Please, take a closer look at what is going on with the faculty's vote to use their paychecks to fund scholarships for students. In your Tuesday, March 5 editorial, you cited the Chancellor and other administrators as lauding the decision. What professor would dare vote against this?
Yet, the new Chancellor will make over $400,000 a year at a time when UW is losing its best professors to other universities. Professors are human beings who must look out for their families and fight for jobs, publications and tenure. And at a time when salaries are stuck in the mud, we ask them to pay so they continue to have qualified students.
Perhaps we should ask the ever-vocal Teaching Assistant's Association what they would think about using some of their ridiculously generous T.A., R.A., P.A.-ships to fund undergraduate tuition. Perhaps UW's administration should take pay cuts.
We applaud professors for voting to fund undergraduate education, but what if Boeing asks its employees to contribute to the R&D fund? That would really be generous and good for the economy and the future of the worker!
Maybe the vote is just an open offer to donate anonymously, but there is definitely an undercurrent that was overlooked.
- Adam Goodberg
UW-Madison graduate
