Scott Walker says UW faculty should 'teach more classes, do more work'

[riversedge]

Source: Twincities.com--from Milw Journal Sentinel




Scott Walker says UW faculty should 'teach more classes, do more work'


http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_27410862/scott-walker-says-uw-faculty-should-teach-more?source=JBarTicker

By Karen Herzog and Tom Kertscher
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Posted: 01/28/2015 12:01:00 AM CST | Updated: 101 min. ago

Faculty and staff in the University of Wisconsin System should be "teaching more classes and doing more work," Gov. Scott Walker said during an interview Wednesday morning with a Milwaukee conservative radio talk show host.

During back to back interviews with radio talk show hosts Charlie Sykes and Jay Weber, Walker discussed how a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks would be funded, his preparations to run for president, and his state budget proposal that would cut $300 million cut in funding over two years for the UW System while granting new flexibilities in how the UW System does business.


Walker gave a lengthy answer, noting former Gov. James Doyle made similar size cuts to the UW System, though Doyle's cuts were not coupled with a tuition freeze. He said the UW would have to be "more effective, efficient."

Walker then told Sykes:

"I think you were right, your comments today on Right Wisconsin, that maybe it's time for faculty and staff to start thinking about teaching more classes and doing more work. And this authority frees up the UW administration to make those sorts of requests, which I think are needed not only here but across the country." ...

Read more: http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_27410862/scott-walker-says-uw-faculty-should-teach-more?source=JBarTicker

---

One thing we can count on is for Walker--who is running for 2016 President--he will bring up the past Gov Doyle to blame.

Walker is in Revival mode (name of his new fund-raising Pac)--reviving old memes

[riversedge]

1. Walker filed papers to set up the committee, called "Our American Revival,"

Walker has run WI into a deep hole. Nothing 'revival' about his work!



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/01/27/scott-walker-forms-committee-in-preparation-for-2016-presidential-bid/


............Walker filed papers to set up the committee, called "Our American Revival," and a new Web site for the organization was scheduled to go live later Tuesday. The steps come after a busy weekend of pre-presidential events that included his address at the Iowa Freedom Summit, a later appearance at a gathering in California hosted by the billionaire Koch brothers and a stopover in Denver for additional fundraising.

[Release The Hounds]

2. So says the college drop-out and government leech.

And it appears 'DOYLE!' is the new 'BENGHAZI!' in WI.

[n2doc]

3. Teaching more means less research

which means less money coming in. So what this will lead to is, more adjuncts being hired to teach classes for peanuts, and probably less research money coming in, making the financial problems worse.

[riversedge]

5. It is already happening in WI--and at the big Universites also.

[greymattermom]

6. this is tragic

The major research universities draw all sorts of start up companies to take advantage of the faculty expertise. Adjuncts can teach a lot of classes for little money, but they can't do anything else.

[riversedge]

8. "How is Wisconsin supposed to compete for the jobs of tomorrow with a slash and burn approach to edu

We have a Gov and Repug legislatures to do not value education. Simple as that.


http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/walker-proposes-300-million-cut-more-autonomy-for-uw-b99433799z1-289929831.html


......Democrats called the plan shortsighted, saying it would hamper efforts by UW campuses to improve the economy.

"How is Wisconsin supposed to compete for the jobs of tomorrow with a slash and burn approach to education?" said a statement from Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh), a member of the budget committee.
..................

Cross, the UW System president, said the UW System would have no interest in jacking up tuition at its first opportunity and would aim to make itself more efficient.

He said he recognized the Legislature could grant the UW System more flexibility, only to take it away later.

"They're creating authority for a purpose," Cross said. "Meddling with that in the future needs to be a carefully thought out intervention, not something that, 'Oh, this frustrates me, let's pass a law.'"

[Jackpine Radical]

26. I think what actually happens is that the corporations end up setting the research agendas

for the universities by controlling the funding. This means that no basic research gets done, only applied stuff that is likely to benefit the corporation in the relatively near future.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

45. That's a HUGE point.

The research findings become proprietary and that's something corporations have been clamoring for for a long time.

[KansDem]

4. He's playing to his right-wing base...

You know, the ones opposed to all that book-learning.

[msongs]

7. the ones who vote in the majority to keep him as governor? nt

[KansDem]

13. Do you mean the gerrymandered "majority?"

GOP Statehouse Majorities Make Electoral Vote Change Possible

Newly-drawn maps in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania not only helped Republicans on the Congressional level, but also helped cement GOP majorities in state legislative races -- meaning the GOP will likely have the numbers to change how electoral votes are allocated if they move forward with these proposals.

Across Wisconsin, Democrats got more than 52% of the vote in the state's 99 Assembly districts, but because of the newly-drawn maps, won just 39% of the seats. Democrats came away with 53% of the vote in the state Senate race but nonetheless lost two key seats. Coming into the 2013-2014 session Republicans again hold majorities in both the Senate and Assembly.

The proposed changes to how electoral votes will be allocated are only the latest effort by Wisconsin Republicans to twist the democratic process for partisan gain.

In addition to the "shameful" and "needlessly secret" redistricting process, in 2011 Republicans pushed through an ALEC-inspired voter ID law, which threatened to disenfranchise over 300,000 Wisconsin residents -- largely people of color and students, populations that tend to vote for Democrats -- but it was blocked by two judges as an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. The ALEC State Chair for Wisconsin is now discussing amending the constitution to add a voter ID requirement, despite residents of neighboring Minnesota soundly rejecting such an effort last November.

In recent months, Walker and other legislators have voiced support for ending the longstanding Wisconsin law that allows voters to register on election day (even though Walker's own son used same day registration in November to cast his vote). That law has helped the state achieve one of the highest turnout rates in the country but is perceived as helping Democratic voters exercise the franchise.

Heck predicts that it "would ultimately hurt [Republicans] to try something so blatantly unfair" as changing how electoral votes are assigned for partisan gain. "It would set off a firestorm of protest that we didn't see for gerrymandering and voter ID," he said.

"But if you have the votes you can ram anything through the legislature."

- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/12/11922/latest-effort-fix-election-results-rig-electoral-college#sthash.BWcbfoZz.dpuf

Yeah, sure...that's the ticket

[Egnever]

23. Governor is a statewide office there is no gerrymandering that

A majority elected him.

[KansDem]

25. Ah, I stand corrected...

I was terribly in error.

So there really are majority that sees Walker as the best person for the job.

Thanks you for your correction.

I have to get out more...

[whathehell]

51. LOL

You don't need no stinkin' sarcasm thingy for me.

[yeoman6987]

28. lol. You forgot the Sarc tag

Totally impossible to gerrymander the Governorship. Although you knew that.

[KansDem]

29. I was a bad boy!

I confused the two!

[yeoman6987]

31. Your awesome. Always have been. Thanks for the reply!!!!!!

[KansDem]

33. !!

[ChazInAz]

9. Sounds familiar.

It's the same BS that Tricky Dick and Spiggy Agnew used to spout.

[Wellstone ruled]

10. Walker just lit the

dynamite fuse. When the UW College system gets done with this guy,toast. He just cut off the hand that saved his recalled ass.

[ananda]

11. Ok, I'm gonna be brutal.

If the UW professors and students were all that
smart in the first place, they would never
have let Walker win that first election, much
less the recall.

Surely EVERYONE with even a small glimmer of
intelligence knows that things always get
worse with Reeps in charge.

So I say: let em reap what they sow.. which
is a lot of nuthin...

[Still In Wisconsin]

14. OK I'll bite...

How were we supposed to "not let him win?"

We being UW professors (me) and the students I serve. WE voted overwhelmingly for Barrett, and then Barrett again, and then Burke. I think we ARE smart, we ARE working hard, and I really really resent people like YOU implying otherwise.

[ananda]

18. Sorry.

I apologize.

I was replying to the one who said Walker was biting the hand
of those who saved his recall ass... So do you think he was
wrong to say that?

I would really like to say this though.

Walker and his ilk represent the party of war and circuses
without bread.

The Dems for the most part want to add the bread but
seem to be losing that battle in many places.

These are sad days for so many.

[Still In Wisconsin]

32. Thanks. I appreciate that.

I do think that poster was/is misinformed. There's no way UW System faculty/staff and students "saved his recall ass." In fact, UW students were particularly instrumental in making the recall happen in the first place.

The fact is that Scott Walker is very much like Ronald Reagan. He can propose (and enact) far right policy by, through his affable manner and "guy next door" persona, making these radical ideas seem like common sense solutions to the problems we all face. He's also a master at capitalizing on (and amplifying) personal resentment for his own political gain. Republicans all do this to some extent, but Walker is an absolute master. Thus far, the state-level party here has had no answer for him in terms of a truly viable candidate (Hello? Senator Feingold? Paging Senator Feingold...)

Walker may be uneducated and he may be the corporate right's waterboy but he is also profoundly skilled as a politician. We as a national Party dismiss him as a player in presidential politics at our own peril.

[Still In Wisconsin]

12. Cool! So I can up my current ~60 hr work week...

to what, 80 hrs? 90? Because, you know, I need to do more work.

More resentment politics from Walker... I only wish it didn't work so well.

[YarnAddict]

53. Okay, need to ask

because I think you are in a position to know about this.

My son recently had to give up his PhD aspirations and a dream of a career in academia because the program he was in ran out of funding. Six years of work, and only a technical masters to show for it.

He has complained for years that the current tenure system disincentivizes full professors from retiring, and therefore making room for newer, younger people to have their shot at it. The older profs do not teach, leaving most of that task to TAs and grad students. Don't know how much research they are actually doing, or even how much publishing, once they have achieved tenure, are 80 years old and shuffling in to the office a couple of times per week in an effort to keep their fat paychecks coming in.

Is it possible that if the profs were expected to teach, as part of their actual job, more would choose to retire?

Just wondering. My son has plenty of regrets about the way things went. He was in biology, and easily could have done the med school thing, but chose academia because he loves research.

[Still In Wisconsin]

57. What I would say is this:

Yes, there are some "veteran" profs who milk the tenure system, their best days behind them, and don't bring in all that much in the way of grant money, don't contribute that much. However, I would say that these profs are the exception. In fact, some of the absolute superstars I know (I am in the physical sciences) are in their 60s and 70s.

What's more important is this: If you jack up teaching loads, you will probably flush out some deadwood, but you're also going to make it hard/impossible to hire top-level talent from among the pool of new, hungry profs looking to make a name. Everybody wants those people and if you make the UW more hostile toward faculty in terms of work load, salary, or whatever, you're going to lose the good people you have (believe me, they have opportunities every year to go elsewhere) and the new talent simply won't come.

Just my $0.02. Sorry for your kid's experience, that really stinks.

[YarnAddict]

58. I hadn't thought of that

If all profs were expected to teach, it might work, but losing out on the best talent would only diminish the value of a UW degree.

Don't know if my son's experience is typical. One of his college roommates has been working on his bio PhD for nearly nine years. He was very frustrated for awhile, but can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and may get his degree this year.

The roomie who majored in physics got his degree a couple of years ago, and is now doing postdocs, which also seems to be kind of a road to nowhere.

The head of the lab my son was in was tapped to be department head for a couple of years, and ended up doing so much administrative crap that research was put on a back burner for way to long. They lost a couple of years that way.

He was in chronobiology, which has potential applications for cancer treatment, and other worthy objectives, but doesn't attract the funding that global warming research and war on terror does.

When the funding ran out he was faced with the choice of taking a leave of absence and hoping that funding would magically reappear, or accepting the masters degree as a consolation prize. He was married and his wife wanted to settle down, buy a house, and have babies. She had expected to be well on that road at least a couple of years earlier, and he said he couldn't ask her to wait another year, which says a lot about him as a person, I guess.

He was first author on a paper, which has been cited a couple of times, and got attribution in at least one other paper. He may end up teaching at a community college, but for now he is looking forward to being a full-time dad.

[Botany]

15. I might be goofed on strong skunk weed but I'll never believe that no good Mother F***er ....

... won his last 2 elections in a clean vote. Forget about Rs vs Ds or rural vs urban breakdowns
because Walker is 100% against the people of Wisconsin and what is good for them. The University
of Wisconsin is one of the world's greatest universities and what Walker is talking about here is
"selling off," pieces and parts of the U of W system.

BTW for somebody who for God only knows what reason had to leave the Marquette U
in his senior year w/none of his credits being transfered to another college so he
could get his degree ..... aka he is not a college grad .... he should be in no place to tell
the U of W system what to do.

" ... while granting new flexibilities in how the UW System does business." = from the U of
W to the brand new Koch University System.

I hate this brand of republicans because they actively work to hurt the American people
and if we and the democrats can't mop the floor w/them in 2016 then we are in deep shit.


Vote Republican our product hurts people.

[Scuba]

44. Ya think?

[dhill926]

16. right from the Reagan playbook...

when he was guv of California.

[socialist cyclist]

17. more work for overpaid lazy adjuncts!

Does this idiot even realize the number of university classes that are taught by people with Doctorate degrees that MAY be making $18,000 a year with no benefits, if they are lucky to be teaching 3 classes a semester????

[Augiedog]

19. This from the, at best college dropout, and at worst....

A person who was asked to leave Marquette University for unethical behavior. Scott Walker needs to demonstrate that he was not required to leave Marquette. While a college degree is not a requirement to run for or be elected to the Presidency, the shadow of doubt about his leaving needs to be cleared up. This can be done by him allowing Marquette to release his records. Failing that pretty much exposes him for what a lot of people already think he is in Wisconsin. He wants to be awarded his degree without having accomplished the requirements, so he must believe not having a degree is a campaign handicap. He is proposing that teachers in Wisconsin need not achieve certification to be allowed to work the states schools. Any guesses who Scott Walker hates the most in world? Teachers....those who he says don't work hard enough, long enough or tow his line of theocratic history, science and philosophy. What he is proposing will make us the laughing stock of even Mississippi educators and the butt of jokes around the world....wisconsin (with a small w) will be the new Wikapedia example for ignorance.
Walker wants the stae to be more effective and efficient. We have become so efficient under his leadership that we rank almost last in every economic ranking there is. Now we are headed to become perhaps the first state with no educational standards that mean anything. It seems somehow incredibly hypocritical for a college dropout to claim teachers don't work hard enough, or maybe it's revenge?

[yeoman6987]

30. He will never release his transcripts or other papers

Republicans BEGGED President Obama to do this for years and he never did so you know they are going to use that for the reason that Walker doesn't need to. I am glad that President Obama didn't release his college transcripts...none of our business and really neither is Walker.

[Still In Wisconsin]

34. I don't know if it's revenge for Walker... I rather suspect that is part of it.

I think a big part of it is that Walker is running for president and can't do so with a huge structural deficit (created by his policies and tax cuts) on the books. So, something has to be done to eliminate that quickly, and he is going to sacrifice the UW System to do so.

I KNOW, however-- personally- that revenge is a HUGE part of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' motivation for wanting to absolutely gut the UW.

[midnight]

20. Gov. Scott Walker seeks $300 million in university cuts, but $220 million to build Bucks a new arena

So glad to see the cuts to the university being discussed.


"Meanwhile in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker continues his efforts to carve up the state piecemeal. Walker is one of those governors and Republican presidential maybe-contenders whose entire reason for governance can be summed up as We Can't Have Nice Things Anymore.
Gov. Scott Walker's plan to cut the University of Wisconsin System by $300 million over two years would likely lead to layoffs, but closing campuses is not on the table at this time, top school officials said Tuesday.
"At this time" is an interesting hedge, but the central premise is that the state university ought to be able to absorb budget cuts of $300 million over two years by eliminating "waste," which is a talking point that predates Scott Walker's birth by roughly an eon or so. Eliminating this waste, by which we mean people and services, will be accomplished in the usual Scott Walker way. The universities will be detached from state government and therefore the labor rules that regulate them, which will free up Walker supporters on the Board of Regents as they implement those rules in a manner more fitting of a kleptocracy.
One such law provides faculty with tenure, which protects them from dismissal. Another provides for shared governance, which allows professors and students to have a role in how universities are run."


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/28/1360765/-Gov-Scott-Walker-seeks-300-million-in-university-cuts-but-220-million-to-build-Bucks-a-new-arena

[the_sly_pig]

21. It will never be enough. Ever.

Education is an end in itself. Stupid people are unable to understand the value of an open mind.

[americannightmare]

27. Exactly, sly_pig, bravo...

Kant said "Treat people as an end and not a means.' The same goes for education. The vocationalization and commodification of education is this country's undoing...everything else that's wrong simply spins from it.

[Half-Century Man]

22. Which globally recognized successful educational system administers itself using a business model?

None.
The call to "be more effective, efficient" is business speak. It means do more with less people, do more with people who can be paid less.
He slashes their budget and then paint them into a corner by "awarding them" with the authority do pick the one realistic option they left. He will then use their forced hand to "prove" he was right.

My question is; Where was there a call to improve the efficiency of the UW system? Other than from the gov walker's handlers. And if there was a call by the citizens of Wisconsin to improve the effectiveness of the UW system; why did scotty pick the least effective way?

A college does so much more than produce students (seen by the businessly mind-washed as a college's product). It produced (or used to) knowledge strictly for the sake of knowledge. A tremendous amount of pharmacological research is/was done at colleges. Research that advanced medicine, not a drug company's profits.
By slashing funding, scotty is also forcing the hand of colleges to accept donations which have conditions grafted on them. Imagine the course outline for the School of Political Philosophy held in the new Charles Koch Hall coming to UW Madison soon ( snark. however I just invented the BA in Batshit).

Scotty is just doing as his handlers ordered. There is a lot more buried in this than he realizes. To be fair, there is a lot more buried in a slinky than scotty realizes.
The rest of us are capable of seeing. Lets do something. Letters to editors, talk to people, man phones.

[Still In Wisconsin]

35. Why, the University of Phoenix of course...

Oh, wait.

[Half-Century Man]

36. Where your GPA is linked to your credit score..

That was unfair of me.
I mean mangers every business I've ever worked for proudly display their diplomas from Phoenix, Upper Iowa University, and ITT. I respect those guys sooooooooo much.

[Still In Wisconsin]

38. Upper Iowa actually had a track team when I ran in college.

They showed up to a meet we ran in once. Had like four guys and a coach who smoked.

[DRoseDARs]

24. Scott Walker should be eating more shit. n/t

[keroro gunsou]

37. you first wanker

eol.

[BeyondGeography]

39. Scott Walker edumacating on all the big answers

What a country.

[Thor_MN]

40. Really need to start referring to him as High School Graduate Scott Walker.

Give the man his honor.

[Adrahil]

48. How about a WTF would this dropout know about being a college professor? n/t

[JonLP24]

41. WTF?

He thinks teaching is like a manufacturing plant. It doesn't work that way.

[closeupready]

42. If by 'teach more classes', he means 'be more available to undergrads',

then I completely agree. When I was a student there, it was not only quite in the Big Ten mold where the professor would hold a lecture in front of 400 students, but it led the way in that respect. I never approved of that style of education (but of course, who am I?), the 'sink or swim' method.

But on everything else, he's wrong.

[Adrahil]

47. If you want tenure track professors more available to undergrads....

then their other duties need to be reduced.

My wife is a tenured professor and frankly she spends more than half of the 60 hours a week she works doing BS administrative tasks that the multitudes of administrators say are essential so they gather "metrics" and "assess effectiveness."

[QC]

54. When I hear the word "assessment" my blood runs cold

because I know the administration has come up with some new way to justify their existence and waste my time.

[Adrahil]

55. Too many MBAs in higher education. ;) n/t

[QC]

56. Yep. Most decisions in higher ed are now made by people

who have never taught and couldn't if they had to. They went straight from an M.P.A. or Ed.D. program into the bureaucracy without ever being involved in the college's primary mission.

Imagine if major decisions at Google were being made by people with no first hand experience of the Internet.

[appalachiablue]

69. Too many MBA's period. Started in the 80s. They were such an embarassment that many were

made to take classes in the arts, sciences & humanities by their employers who hoped it would disguise how uneducated they were especially at work events.

[Vattel]

68. lol, so very true

It's amazing how many university administrators want us to waste our time doing junk science aimed at "outcomes assessment."

[KingCharlemagne]

43. The demagogue's approach to higher education. Did the people of Wisconsin

understand they were voting for this heir to the proud tradition of Senator Joseph McCarthy when they voted him in? Did the people of Wisconsin understand that they woul be compromising the great tradition of the U of Wisconsin system by voting for him?

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

46. What would that college dropout know about it anyway?

My Dad was a professor and Dean and he worked his ass off. Once he got home he spent 3-4 hours grading thesis papers. And he was very stressed and sometimes took it out on the easiest target - me!!

[tenderfoot]

49. Anyone ever notice that when republicans discuss work - they're never working while doing it?

WTF does Walker know about work?

[Arkana]

50. What exactly does Snott Walker think college professors do?

[kelliekat44]

52. Write books using their students, apply for grants and do very little instruction. Walker is right

on this IMHO. I don't like Walker but he is on target with this. I am very familiar with academia and they contribute very much to the high cost of education and contribute very little. There are some great professors in academia but they are NOT in the majority. It's the same kind of class system and privilege system that exists almost everywhere in America.

[jpak]

60. Umm - profs get paid for only 9 months out of year - the other 3 months are paid from grant money

That they have to write proposals for those grants....that have a 90+ % chance of rejection.

Use students to write books?



You know nothing.

Like Walker

yup

[Adrahil]

67. Yeah, I'll tell my wife and her colleagues that you think they don't work.

Last edited Sat Jan 31, 2015, 08:02 PM - Edit history (1)

I'll do that sometime today (Saturday) while she is grading papers and reviewing a doctoral students dissertation chapter draft.

In short, GTFO.

I have no doubt some professors do as you describe. But they are not the norm any ANY stretch of the imagination.

Your post is nonsense.

[Starry Messenger]

70. When were you in academia?

70%+ of the workforce is part-timers. Trust me, we aren't sitting on our asses eating bon-bons and applying for grants.

[jpak]

59. They wear berets, and smoke clove cigarettes in the Faculty Lounge all day

When they aren't indoctrinating students with their sick form of Marxism...

[wordpix]

63. they also eat only organic food and read books and magazines

and they're well educated.

Terrible people!

[Still In Wisconsin]

66. When nobody is watching...

We eat pizza and watch Sports Center. Many of us also watch South Park.

[Still In Wisconsin]

65. That's not true at ALL!

I don't smoke.

[Jimbo S]

61. Talk show host Charlie Sykes

wrote a book "ProfScam" back in the 80's. I never had a chance to read it, but it touched on this subject.

[jpak]

62. KOLIJ IZA HOKS!!!!!!111111

I nu it!!!!!11111

[wordpix]

64. way to build your presidential coalition, Scott

Not everyone in all states believes in your brand of RW revivalism