Dear All,
Please sign this petition and share widely, to protect those who may face inhumane deportation policies in the wake of the rise of the new administration. We should make UW-Madison a sanctuary for all people, regardless of national origin. Here is the link.
This brief is summary information that follows the reports of two football fans at the UW-Madison stadium who displayed masks depicting, now president elect, Donald Trump holding a noose around the necks of President Barack Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton at the UW-Madison football stadium on October 29.
Student athlete, Mr. Nigel Hayes (pictured above from: host.madison.com), authored this letter in response to the events, which was shared quickly among students, according to the Badger Herald.
While Chancellor Rebecca Blank issued her own statement, alumni mounted a series of letters that critiqued what they considered a flat response. Students, alumni and community members have called for more action to fight against racial injustice on campus and in the Madison community at large.
RELATIONS BETWEEN COMMUNITY & POLICE
A WUU Sponsored Symposium
On October 5th, 2016 WUU members gathered with a crowd of around eighty members of university faculty, staff, students and the public to discuss community and police relations.
We were generously supported by a panel of excellent speakers including:
Alix Shabaaz – Community Organizer & Freedom Fighter with Freedom Inc.
Michael Davis – MA Student Department of African American Studies, PhD Student in the School of Education & Community Organizer with Freedom Inc.
Ajani Carr – Youth Activist & Community Organizer
David C. Couper – Retired Madison Police Chief, Activist, Clergy, & Poet
We had a most welcome late addition to the program: a guest appearance from Dr. D. Sajnani (Also known as: Professor D., African Cultural Studies), who offered his commentary as well.
As WUU stands for equity in the work place and our work place is a public university, the issue of Community-Police relations impacts us all. Locally and nationally there have been serious questions raised around Community-Police relations in past years. In this symposium, our speakers directly addressed those questions. They raised concerns regarding the deplorable treatment of people of color in our communities, critiqued the institutions of policing in America, and addressed proposals on how community control over the police may benefit our society.
A most gracious, warm, thank you to all our speakers and all those folks in attendance!
FUND THE FREEZE!
With thanks to our colleagues at UFAS.
WUU is co-sponsor with AFSCME 2412 Executive Board, PROFS, the TAA Executive Board, & Wisconsin Student Power Alliance.
The program is:
WHAT: “Fund the Freeze” Teach-In
WHO: State Rep. Chris Taylor with students, staff, faculty, and Madison community members
WHEN: Monday, October 10, 2016, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: Northwoods Room A, Union South, 1308 W. Dayton St.
Come one, come all!
Moving Wisconsin Forward: Reinvesting in the UW System
“What can we do to keep the University of Wisconsin strong in a time of funding cuts and tuition freezes?
Sept. 21, 2016: 7:00 PM @ Madison Memorial High School
(201 S. Gammon Rd)
Speakers include:
Donald Moynihan (Director of La Follete School of Public Affairs, Opening Remarks)
President Ray Cross (UW System President)
Rep. Dianne Hesselbein
Former Sen. Dale Schultz
Nicholas Hillman (Associate Professor, UW-Madison)
Mariam Coker (Student, UW-Madison)
Gwyn Guenther, Wheeler Report (moderator)
When budget cuts are imposed on public universities, everyone suffers. Students, faculty, and staff are directly and indirectly impacted in countless ways: more courses for each faculty member to instruct each semester, increased class sizes, lack of access to required courses which may delay graduation, and layoffs are among the tangible impacts of cuts to the UW system. See more of the impacts and risks created by cuts to the UW System schools here: CampusBudgetUpdate
It has come to the attention of the WUU Executive Board that Senator Nass has recently sent a message to President Cross and the Board of Regents in an effort to restrict academic freedom at UW-Madison. You may read more about the story here.
In response, the WUU Executive board has sent the attached letter to President Cross and the Board of Regents. We have attached that letter for your information.
In the summer months it is important to remember…there is still no confidence in President Cross and the Board of Regents in Wisconsin. Please see our attached statement.
UW Faculty Member,
You may be wondering whether you should support the proposed Faculty Senate resolution on No Confidence in the UW Board of Regents and President Ray Cross. A copy is attached. FacultySenateResolution_20160502Mtg Below is a message from David Vanness citing examples from the last Board of Regent’s meeting to clarify why we should have no confidence in the Regents or the President to stand up for the welfare of the University, the students, the faculty and staff or the population of the State of Wisconsin as a whole. The Regents have facilitated the intrusion of Big Government into the management of the University.
There are no-confidence resolutions under consideration on at least seven other UW campuses. We, the faculty, have lost governance power but, according to the new governance policy, we have the responsibility to advise on matters affecting the mission of the University. This resolution is part of our responsibility: alerting the population of the cavalier attitude of the Regents towards their job of protecting the educational quality of the University. As the President’s office said, this is a matter for the Faculty.
For the Wisconsin University Union
Bruce Thomadsen
President
From: David Vanness <david.j.vanness@live.com>
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to you in my role as a fellow member of the UW-Madison faculty and not in my role as President of the local AAUP chapter. Our chapter is engaged in an ongoing, vigorous and respectful debate about the merits and risks of voting “No Confidence” in UW-System leadership. Eloquent and well-reasoned arguments have been made both for and against. However, two clear themes have emerged from our discussion, and I would like to share them with you.
First, not a single member expressed that they are confident in President Cross or the majority of the Board of Regents’ ability (or desire) to protect UW System from continued budget cuts, program closures and faculty layoffs for reasons unrelated to educational quality. In fact, nearly all of us agree that they are at best complicit with our current state government’s desire to redefine the Wisconsin Idea as primarily a workforce training mission, and at worst actively engaged.
I would encourage all of you to watch and listen to President Cross and the majority of Regents arguing strongly against faculty-endorsed amendments to UW System’s new layoff policy that would have included protective language similar to our strongest peers, such as the University of Michigan. Faculty amendments are introduced at 16:52. The relevant debate over faculty amendments begins at 1:03:48 and lasts for about an hour. I recommend listening to the debate in its entirety because it gives the opportunity to contrast the language of the five Regents who supported the faculty amendments (Evers, Bradley, Vasquez, Pruitt and Manydeeds) from the eleven who opposed them. If you are pressed for time, I would call your attention to the following timepoints:
1:04:33 Regent Vice-President Behling and System General Counsel Tomas Stafford on why requiring alternatives to layoff to be “pursued” (instead of merely “considered”) would deny chancellors the “flexibility” needed to deal with budget cuts.
1:21:58 Regent Vice-President Behling on how an amendment requiring program closures to focus primarily on educational considerations (language in University of Michigan’s layoff policy) would prevent chancellors from having the “flexibility, flexibility, flexibility” they need to “get through tough economic times.”
1:26:30 System President Ray Cross arguing that campuses will have flexibility in determining their own policy and that he hopes UW-Madison’s proposed policy (passed by the Senate in November) would pass. Of course, the Board of Regents went on to make significant amendments at its meeting last month, overruling the expressed sentiments of the Faculty Senate.
1:29:22 Regent Margaret Farrow comparing our activities to making “widgets” and at 1:30:44 proclaiming “Welcome to the 21stCentury!”
1:44:23 Regent President Regina Millner arguing that chancellors need flexibility to make certain “critical decisions” because faculty do not always understand the needs of the institution to have financial stability. Remember – this is a policy about program closure and layoff.
1:53:31 System President Ray Cross again emphasizing the broad nature of the policy to allow campuses the ability to draft their own policy. Also arguing that “financial issues” are inseparable from educational considerations.
This brings me to the second broad theme that has emerged. Despite near-unanimous inability to express confidence in our leadership, many of us are afraid that expressing that lack of confidence could bring harm to the university. State legislators have already publicly threatened us with further cuts and reforms after simply announcing the upcoming vote.
Taken together, these themes lead me to ask a very important question. If nearly all of us conclude that our leadership is failing, but we allow fear of reprisal to suppress our expression of that finding, then haven’t we already lost our academic freedom? If fear of the Board of Regents, the Legislature and the Governor stops us from exercising our responsibility in governance, then I am afraid we really have lost. What’s next? Will we allow fear to change what we teach or research or say in public?
I believe that the cumulative effects of austerity are really beginning to be felt deeply across the UW System. News articles are emerging from around the state that students aren’t able to get classes to graduate on time, that the classes they can get into are bigger and less personalized, that advising and other student services have been cut to the bone. President Cross, the Board of Regents and the State Legislature have made clear (no whining!) that they do not want that message out in the public. They do not want the citizens of the state to realize that the quality of our students’ education and our ability to attract and retain the highest caliber scholars and scientists has suffered under their policies.
I would simply ask you to engage in the debate on Monday and vote your conscience. Whether or not you are confident in President Cross and the Board of Regents, in the true spirit of sifting and winnowing, we need to hear your voice and have your honest vote. If at the conclusion of the debate, you find yourself lacking confidence in our leadership, I would ask only one thing: be fearless. That’s the way by which alone the truth can be found.
Sincerely,
Dave Vanness
Associate Professor
In the interest of promoting a safe learning environment for students, WUU Executive Board would like to help share the attached statements by the Afro American Studies Department and the Executive Board of the Teaching Assistants Association (TAA). We believe that it is the shared job of faculty and other community members to facilitate a supportive environment free of hindrances to instruction and learning.
Afro-American Studies Open Letter to Minority Students April 20
TAA Executive Board Statement on Racial Climate and Invasive Arrest
TAA is a graduate worker union that is the oldest of its kind in the world. Their executive board is responding to concerns about the safety of the classroom environment on campus. Find out more about TAA here