee hikes. For all the bluster from the UWO faculty about how much eroding state support is hurting the university, I've yet to see a single faculty member (even Dr. Palmeri) talk about how these hikes are gradually putting UWO out of the reach of the working-class students it served well for so long.
I think it is fine to investigate student fee increases. I'll tell you now why they are going up--the state cuts our resources regularly, so universities compensate. They are also caving in to the demands of students for more luxuries at college.
As I have mentioned in the past, the new athletic facility at Oshkosh was voted in my student-athletes who went to the polls and the apathy of the rest of the student body.
Where is the need for a legislative investigation in that? Let's take the million dollars they are going to spend and use it for something productive!
I might add that if you looked at my older posts, you would see that I think skyrocketing tuition is an awful thing. State governments (and residents) should step up and help lower-class kids get a quality education. They haven't--what are we supposed to do?
I have heard a number of faculty complain about increases in tuition and fees--they just don't feel it its proper to use classroom time to do it. Faculty also complain about paying for parking.
My question is: Why did students (not faculty) vote to pay for the wellness center, and yet complain about textbook prices? Where is the uproar over this building?
I was referring to your remarks on the 3% tuition cap that was proposed back during the budget cycle.
As to why students voted for the wellness center, the Chancellor played that exactly how he needed to, and it helped that Al Ackerman told all the athletes to go vote for it.
The 3% cap was a political gimmick. Sure, freeze tuition and let the universities take a huge cut. If they were serious about controlling tuition, they would not have slashed hundreds of millions from the university system's budget. To accept the political stunt of freezing tuition would just be foolhardy.
In COLs, we are already down 50 tenure-track positions, and that number will increase if the budget stays the way it is. I guess if I wanted to more quickly gut UWO, a tuition freeze would be the way to go.
You can call the students naive or gullible, but their apathy let athletes rule the day. The chancellor didn't vote. . .
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