Category: The national context

The Crisis of the Public University

Professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of medical anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, offers her opinion on the future of public higher education in The Chronicle of Higher Education Review. Scheper-Hughes writes in response to the violent reaction by police…

EPS 518: Introduction to Debates in Higher Education Policy

The conversation about the funding of public higher education continues in the classroom next semester. PROFS steering committee member Sara Goldrick-Rab will teach a course focusing on the issues facing students today — admissions, funding and financial aid. The course,…

PROFS to Cosponsor Higher Education Panel

PROFS is pleased to partner with the Wisconsin University Union (WUU) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to cosponsor a panel discussion featuring AAUP President Cary Nelson. Nelson, an English professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,…

Don’t Forget the Federal Level

With all the talk about how the university could be affected by actions at the State Capitol, it’s easy to forget how important the federal government is to UW-Madison. The reality is that Bucky gets nearly twice as much money…

Public Employee Pay

One of the political memes of the day is that public employees are better far paid than those working in the private sector. Like most memes, it’s worth looking at the underlying facts. An article in today’s New York Times…

Finkelmeyer Interview with Terry Hartle of ACE

Todd Finkelmeyer, higher education reporter at The Capital Times, published a very nice interview with Terry Hartle, a senior vice president at ACE, the American Council on Education. Hartle, who works with all sectors of higher education to provide a…

A Downside to Restructuring?

According to Inside Higher Education, public universities in Virginia are learning that sometimes you don’t always get what you want — or what you thought you had. Over the past five years, a handful of public universities including the University…

Orszag Column Highlights Importance of Wednesday’s Forum

Peter Orszag, writing in yesterday’s New York Times, points to rising health care costs as the primary reason why states have had to reduce their commitment to higher education in recent years. Orszag, former director of the White House Office…

Funding Higher Education Forum

How states, Wisconsin in particular, fund their institutions of higher learning will be the topic of a public forum next week. Chancellor Biddy Martin will be joined by Regent President Charles Pruitt and business leader Kathi Seifert. Pruitt, a member…