Comments on Chancellor’s statement on Gov. Doyle’s state budget

By: Dan

2009-03-01T05:05:57Z

This does not make sense…if all faculty and staff will not have a raise in the salary, why are football coaches having a bonus? (See here.)

Maybe the university should allocate and use its money more wisely. We have lost a lot of wonderful professors who went to other schools for more opportunities that UW-Madison has the potential to give. Instead, we spend those money on the wrong places.

The Breese Terrace Union is now in the old UHS building. I do have to applaud people for using old buildings for a different purpose, but the union will be a waste of resource if no student use it.

By: Tom

2009-02-20T00:23:56Z

I had flashbacks to my education at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities when I heard the budget cutbacks. From 1999-2003 my in-state tuition increased 25% over those four years. It seems like at the head of most budget shortfalls, higher education students bear the brunt of the State’s shortcomings in balancing the budget. My wife’s program lost 6 employees in less than 6 months, and is having a hard time recruiting quality professors/assistant professors to fill their vacancies. Her primary advisor just recently decided to stay on, luckly, as her primary dissertation advisor would have left her alone to trudge through the next two years unadvised by a qualified professor.

The message of cutting higher education funding at the expense of student financial accounts is that we are not a valuable resource in Wisconsin. I WILL be leaving the state to find employment elsewhere in the coming year once my research and thesis is complete. The message is clear, “higher education is not a priority in the State of Wisconsin”. The budget shortfall and effect on students is a disgrace to all of us hard-working students. The effects will run deeper than graduates leaving the state, but that is the effect it has on me and my wife. Staff will continue to leave, and departments will suffer. I am already seeing it within my department as one Researh Associate cannot stay on, and will be moving onto Ball State most likely.

Sorely disappointed yet again,

Tom

By: Chris

2009-02-19T02:56:04Z

I honestly beleive that the universities, including the university of wisconsin, are one of biggest reasons why the middle class is being destroyed. My arguement for this case is shown time and time again when kids such as myself pay up to 120,000 dollars get an education and turn around and get 30,000 dollar a year jobs. How do your really believe that someone will every pay off the debt that large with such little jobs out there? I am one of the fortunate kids out there who has a job that pays me 20 dollars an hour, and even till working 60 hours a week all summer i barely make it through the school year. That right there is a joke. Also i see time and time again, especially in the math and physics department, is professors that cant teach. These people are usually here only to service the university in research. But what you people should remember is I, the student, am paying the bill i should be made number one, not your research. This country and its universities are now run like a business and thats just make me sick. So what i say is you should do some cutting do you building projects, for you guys have no money i dont understand how you can be building so much right now, and take some away from your research funding. Such building like Union South do not need to be torn down but because you people think it does.

By: Mary

2009-02-18T16:53:46Z

This university is so not nimble when comes to sharing human resources across departments and colleges, and, sometimes, even within departments. We’re not set up for someone to raise their hand and say “I can do more” or “Maybe we could do it this way” as the risk of getting one’s head shot off is just too high. People are so busy trying to preserve their own resources, there’s no concern for the common good. Example: A department trying to justify a course that’s not really needed simply to preserve the funding for that course because “if we give it up now, we’ll never get it back.” There should be some sort of budgetary incentive for sacrifice….allow more carry overs and maybe allow departments who propose a cut to keep 50% of the funds with complete control (within statutory guidelines, of course) over how that money is spent. I don’t know if these are practical ideas, but somehow we have to get everyone to look beyond their own small fiefdom.