After breaking into small groups to identify problems and brainstorm solutions, groups reported back with dozens of thoughtful ideas. Among them:
- If tuition increases, the definition of financial need should also be expanded to help low- and middle-income students afford the cost of obtaining a quality university education.
- Raise taxes, specifically income taxes, to help the state with its deficit situation.
- Provide research opportunities on a for-credit basis for undergraduate students.
- Resist across-the-board cuts to ensure that state-funded programs are not cut at the same level as self-supporting programs.
- Provide better support for junior faculty, as a way to show them they are valued and as a recruitment and retention tool.
- Make better strategic investments in campus diversity efforts.
- Provide more training for faculty and staff in working with diverse groups.
- Make stronger efforts to obtain private funding for campus libraries.
- Streamline the hiring process and evaluate and improve the sometimes cumbersome administrative practices involved in processing expenses, bidding and pre-authorizations for purchasing.
- Stop using so much paper by encouraging instructors to post assignments on the Web.
- Establish a textbook rental program that would provide students more affordable books and discourage textbook thefts.
- Try to resolve climate and culture issues between school and colleges to encourage more collaboration.
- Do a better job of community outreach.
- Set up an information technology registry that would enable units across campus to emulate advances that have worked elsewhere.
- Encourage students to take their first two years of instruction at other UW System campuses before transferring to UW-Madison to finish their degrees.
- Build more and stronger bridges to Wisconsin’s technical schools.
- Do more to encourage students to finish their degrees on time.
- Re-evaluate the tenure system, as peer universities often have different classification systems for faculty.
- Make it mandatory for students to take some service learning classes, including classes that are focused inward at improving the campus.
- Create greener jobs on campus.
- Appoint a task force to do a long-term study of efficiencies on campus.
- Set up better ties between foreign language departments and English as a second language projects in the community.
- Provide more interaction between the School of Education and teaching assistants to help ensure high quality teaching.
Let us know what you think of these ideas or share one of your own.
7:28 a.m.
Work toward getting a law passed in the state that would allow aunts and uncles to contribute toward educational funds not just the parents and grandparents…with tax benefits of doing so.
4:34 p.m.
“If tuition increases, the definition of financial need should also be expanded to help low- and middle-income students afford the cost of obtaining a quality university education.”
Financial aid cannot offer full packages to students who qualify as it is. How is this idea going to help unless more need-based aid becomes available?
“Provide research opportunities on a for-credit basis for undergraduate students.”
This already exists. It’s called the [insert Dept] 699. (Or the 299, in some cases.)
“Stop using so much paper by encouraging instructors to post assignments on the Web.”
Having taken classes where this was the norm (in the name of ‘conservation’) I can tell you — it does NOT reduce overall paper use. It merely passes the cost of printing and paper on to the students.
“Encourage students to take their first two years of instruction at other UW System campuses before transferring to UW-Madison to finish their degrees.”
As a transfer student, I want to emphasize that UW-Madison does NOT offer the same amenities to its transfer students as it does its first-years. The difference is accessibility to special interest and retention programs, especially for high-achieving students, is quite limited for transfers compared to freshman matriculators.
“Build more and stronger bridges to Wisconsin’s technical schools.”
This is a good, if broad, concept. Specifically, I’d recommend working with the Technical Colleges to develop honors level classes for their liberal arts transfer students.
“Do more to encourage students to finish their degrees on time.”
Ha ha ha. As a returning adult student, I cannot believe that anyone really believes that there aren’t enough pressures to finish as quickly as possible (hello, tuition costs?). I also take exception to the idea that there is a deadline for ‘on time.’ The four-year “rule” becomes more and more outdated every year, as qualifications for post-graduate study becomes more competitive. In order to complete everything that one must do, even students who enter with a years’ worth of college credits usually take 4 years to graduate.
“Make it mandatory for students to take some service learning classes, including classes that are focused inward at improving the campus.”
I disagree. Not everyone has an altruistic streak, and forcing those who don’t to participate ruins the experience for those who do care. I have examples but prefer not to describe them in a public forum.
“Appoint a task force to do a long-term study of efficiencies on campus.”
Few things are a better waste of resources than committees. Please don’t do this. Especially when ‘efficiencies’ lacks definition, as it does here. You’d have to appoint a committee just to figure out what the task force is trying to study.
10:39 a.m.
Many of these ideas are really good. Unfortunately, I think they are out of step with what is actually happening in the world economy. These ideas could have a real impact in a “not quite a recession” downturn, but in our current “oh dear, maybe it’s a depression, a really bad depression” downturn, they are woefully inadequate.
I think it is absolutely essential that we start thinking and talking widely about some “worst case” scenarios. In the same way that we have preparedness plans for natural disasters, we need to have them for economic crisis. As a community, we need to find ways to help people work through their fear and denial, and think constructively and creatively about things like large reductions in available salary money, and reductions in benefits. These conversations are certainly already happening informally and it is an obvious and necessary step to raise them to a public and institutional level.
Some thoughts I’ve had or heard expressed recently:
1) With all the people in Wisconsin, the nation and the world who are losing their jobs right now, it is embarrassing to have the university request a 2.5% pay increase, or any increase for that matter. What a wonderful thing it would be if the Faculty Senate and Academic Staff Assembly voted to voluntarily forgo a raise in the next budget.
2) If we are facing layoffs at the University, consider asking the whole community if they’d be willing to reduce their work hours to keep everyone employed while still achieving the necessary salary savings. As a represented classified staff person, I would definitely be willing to do this. I would also be willing to actively advocate for it among my peers.
Now for my own personal “pie in the sky, wish we’d done this five years ago” idea. I am very concerned about community food security. I think it is critically important to continue and hasten current efforts to develop local food systems. Many people around the country are working on the “victory garden” concept employed in World War II to encourage everyone to grow as much of their own food as possible. Think of all the land we have on campus that we could, all of us working together, turn into vegetable gardens. Think of all the expertise we have on campus to help make those gardens prosper. As a community-wide social experiment, many disciplines, beyond the obvious ones, could have a role. With a little bit of thought, you’ll see how this idea could tie into all aspects of the University’s mission while directly helping, in one the most fundamental ways possible, ourselves and our community.
– Barb Avery
3:15 p.m.
Sell beer at Camp Randall and the Kohl Center. Both Lambeau Field and Miller Park sell beer between $5-6 dollars a cup. This could be done at our campus sporting events and raise a lot of money for the University (or athletics, which would then become more self-sufficient). There are however, a few rules that would need to be put in place to make sure that the safety of the patrons remains intact. For example, Lambeau field only sells until the end of the 3rd quarter and limits their beer sales. This could be done with the ticket stub (scan the ticket before selling the beer and limit to 2-4 per ticket). For legal-aged students, this could be reduced to 1-2 beer per ticket. Alcohol is always brought into Camp Randall (check the bleachers after the game, especially in the Y-Z sections) so we might as well offer it and make money off of it for the UW.
This is a major source of income that the University is neglecting.
11:13 a.m.
First, there will be grumbling by a few, but I think most of us are prepared to sacrifice on the salary issue if it means we are saving the jobs of our colleagues. I’d rather take a pay cut and/or pay more for my health coverage than watch a colleague lose their job and the valuable work that person is doing. There is no reason why university employees should be immune from the pain people are suffering in the private sector. I am willing to advocate for this publicly. I am academic staff. Further, if Martin announces that placing any laid off staff member in an open position elsewhere on campus will be a priority, people will relax and be more willing to be open about how they believe they could do more, share resources, etc. Remove the fear of job loss, and the ideas will flow more freely.
As for ideas…..
Centralize more support services such as payroll, purchasing, etc. The hiring freeze has really hurt some units and not others because nobody shares support resources. It’s bad management to freeze support positions if that is not followed up with reallocation of human resources. There should be some sort of transparent methodology for departmental support staffing across all colleges. Currently, these decisions are made in the black box of the Deans’ offices and nobody trusts the process.
Last, our decentralized structure is truly a stone around our neck in this budget climate because it causes everyone to hoard their toys and not share. I am seeing that already. Surely there will be push back if Chancellor Martin attempts to centralize more functions, but she appears to have the chutzpah to take this on.
7:25 p.m.
Many of us who work in industry (Wisconsin manufacturing) have been very impressed by the enormous progress that can be made in any organization if you employ the tenets taught in Lean manufacturing (think Toyota). Most of these can be applied to any process (big or small) in any organization. You work with the people who “do the stuff” to identify and remove wasteful steps and activities. Many organizations remove 30-90% of the time and effort required to complete processes. Knowledge of Lean already exists in the business world nearby – just ask.
5:40 p.m.
Distribute financial aid checks with direct deposit
9:32 p.m.
Chancellor Martin,
Doesn’t Obama’s new chief of staff, Rhahm Emanuel, suggest that crisis is opportunity? A time like this feels like an ideal moment to engage students in service learning projects that offer incentives to students who participate. Utilizing students asks them to take charge of their own lives and to interact with other students which stimulates healthy interactions and networking opportunities in ways that they might otherwise forego. Incentives is the key. What kind of credit could be offered that translates into the various programs? A comprehensive list of local UW-centered issues or problems could be made detailing things that might be accomplished by amateurs. I often find that the University over emphasizes “mastery” which is troubling to identify and isolating. Their is always lots of work to be done by laypeople which has great merit for communities. I have seen k-12 students embrace these initiatives that forever altered their worldviews and made them better more prepared citizens. Every department could submit proposals after seeing a list of current needs.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Stephen Rose
1:44 p.m.
Some time ago I came across a nation wide list of univerisites that subscribe to a sustainability component within their university. At the time UW-Madison was not on this list. I don’t know if it has been included with these other universities as of late. At any rate, all these university share information about the environmental sustainability and “green” research that they are doing. Some are working on solar buildings similar to what univeristies do each year in Wahington D.C. or new methods of vehicle transportation or batteries but all are in some aspects tied to the Department of Energy. I know that UW-Madison has a person that deals with Energy issues but do not know if there is a collaborative effort with other univeristies. I do know that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a strong sustainability program.
Thank-You for taking the time to read my susgestion.
M.Pecore
10:10 p.m.
Contact Recycled Energy Development. I worked with them over the summer and I know that a branch of theirs (Turbosteam) has done some projects with college campuses. They focus on increasing energy efficiency by reusing waste energy via waste heat recover, combined heat and power, etc.
12:12 p.m.
Stop sending paper mailings to individuals; use email lists instead. This includes: DoIT course/equipment fliers (which go directly to trash upon delivery by probaly 99% of recipients); UW res halls–coupons, searching for student employees; round table notices. Also, stop mailing paper unclassified leave statements. They’ve been available/printable online for about 1 year, yet we still receive them in campus mail. I assume they will eventually be reported electronically, but at least for now we can print our own faster, and save the printing of the addresses and all the time and handliing to sort and deliver via campus mail (often relatively late for those of us off campus).
12:14 p.m.
Please process TER payments electronic by direct deposit–we all get our paychecks that way–instead of US mail paper checks.