Rachel Buff, an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee weighs in on Republican Governor Scott Walker’s latest reforms. She’s agin’ ’em:
“Here are the new policies that were adopted this month, or will be adopted next month by the Wisconsin Board of Regents:
“A “Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression” policy designed to curtail the rights of campus protesters in the name of “free speech” and the Wisconsin idea (adopted, October 2017);
“A new administrative hiring policy providing for “diversity” in administrative hiring that amplifies provisions for hiring non-academic chancellors (adopted, October 2017);
“An ambitious re-structuring of the entire system that mandates the absorption of the two-year UW College institutions into four-year colleges and university campuses. (to be voted on at the Board of Regents meeting, November 2017)
“These policies are part of a dangerous trend, in which traditional stakeholders in the university, such as communities, citizens, students, staff, and faculty, have less power than the Board of Regents and unelected UW system administration.” But faculty aren’t elected either and “communities, citizens, students” don’t have much, if any, say, in academic affairs now.
