With budget cuts looming, one UW System program is already feeling the effects of the university's fiscal crisis.
UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley and UW System President Katharine Lyall are attempting to phase out the Industrial Relations Research Institute, a graduate program that promotes business and labor relations. Members of the Industrial Relations Graduate Student Association convened Tuesday to outline a plan to save the IRRI.
The potential elimination of the IRRI is an example of how budget cuts may impact many small UW System programs.
The IRRI was housed in the College of Letters and Science until recently. In the Spring of 2002, Charles Halaby, associate dean of the College of Letters and Science, sent a letter to incoming students discouraging them from enrolling in IRRI, citing that its future was in jeopardy. In December, faculty in the Management Department of the School of Business developed a proposal to save the institute by transferring it to the School of Business.
\The provost did not accept the proposal, as I understand it,"" said Barry Gerhart, a professor in the School of Business' Department of Management and Human Resources. ""Since then, there has been activity by people who continually support the institute to see what can be done [to save it].""
Gerhart, who is a graduate of the institute, would serve as the new director if the IRRI can be saved.
The members of IRGSA and others who are trying to save the program said they plan to raise awareness of the institute's value. They said the IRRI has a coveted history within the business and labor community, both of which support the proposal to keep the IRRI alive.
""The institute has a very strong reputation,"" said Ken Mericle, a professor of labor education at the UW Extension's School for Workers and an IRRI alumnus. ""When I work with unions and they see that I have an institutional affiliation with the institute, it opens up opportunities and it opens up a line of conversation which I don't think is possible from every industrial relations program.""
Contacting Wiley and Lyall through personal letters and group petitions is the last hope toward saving the endangered institute, according to those present at Tuesday's meeting.
""I think that the students are very disappointed that they were marginally made aware of what is happening. No one has given the students a chance to waiver their opinions,"" said Carrie Richard, co-president of the IRGSA. ""It is unfortunately one of those difficult things where the university is not listening to the students and being responsive.\
