Faculty Senate Passes Resolution on Declining State Budget Support

The Faculty Senate unanimously voted Monday to support an amended resolution on declining state budget support for the University of Wisconsin. The Junior Faculty Caucus contributed much of the new language to the amended resolution, which concludes below.

. . . the Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison calls on the governor, state legislators, business leaders, university administrators, and other civil society organizations to cooperate in the forging of a new social compact that reinvigorates the shared public-private financial and organizational commitment to sustaining top quality higher education institutions in Wisconsin. This shared commitment is essential to the future vitality of the state’s economy, the creation of better earning opportunities for students, Wisconsin workers and business owners, and the overall well-being of its citizens;

. . . this new social compact needs to resolve the basic contradiction that UW-Madison and its sister UW campuses cannot sustain their core missions in a financial environment built primarily on low and declining state support and state-mandated low tuition. The Faculty Senate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison hereby pledges to do its part to develop local innovations in financing and organization that contribute to the compact, but that it must be a shared public and private effort, one where the state commits to providing the financial support and/or flexibility to make such a compact work. This effort must build on Wisconsin’s ideals of cooperation, hard work, and open, transparent, and democratic processes.