Shortly after the UW System Board of Regents passed three tenure resolutions that faculty members deemed more harmful than helpful in protecting academic freedom, Slate education columnist Rebecca Schuman wrote that despite efforts to retain superstar faculty at UW-Madison, “the damage has been done.”
In her article, “The End of Research in Wisconsin,” Schuman described how tenure changes throughout the UW System could cause a “total loss of the public research university,” and said the state of public higher education in Wisconsin is worse than other areas nationwide.
Much of the discussion surrounding tenure arose after Gov. Scott Walker struck it from state statutes in July 2015 and weakened faculty governance, leaving the 18-member Board of Regents to decide more singularly whether programs could be discontinued and faculty laid off.
Many faculty members expressed disapproval of Walker’s work, most notably sociology professor Sara Goldrick-Rab, who has repeatedly slammed the university for treating its faculty poorly. Goldrick-Rab, who is leaving for Temple University, is one of at least five other top faculty members taken by competing peer institutions, Schuman wrote.
In February, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank reported to the Board of Regents that 85 percent of faculty who received outside offers in recent months have been retained, but the university has spent nearly $9 million to do so.
Schuman said as long as tenure is weak in Wisconsin, the regents will have to keep “doling out cash to stave off poachers” if the university wishes to preserve its reputation, and she questioned how any new high-profile faculty members will be attracted to Wisconsin with such little protection for their academic research in place.
Schuman argued that faculty require tenure to protect the integrity of knowledge, and she urged readers to think about how research at UW-Madison has affected their own lives.
“Wisconsin professors simply do not want research limited by the whims of 18 people appointed by a governor with an openly stated anti-education agenda,” Schuman wrote. “And you shouldn’t, either.”
State lawmakers have paid little attention to warnings against “corporatizing” higher education, Schuman said, and recent steps to weaken tenure in Wisconsin signify a further refusal to acknowledge the cost of this practice.
“What’s happening in Wisconsin is a worst-case scenario come to life,” Schuman wrote. “And $9 million will do nothing to stop the demise of the integrity of research produced there—and everywhere else, too, if we don’t start electing lawmakers who actually value research.”
