The UW-Madison Faculty Senate passed a second resolution officially addressing the decline in state budget support for higher education Monday.
The resolution asks the governor and the Wisconsin legislature to help “[sustain] top quality higher education institutions in Wisconsin” by providing sufficient funding to help UW-Madison fulfill its “core missions.”
Brad Barham, chair of the Faculty Senate’s University Committee, brought the resolution before the senate.
“At the last meeting we got a suggestion of coming up with a motion that gave more guts behind the problems we face,” Barham said. “This document reflects that effort.”
The resolution specifically cites decreases in funding and increases in tuition as problems for students, as well as the problem with job creation and stability for UW faculty and staff.
In dealing with the cuts, Chancellor David Ward said the university needs to learn how to cut costs while also advancing learning by making education university resources more efficient.
“If we don’t show that we can actually respond to this I don’t believe there is another dime to be had in public investment in higher education,” Ward said.
Ward said faculty senators should “try to enter the mind of the entering student and see if that can really provoke change.”
Faculty Senator Sarah Goldrick-Rab said university officials need to discuss restructuring higher education.
“There are so many people thinking about these issues in the for-profit sector and right now they’re leading the way,” Goldrick-Rab said. “They’re setting the tone and it’s their ideas that are driving this and you should be driving it instead.”
The senate will continue a discussion of educational innovation in future meetings.
