A story in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education (the weekly: temporary link, permalink for subscribers only) describes how the University of Wisconsin has gotten itself into hot water with the legislature and the public. It's a series of missteps largely caused by the UW system itself:

• a dalliance between an administrator and a graduate student that allowed the former seven months of paid "sick leave" during which he was looking for another job;
• the same administrator ends up getting sued for harrassment and is demoted to a "backup job", in essence tenure for an administrator to a position paying $73,000 ad infinitum;
• chancellors of the campuses getting $700 a month in car allowances;
• a top-heavy system with 25% of employees classified as administrators;
• failure to fire three faculty members who wer convicted of various sex crimes;
• the Madison campus' health services running an ad for a "morning-after" pill featuring "a smiling coed in scanty beach attire" and encouraging students to "stock up on the pill before going on spring break and advised them that they could get the pill from campus health clinics over the phone without an appointment;"
• UW-Stout's decision, later rescinded, to ban ROTC due to the stance of the military on gays;
• and not mentioned in the article is the continued debate over Bible studies led by RAs at UWEC.

You thought the Packers were having a bad year? One administrator complains that the Legislature "get[s] two people to issue press releases when anybody burps." That animosity appears in many ways, the article details, and it has caused Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature to become bolder in setting tighter budgets and proposing other restraints on the system. The faculty and administrators quoted would seem to indicate a university that thinks it's owed by the great unwashed. It may take them some time to learn.

(h/t: reader jw)
Categories: higher_ed