UW System President Kevin Reilly gave his first official State of the University System address to UW-Madison faculty Monday at the Faculty Senate Meeting, addressing how the tightening budget has affected hiring capabilities.
'A high-caliber university system, of course, needs high-caliber faculty,' Reilly said. 'Unfortunately you know better than I do that these same budget cuts that have reduced student access, or at least threatened to, are affecting our faculty ranks as well.'
According to Reilly, rival universities that can afford to pay higher salaries are systematically luring away many talented UW faculty members.
'Despite a small increase in faculty and staff salaries this year, we still do not have the funding to keep a competitive pace,' Reilly said.
Crucial to attaining this goal, said Reilly, is building a better relationship with the legislature, which continues to raise taxes while cutting the state deficit in half.
'[Professors] look down the road and they hear the comments being made by the chair of the Higher Education Committee and they wonder whether that degree of amenity towards the university is a bad sign for the future,' said Graham Wilson, chair of the Political Science department.
'When the UW System loses state fiscal support, not only is the university limited in what it can do for its students, but the entire state of Wisconsin is inhibited from reaching its goals,' Reilly said.
Reilly said that the third parties who speak on behalf of the university, such as the business community, can do a better job of explaining the school's economic development benefits.
UW is the only university in the Big Ten without domestic partner benefits. 'I've made the case directly to the speaker of the assembly and he told me face to face that 'as long as I am the speaker, I will never pass this legislation,'' Reilly said.
According to Interim Provost Gina Sapiro, the entire UW faculty will need to work hard to overcome the high number of interim positions resulting from the turnover.
'The entire staff of this university needs to do the best job it can to meet these challenges, to figure out what to do with our resource challenges, to recover from the public relations issues we've been facing,' she said. 'We all have to do better.'
