New UW Madison Leader
Cornell University Provost Carolyn “Biddy” Martin is the top pick for chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sources confirm.
If the regents approve the contract as expected next week, the move will bring Martin, 57, a native of Campbell County, Va., back to her doctoral alma mater and put an end to a lightning-quick search to replace the public flagship’s outgoing Chancellor John D. Wiley.
Martin also will be the first outsider to lead the university since 1988, when Hunter College President Donna Shalala was hired, and she could be the school’s first openly gay president.
[...]
Martin has been at Cornell since 1984 and for the last eight years has been the university’s chief academic officer and chief operations officer. She earned her doctorate from the UW-Madison in German literature in 1985.
...First, we keep hearing how difficult a time UW is having recruiting administrators, yet they were able to choose between several experienced candidates in short order.
Second, it’s disturbing that they picked Martin. Here we have a person who got a German literature doctorate, spent her life in academia, and will now head Wisconsin’s premier university. Does she have any experience in the private sector to know what they need? No. Has she ever had to meet a payroll in industry or have to put her ideas into the crucible of the free market? No.
I’m sure that she’s smart, but she has no experience whatsoever to lead Wisconsin’s premier university in a way to address the needs of Wisconsin’s businesses. But… I guess that was the goal.
Wow, an academic is going to run an academic insitution?
Crazy stuff.
Next thing you know the Brewers will sign someone who’s played a lot of baseball.
As for meeting a payroll, ask yourself two questions:
1> Do I even know what a provost is and does for a living?
2> Does only the private sector worry about meeting a payroll or a budget?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 28, 2008 at 2205 hrs
“Does she have any experience in the private sector to know what they need? No. Has she ever had to meet a payroll in industry or have to put her ideas into the crucible of the free market? No.
“I’m sure that she’s smart, but she has no experience whatsoever to lead Wisconsin’s premier university in a way to address the needs of Wisconsin’s businesses. But… I guess that was the goal.”
Absolutely idiotic comments, Owen. A new low even for you.
As state support for public universities has (shamefully) decreased, the top research universities have had to turn to alumni, other donors, and the corporate world to replace what the state no longer provides. She has been the day-to-day decision makers at a unique institution which is half-Ivy League and half-Land Grant. Part of the job is fundraising, and part of the job is delivering value to the corporate world.
Meeting the needs of business isn’t the job of one person at UW-Madison, it’s the job of virtually every college and department head. Beyond the humanities departments, this is Job #1 for everyone else.
You aren’t from Wisconsin and weren’t educated here, so perhaps it’s no surprise that you’re so woefully ignorant here.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 28, 2008 at 2206 hrs
You aren’t from Wisconsin and weren’t educated here
Thank God.
Posted by Owen on May 28, 2008 at 2211 hrs
Because we all know the scholarly reputation of the Aggies.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 28, 2008 at 2217 hrs
“Thank God” you weren’t educated here? For God’s sake, leave! Why be miserable? Go back to Texas, that oasis of erudition!
Remember the words of Governor “Ma” Ferguson, who railed against the teaching of German in any Texas school during WWI. She said that she had read the Bible and that if the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, it was good enough for the school children in Texas!
And, consider this:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE5/12/08
CONTACTS: Anne Miner, (608) 233-6406, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); James Franzone, (608) 262-1078, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
UW-MADISON BUILDS NEW ENTREPRENEURSHIP LEARNING COMMUNITY
MADISON - The University of Wisconsin-Madison will launch a new living and learning community next fall for students interested in entrepreneurship.
Located within Sellery Hall with space for up to 65 students, the initiative aims to make entrepreneurship more readily accessible to newly admitted students with wide-ranging academic interests.
“Wisconsin has a long tradition of fusing the academic and residential aspects of student life together to help make the university a more welcoming place for undergraduates who desire faculty interaction,” says Anne Miner, Ford Motor Company Distinguished Professor of Management and Human Resources and director of the cross-campus Initiative for Studies in Technology Entrepreneurship.
Miner will be the leader for the new community. As a professor, she works one-on-one with students to help them grasp key skills that are valuable in both start-up situations and in daily life.
As part of the experience, students will cultivate their creativity and transform innovative ideas into action through coursework, field trips and brainstorming sessions in the residence. Faculty and community guests will share with residents what it takes to be entrepreneurial in career development, not just the mechanics of starting a business.
Key to the success of the community will be the diversity of the residents, Miner says. The community welcomes students with interests in the arts, engineering, business, the humanities and other disciplines. Faculty from the life sciences, education, and agricultural and applied economics among other disciplines are now piloting new class material that will anchor the program in the fall.
At a time when students increasingly need to be creative, resourceful and imaginative to flourish academically, build their careers, or become successful entrepreneurs, this community will play a key role in developing their knowledge and skills, she says.
This initiative is made possible in part by a recent grant of $5 million from the Kauffman Foundation to spread entrepreneurship beyond the borders of the business school. For more information on the effort, please visit http://www.housing.wisc.edu/erlc.
###
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 28, 2008 at 2220 hrs
For the record, I was born in North Carolina, educated in Riyadh and Texas, and actually taught classes in Wisconsin. Your parochial arrogance serves you not.
Posted by Owen on May 28, 2008 at 2223 hrs
And neither does yours, Owen, in disparaging a state that frankly, has an education system at both K-12 and the collegiate level that functions far better than anything in your adopted home state of Texas.
Bigger isn’t always better, considering Wisconsin is usually in the top five in high school graduation rates and Texas is comfortably at home in the bottom third. Wisconsin? Top 10 in the nation in average ACT score. Texas? Bottom 10. Is Wisconsin perfect? Hell no, but when it comes to education, it’s a hell of a lot closer than Texas.
That said, Martin has been extremely successful at Cornell in doing the very sorts of things that we need our chancellor to do - namely, develop ways to recruit and retain faculty, succeed in raising dollars from donors and the private sector, and maintain and improve the quality of education.
But hey, who’d want someone who’s spent nearly a decade successfully managing a $2.2 billion operations budget for one of our nation’s premiere universities when we could have a corporate hack with no idea of how an academic institution functions?
I will give you this on the change front, however - I think it’s good that the UW didn’t hire an internal candidate this time. I do believe that both David Ward and John Wiley’s tenures suffered somewhat from a lack of creativity and originality in approaching their jobs. Part of that may have resulted from spending so much time on campus prior to accepting the position.
Meanwhile, keep sending your donations to A&M;, so that maybe someday, a thousand years from now, A&M;can crawl out from under UT’s shadow, even if just for a day. You should like UW-Milwaukee for that reason. It’s kind of the A&M;of the UW System.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on May 29, 2008 at 0023 hrs
Your parochial arrogance serves you not.
Well said.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 1002 hrs
While it seems that having business experience may be good for the “CEO” of the state’s flagship university, one needs to understand that this type of experience is almost certainly unheard of in qualified candidates for chancellor/president positions. In order to be a chancellor/president, you must be a tenurable faculty in a department at the university. That means you must, by definition, be an academic. In fact, the presidents of Texas A&M;and UT-Austin are not business people. At A&M;, the president is a renowned food safety scientist and at UT-Austin the president is formerly one of the best law school professor at the school. In addition, while $400K is an outstanding salary, which is about what “Biddy” will make, what CEO of even a small successful salary is going to work for that? Probably not many.
It finally seems that the University will be able to offer domestic partner benefits in short order since there is now a spokesman for that issue at the top of the organization.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 1033 hrs
Good point Floyd. I agree that this practice is widespread and I think it’s a problem. Most universities - particularly public ones - are supposed to serve the wider community. The practice of only appointing leaders who have spent their entire careers in academia warps their perceptions of what the wider community needs and how it really works. This makes the leaders ill-equipped to fit the university’s mission into the wider community’s needs. It makes the university inward-looking and insular.
Posted by Owen on May 29, 2008 at 1046 hrs
I think “serving the wider community” is not usually particularly high on the pecking order of a university’s mission. Probably behind research and fielding a winning football team and ahead of serving the students.
That’s a function better served by a board of regents, maybe, with the president perhaps serving as a liaison, although I certainly make no claims to any expertise in this area.
And all you haters out there—Texas A&M;stacks up well with any research institution in the country, and that’s from a UT grad.
I’m afraid the Recess Supervisor is right about Texas public schools, though. We’re at the top in all the bad stuff and at the bottom in all the good stuff. That’s what happens after years of trying to do everything on the cheap.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 1203 hrs
The practice of only appointing leaders who have spent their entire careers in academia warps their perceptions of what the wider community needs and how it really works. This makes the leaders ill-equipped to fit the university’s mission into the wider community’s needs. It makes the university inward-looking and insular.
I am going to have to call you on your over-generalization here. I think hiring an academic to be chancellor COULD lead to the things you detail, but that its not automatic. Time will tell if Biddy has the skills to interact effectively with the groups she needs to, including businesses. Or more appropriately, if she has the skills she needs to hire good people to interact with everyone efficiently.
As far as serving the wider community, I agree that is the main function of the university, but I think we vastly disagree on what that means. The primary contribution to the wider community from a university is its product: the BAs, BSs, MSs, PhDs, MBAs, JDs, and MDs, etc that it produces. The UW’s primary purpose is the education and “production” of the highest quality graduates that it can. These graduates then go into the wider community and serve it. And if we can agree that the primary goal of the university is educating its students then it shouldn’t be too long before we can agree that one of the best ways to educate the best students is to have the best programs of study filled with the best faculty in those particular areas of study. And yes, often, the best faculty cost more money. And yes, the state only funds 18% of the university.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 1357 hrs
I am going to have to call you on your over-generalization here.
Agreed. I was generalizing. I should have inserted more disclaimers in my comment to that effect. But the general[ized] point stands.
The UW’s primary purpose is the education and “production” of the highest quality graduates that it can.
I agree, with qualifications. First, those graduates should be educated in things that society needs. Society needs far more engineers and the like than it does Doctors of political science or art. The universities should be working to produce graduates in fields that society needs.
Second, this should all be done while taking into account the cost to the society at large. Whether tuition or taxes, universities should nestle their mission into what society can reasonably afford.
In other words, a university that produces magnificent graduates in fields that are already saturated at an exorbitant cost is not as good as a university that produces good graduates in fields that society needs for a reasonable cost. The former may seem more prestigious in the eyes of academia, but the latter is more true to the appropriate mission for a public institution.
Posted by Owen on May 29, 2008 at 1504 hrs
In other words, a university that produces magnificent graduates in fields that are already saturated at an exorbitant cost is not as good as a university that produces good graduates in fields that society needs for a reasonable cost. The former may seem more prestigious in the eyes of academia, but the latter is more true to the appropriate mission for a public institution.
Wow, who should be dictating the curriculum of public institutions Chairman Robinson.
And what, pray tell, is the appropriate mission of a publicly funded institution?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 1941 hrs
It finally seems that the University will be able to offer domestic partner benefits in short order since there is now a spokesman for that issue at the top of the organization.
Well, good man, NOW I think you may have hit upon the meat of the matter indeed. Do you think that the fact that Biddy is an out-and-about lover of the fairer sex played any part in her hiring—particularly considering the degree to which the issue of domestic partner benefits is an absolute obsession with the folks on Bascom Hill?
I had assumed it as soon as I heard about this. Now, I’m quite certain of it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 2150 hrs
I loved the blurb in the MJS about how her first mission is higher faculty pay.
But I can’t just blame UW Madison. All of higher education is about higher pay, and higher pay, and less classroom work, and did I forget higher pay?
Colleges the last 30-years have gone on an unchecked money grab with ridiculous tuition increases that far outstrip inflation. Good thing we’ve hired someone to carry on the tradition and has their priorities straight here.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 29, 2008 at 2228 hrs
Great comment, Steve. Academics should work for free. They hsould pay us for the privilege of being professors at the great state university!
I love the consistenciy of conservatives, who want the free market system to function in all sectors of society but not at the University! It’s great when a corporate executive is paid what the market will bear, but woe unto us if the same concept is applied at the University.
The people of Wisconsin spent 150 years building the great state university into one of the top 10 public universities in the country. Apparently we should sit by passively while it is torn down?
Public higher education is in crisis today because states are reneging on the committment to support it. Forty years ago a family could send a child to the university without the cost overwhelming the family budget. That’s no longer true, which is why the average UW-Madison student comes from a household with an income of over $90,000, or more than double the state average. The middle class is being priced out of the market.
If you think that the price of education is high, you should try ignorance. Apparently that’s your preference, Steve. It literally oozes from your post.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 30, 2008 at 0603 hrs
“Colleges the last 30-years have gone on an unchecked money grab with ridiculous tuition increases that far outstrip inflation.”
Earth to Steve! Earth to Steve! Why do you think that this has happened? It happened because state support has dropped off!
Governors and legislators of BOTH parties bear the blame for this situation. The blame is bipartisan.
I love the free market system and profit from it myself. The benefits of the free market system shouldn’t end at the edge of the college campus, however.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 30, 2008 at 0702 hrs
Brilliant ideas Steve and Owen.
Let’s pay our faculty less, give them less benefits, make sure dorms are inexpensive cinder-block Soviet-style living quarters with no frills.
To save money.
Oh and let’s be sure to only offer courses in what die-hard Republicans think we need. Engineering, economics, and divinity.
I’m quite certain the best and the brightest students and faculty will continue to want to attend. I’m sure they won’t go elsewhere.
Because universities exist in vacuums and aren’t subject to the very free market you tout as the answer to everything.
While we’re at it, let’s invest in highly-effective abstinence-only education and build the 2009 Brewers rotation around Seth McClung and David Bush.
All great ideas.
Carry on.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 30, 2008 at 2127 hrs
What public monies are private universities being deprived of? I’m not just talking about Madison. This problem isn’t limited to just UW Madison. All private colleges and universities have increased their tuition by a rate far greater than the rate of inflation the last 25 years as well.
Why do the Ivy league schools keep blasting up tuition, yet they sit with billion dollar endowments that continue to grow beyond any reasonable need.
And as far as Madison goes, I’d like someone to show me the annual percentage increases the last 25-years for the expense line item of salaries, pensions and benefits. What has that growth been? Did that outstrip inflation by a massive amount? If so, what does that have to do with State funding? Maybe the State stopped funding as much because the beast was too hungry.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 30, 2008 at 2209 hrs
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