UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley delivered his annual State of the University address at the Faculty Senate meeting Monday afternoon. Wiley focused his speech on budget issues in the university.
\I chose to speak not about how well things are going, but to say we're not out of the woods yet on the state budget, and it's going to take a while to get there,"" he said.
Wiley noted the base budget, which accounts for hiring faculty and core academic staff, has dropped considerably from the total budget percentage in the past 10 years. The base budget is 35.1 percent of the almost $1.9 billion total budget this year, down from 43.5 percent of the $1.1 billion budget in the 1994-95 school year.
""This is further documentation of the trend that ... the legislators and governors are withdrawing support of the public schools and raising tuition,"" Wiley said.
Wiley called on the faculty to write personal letters to the governor and legislators detailing their concerns regarding the budget cuts. Wiley also commented on the importance of student support.
""The students are getting very active this time around and are very worried about the base budget issue I was speaking about,"" Wiley said. ""And they will be our allies in this.""
Joseph Elder, a UW-Madison sociology professor and chair of the Faculty-Senate Committee on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender issues, spoke on the committee's progress since 1997.
Elder cited increasing the comfort level of LGBT students on campus as a main goal, and said the committee has made great strides in achieving that, despite recent setbacks.
""We call upon the UW-Madison campus to challenge ... demeaning and threatening activities, welcome the diversity that enriches our campus and uphold our historical principles of equality and respect for all.""
The meeting closed with a heated discussion led by Anatole Beck, a UW-Madison mathematics professor, regarding the dismissal of UW-Superior Professor John Marder.
By April 2000, Marder was found innocent three times of sexual harassment charges, due to a lack of evidence against him. Two months later, the Board of Regents voted to dismiss Marder, later locking him out of his office and banning him from campus.
""It is not a matter of whether he is guilty or innocent of the charges brought against him,"" Beck said. ""What is important is the way the Regents dealt with this afterwards. If we accept this procedure, we are yielding up academic freedom and due process to whenever the regents choose to accept and offer it up, and that is unacceptable.""
