For Immediate Release: February 23, 2015

CALLING FOR AN EXPRESSION OF NO CONFIDENCE IN UW SYSTEM

AND INSTITUTIONAL ADMINISTRATORS

Milwaukee, WI: In the ongoing discussion regarding the cuts to the University of Wisconsin (UW) System and its proposed change to a “public authority”, much of the focus has been strictly on the financial aspects, namely the approximately $300 budget cut called for by Governor Scott Walker. Dwarfed by this discussion is the larger, and arguably more important, issue of the repeal and end of statutory shared governance. Uniquely in the UW-System, under section 36.09 of the statutes, groups such as students, faculty, academic and classi-fied staff have the primary responsibility for their respective spheres of influence, making them integral in the immediate governance and decision making of their respective campus or institution. For example: faculty, through their representatives, have the right to formulate policies regarding academics, such as ones that out-line procedures for students to appeal grades, while students, through a student government or association, have the right to formulate policies regarding student life, services and interests, including setting and allocat-ing student segregated university fees (SUF) that fund student services. Any impasse between shared govern-ance bodies regarding campus-wide policy is negotiated. The changes proposed by the current bill would move these rights from being statutorily protected, to being administrative rules subject to the whim of the UW System Board of Regents.

Instead of standing up to the cuts and proposed changes, most institutional Administrators, save few, are leading a charge that sees the cuts and the change to a “public authority” as a foregone conclusion. Chan-cellors across the UW System are charging ad-hoc committees to plan for these cuts and changes they have accepted as coming, while many of the onlookers largely ignore the fact that the Chancellors and other admin-istrators have a vested interest and much to gain in the “flexibility” and “efficiency” of a “public authority”, namely the effective end of what the administrators seem to view as the ‘pesky’ concept of statutory shared governance. It serves these administrators well to not have to statutorily answer to the other stakeholders in the immediate governance of their university. Indeed, effective unilateral decision-making is more “efficient” for them. But, on the contrary, if we embrace a system that celebrates a diversity of ideas, a system outlined in law in Wis. Stat. Ch. 36.09, we sacrifice some speed for initiatives and undertakings that are more representa-tive of the whole University community. It gives the shared governance groups, as a community, things they can be proud of, initiatives and projects that all groups have a stake in.

Trusting the UW System Central Administration, the mostly, gubernatorially-appointed Board of Regents, and their institutional counterparts in university administration to respect shared governance is a misguided endeavor at best, with many administrators for some time now already acting unilaterally against the best interests of other university stakeholders. Reasonable voices have called for the statutory protections for shared governance in Chapter 36 to be moved to a “Chapter 37”, governing the new “public authority”. But we cannot allow ourselves to compromise on statutory shared governance. The “public authority” needs to be resisted, with standing up for statutory shared governance at the forefront of the conversation. To ensure shared governance groups and university stakeholders in the UW System retain the ability and foundation from which to protest and stand against these and future budgetary cuts, the unique and venerated concept of statutory shared governance needs to be protected and saved.

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For Immediate Release: February 23, 2015

Calling for an Expression of No Confidence in UW System and Institutional Administrators

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To achieve this and to start to redirect the conversation to the threat to statutory shared governance,

we unequivocally call for, endorse, and urge shared governance groups and other stakeholders to move for-

ward with an Expression of No Confidence in UW System and Institutional Administrators that support the

Governor’s plan for a “public authority” and the end of statutory shared governance.

We cannot afford to let the conversation and protests revolve completely around the proposed budget-ary cuts, because there is much more at stake here if we ignore the threat to statutory shared governance. We, again, end by quoting Chad Alan Goldberg, University of Wisconsin - Madison Professor of Sociology, previously speaking on some of the challenges to shared governance and the importance of participation in it:

The solution is collaboration; the solution is statutory shared governance. It’s time for shared govern-ance groups to stand up and remind their respective institutional administration and the UW System admin-istration of that, by expressing their lack of confidence in those administrators that support the plan for a “public authority” and the end of statutory shared governance, and calling for their respective resigna-tions. We must stand up for statutory shared governance.

For any further information or inquiries please contact ASAP representative Taylor Q. Scott at: asap4uwm@gmail.com

# # #

The Alliance of Students Achieving Progress (ASAP) is a movement, currently active in the UW-Milwaukee campus

community. ASAP has had a long history in student advocacy for 20+ years. Previously known as ‘Achieving Student Action

through Progress’, the name may change but our progressive values and integrity in student and shared governance advocacy will

not. We remain a united movement of like-minded individuals standing up to ensure everyone has a voice. We believe in a truly

shared system where all governance groups under Wis. Stat. §36.09 work together to advance the collective goals of their respective

institution, the UW-System, higher education, and the Wisconsin Idea.

—

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“Alexis de Tocqueville called individualism: the tendency that ‘disposes each

member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows and to

draw apart with his family and his friends, so that after he has thus formed a

little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.’

Why is individualism a problem? Because the alternative [to statutory shared

governance in this instance], as Tocqueville pointed out, is guardianship and tu-

telage [by System/institutional Administration]. Bad guardians use their power

to make decisions with which citizens may not agree and which may even be

detrimental to their interests. But even in the best case, when benevolent guardi-

ans have our best interests at heart, guardianship gradually degrades our ca-

pacities to think, feel, and act for ourselves in matters that affect us and for

which we have a legal responsibility.”