Eye on the Ball

GIVEN THE INTENSE FOCUS ON FACULTY, and how distant faculty are from being the source of the UW System’s problems, it takes some effort to stay focused on what the real goals of our current legislature and system leadership involve. Faculty, the eternal punching bag, are to be brought to heel; austerity and automation are aggressively implemented to deliver tax cuts to the highest earners; and all of this is rhetorically normalized in our media and public discussion.

Hit the Aqueducts

I’m not one for conspiracy theories, unless they are the two that snuggle close to my heart (Where are they hiding the dinosaurs? and Was Marlon Brando real?), but a curious thing happened over the weekend. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an interview with Speaker Robin Vos[1] that included two revealing quotes that were (insert rumble of thunder) later edited out by the deputy managing editor.

Although now deleted, the quotes are burned in my brain—I can paraphrase them with 100 percent accuracy—and as I said, they are revealing in a way that should give everyone, of any political affiliation, pause (if you care about education, that is). Let’s file the first as an Alanis Morissette “this might be ironic depending on whether you get irony” event.

Both comments have to do with regionalization—which the legislature, President Cross, and the Board of Regents are currently collaborating on while saying they are not—but let me start with the most humorous. In short, Speaker Vos wonders why campuses must offer classes that are offered at other campuses (“access” and “demand” are apparently not applicable answers), and he tried to conjure an example that would sound obscure (think “the ancient mating habits of ur-donkeys”). The result: do we need someone who teaches “ancient Italian history” at every campus? First, I’m unclear why our republican leadership would not let the market decide such questions: if the demand is there, we should employ ten such people on every campus, no? So I have one essential question for Speaker Vos, who got his start as the owner of RoJo’s Popcorn: do we really need popcorn at every movie theater? Couldn’t we just have it at one or two and let the rest of the people eat Sno-Caps and black licorice? What’s with all the concession duplication?

Why is this “ancient Italian history” comment important? Well, it shows a glaring lack of knowledge about real accomplishment, about the people who compose the UW and do wonderful work. What do I mean? The UW System Professor of the Year is my colleague Greg Aldrete, who teaches, and you can’t make this stuff up, ancient Italian history. (More accurately, Greg does amazing work all around in ancient history, and he’s a true treasure.) So there are two options here: either Speaker Vos doesn’t know or care who the UW Professor of the Year is, or he’s offended that the winner did not have a PhD in units and inventory. Greg Aldrete accepted his award at a Board of Regents meeting and made some remarks[2] as part of the ceremony. Here is a section that stood out to me:

One of the original ideas behind the foundation of the university, when they were first created as institutions during the Middle Ages, was that exposing people to this sort of humanistic education fundamentally transformed them, and actually made them better human beings and citizens.

As a historian working in an interdisciplinary humanities department, I have to confess that there is something a little bittersweet about the timing of this award. As you are all too well aware, we live in a moment when, across the nation, the value of a university education, and especially, the value of the humanities within that education, is being challenged.

You are the Board of Regents, and the future of the UW System is in your hands. In whatever ways this wonderful education system ends up being transformed or changed over the coming years and decades, I hope that we never lose sight of the original core function of the university, which was to be a place in which informed, thoughtful citizens are forged, and above all, as a place where questions are asked.

Flashing forward, we can see why such remarks from a lowly humanities professor might position him for an “obscurity” jab and identification as a trouble maker. And although Madison chancellor Blank does not have the courage to say it, I will: this is a coordinated attack on the university, starting with an attempted revision of the Wisconsin Idea;[3] thoughtful citizens who ask questions are not needed in our new corporate/CEO framework. This has been stated plainly—chancellors should be CEOs. Search for truth? More like, shut up and get to work. This should deeply concern Wisconsinites of all political stripes. Are we not better than this? And let me be clear: this is not a “conservative” attack—true conservatives should be appalled at the current budget and decision making at all levels—it is a corporate attack that diminishes local interests, control, and expertise.

I would also ask this of our legislators: when trying to talk about what people in the UW do, what the value of that work is, is it too much to ask that you have evidence? (Tenured people don’t have to show up for work? A deliberate untruth. If I don’t go to work, I get fired. Also, I love my work too much not to go.) We have thousands and thousands of real human beings who are available for interview and reference, who would love to detail their expertise and contributions for you; why not reach out instead of offering groundless, abstract criticism? We’re talking about real people. Instead, here’s what our state has to say to a globally recognized teacher and scholar: “Hit the aqueducts pal, and don’t let Cato the Elder kick you in the gluteus maximus on the way out!”

And now to the more revealing and disturbing quote. Building off the ancient Roman history comment, Speaker Vos said what I will paraphrase as follows: why not have this teacher offer the class on one campus, and then put it online for other campuses to offer, allowing us to move resources into other areas of need?

That’s what he said, without ambiguity. This should frighten any conservative, libertarian, democrat, independent, and pro-Castro Wisconsinite who cares about education. Why? This illustrates, at the most fundamental level, a complete disregard for knowledge about teaching and learning. This comment is so far away from education as having learning for its goal that I simply don’t know where to begin; it would be like me saying to a home builder, “Hurry up with pouring the foundation, and really, don’t be concerned about water drainage at all.” Put another way, this is wasteful. This is a fatal fissure in the foundation.

I have spent my entire career in the UW as a teacher of face-to-face, online, and hybrid courses—let me make the most obvious point: anyone who thinks teaching and learning are the same online as they are face-to-face is catastrophically wrong; if that person happens to reside in a position of influence, the person can inflict serious harm on students, especially those who are not yet performing at a high level. “Let’s just put those courses online,” specifically to “save” resources, is educational malpractice.

Let me present a greatly abbreviated list:

• • Online education, on the level of pedagogy, requires even greater investment (think instructional design employees; course management systems; tech support employees; teachers [more employees!]; building, testing, and revising courses, etc.). You don’t pursue online education so you can shift resources away from that teaching and learning to what you call other “high-need” areas; you pursue it because you are committed to shifting resources to that teaching and learning, precisely because it is a need. Put another way, a person who is incredibly influential on higher-ed policy in Wisconsin sees online learning as an “easy” endeavor that requires fewer resources. Think about that. This is the environment he, and those aligned with him, want the majority of Wisconsin students to work in: only the elite on a designated campus will have access to the face-to-face portion of the instruction. Why do I get the feeling that UW-Madison will be the home base for much of this?
• • Who is one expert who knows a lot about this? Cathy Davidson. She is an education pioneer, an advocate of sound pedagogy, and someone who is anything but status quo. I’ve had dinner with Cathy Davidson: she is as insightful and informed in the moment as she is in prepared venues. In her recent forays into online teaching and massive open online courses (MOOCs), Davidson repeatedly came to the same conclusions: they are not less work, they are more work, and they require more labor/employees; they don’t require fewer resources but more resources. Here are two of many choice quotes I could pull from Davidson’s work:[4]
  • The Coursera website promises “a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that has so far been available to a select few.” Are my amateur lecture videos a “world-class education”? Not even close. You pay for an elite education because of the individual instruction and advising, the array of rich face-to-face experiences (with teachers and peers), conversations, labs, art exhibits, seminars, study abroad possibilities, extracurricular events, practical internships and engagement opportunities, and research experiences offered by an elite institution. Even though we strive to make our meta-MOOC as participatory as possible, a free online course can never offer all that a tuition-paying Duke student can take advantage of in the course of a semester.”

    And . . . [5]

  • for teaching this six-week Duke-based course on The History and Future of Higher Education, I receive a stipend of $10,000, none of which will come into my own pocket. Literally. A colleague who taught one last year received a $20,000 payment and used all of it on teaching assistants, technical assistants, and equipment. Similarly, I am using 100% of my 10K stipend to support the time of some of my HASTAC colleagues who are helping me mount this extremely complex enterprise, plus permissions for copyrighted material, some equipment, travel to film segments and conduct interviews, and many other costs, and I’m told Duke is paying for more support help this year than last (which is why I’m getting 50 percent less) but it’s still not a way any prof should be moonlighting.

Yes, let’s just put courses online—not to serve good pedagogy and our actual students but to save resources. Look at Davidson’s words, based on real experience. Again, anyone, of any party, who cares about education in Wisconsin should be concerned about the vision hinted at in Speaker Vos’s comment. Quality teaching and learning never happen on the cheap. Why are we giving up on investing in education?

• • Speaker Vos’s statement points to what many—conservatives and liberals alike—have feared: a plan for regionalization that creates (or further reinforces) a two-tiered public university system. We will have limited classroom access for a select group of students, and for the rest of you? Ah, we’ll just throw it all online. Efficiencies! This is a moral disaster. This is class discrimination. This is dehumanizing.
• • I have seen many, many examples of terrible online teaching. There are times that I have been a terrible online teacher. Almost always, the reasons for this are consistent: a belief that classrooms can be replicated online and that online teaching is somehow easier.
• • Built into this, of course, are plans to exploit low-paid adjunct labor instead of paying for tenure-track and tenure-level faculty. Why else do you write a law that makes it effortless to fire such people?
• • There are living human beings who do actual research on teaching and learning (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). Some of them live in Wisconsin and work in the UW System, though you wouldn’t know that, as legislators these days aren’t much for consulting with teachers about education (see K–12). So, the next time you talk with a legislator, or someone who rabidly hates the UW for some reason, ask him to name one study he’s read about teaching and learning. Ask him if it was peer reviewed. Okay, scratch that . . . still, studies are starting to demonstrate clearly that online learning, by itself, is often not as effective as hybrid and face-to-face environments, especially for students who need the most help.[6] So, do we have no moral imperative? Do we only want to serve the elite? All forces indicate that no, we have no moral imperative. We’re simply giving up on education in the face of austerity, which strangles the imagination and offers no dreams or vision beyond “cut, less, flexibility, efficiency, shutter this.” How bleak. Aren’t we embarrassed to aim so low and to court what is so easy?

Speaking of easy, there is a lot of talk about efficiency and wasting resources. Is it not the greatest waste of all to ignore your in-house experts? The UW System, filled with expertise and knowledge, is ignored as a resource by legislators and UW Central administration alike. Why? Well, input is not needed when the completely inflexible, inefficient vision is already in place. We’ve completely turned away from each other. Isn’t that the point of the recent “reforms” to tenure and shared governance—to minimize input, and democracy, in the guise of “flexibility”? Vos himself aptly uses the word “dictate” in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece: “I have supported shared governance in an advisory role. But it has evolved to instead of offering advice, having the ability to decide and dictate.” What is there to say? If the role of other constituencies is merely advisory, then governance is not shared. And his solution to seeing constituencies “dictate”? Install a different dictator. Democracy is great for campaigning but not so much in actual practice, where it’s just too hard and inconvenient and inefficient.

We are not going to succeed unless we first recognize the responsibility that rests on all our shoulders and then move that responsibility ahead of the chips that sit in its way.

The Banality of Weasels

This has been, to say the least, a disheartening year. Again, public servants—with teachers often at the forefront—have been demonized in the latest round of “grownups playing public relations.” When budget decisions are made in June (maybe), most teachers won’t even be under contract, opting instead to retreat to their accessorized yachts and mansions on various tropical, taxpayer-funded islands. Personally, I and various rappers will retire to my brand-new yacht, which I’ve christened Union Thug without Collective Bargaining Rights of Any Kind. I live large.

But let me get to the point. For those who catch the reference in my title, I greatly admire Hannah Arendt. She demystified for me the figure of the evil genius and the master plan. She focused on the “unthinking,” the middle manager who, beyond a specific competency, might as well have been Mr. Magoo. And thus Wisconsin, where most people don’t know what they are doing—and here lies another desperate and fanciful call for voters to help rectify this.

So, where are we in the great unthinking budget games?

Exhibit A: Let’s start outside of the UW for a moment, where a state legislator has pretty much said we should cut the science bureau of the state’s Department of Natural Resources.[7] Why? Climate change, of course! Like many other parts of the country, opposition to the reality of climate change, or that humans have direct effects on the environment, passes as “thinking” or a “point of view.” To quote the senator in question, “I’m critical of science services. I don’t think they’ve used good science. And I’ve got to tell you, they’ve done big-time harm here to my district here in northern Wisconsin.”

Good science! Let me get this straight: if you think scientists are bad at their jobs, you don’t get better scientists, you simply get rid of scientists in total. I sympathize. For example, when we had a plumbing problem at home, where a pipe broke and spewed waste all over the basement, we weren’t sure if that waste had come from humans or not. After all, it was coming out of a pipe and not someone’s body. Given that, I fired all plumbers in my mind. We now just live in our own filth and connect to a simpler time.

Exhibit B: The Wisconsin State Journal just ran an article on the “uncertain” future of tenure and shared governance in the UW System.[8] If there’s any issue that has been talked about with more deep ignorance and unthinking, it’s the concept of tenure. OK, maybe health care, death camps, and the impending U.S. takeover of Texas, but tenure is up there. Honestly, this stultifying incompetence amounts to this recurring discussion, in full. Tell me if you’ve heard it before: “Jobs for life! Fire people! Teach more, you lazy sloth!”

Is it possible, just once, for a reporter, or a UW official, or a legislator, to mention, say, accreditation and the role tenure plays in having accredited programs, and why that would be a requirement? That’s just a suggestion that requires someone out there to be among the thinking, to know something. We’ll just let the deciders step in and have a word:

[Assembly Speaker] Vos recently doubled down on his criticism, saying he was withdrawing support for Walker’s proposed UW public authority in part because the Board of Regents had passed resolutions to protect tenure and shared governance.

“Why are we giving you the autonomy to do nothing with it if you’re going to protect the status quo?” he said in an interview with WisconsinEye.

Let’s me get this straight: “We have to cut your budget because of a monetary shortfall—there’s nothing we can do about that! However, we won’t help you alleviate the monetary situation because you hold the ‘status quo’ on these entirely nonproblematic, nonmonetary things.” Got it.

Now, let us pause and ask what the thinking people do: let’s say tenure and shared governance were problems, as some legislators have indicated. Would one offer, maybe, an example? If not, maybe just offer up a question that would require an example? Indeed:

By contrast, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has harshly criticized the joint decision-making process. Vos took aim at shared governance during a forum in 2013, saying the balance of power in decision-making needed to be tilted more toward chancellors, allowing them to act as campus CEOs.

“Does the role of allowing faculty to make a huge number of decisions help the system or hurt the system?” he asked.

So, a question has been asked here. With the position presented here so firmly in the negative, we are ready for examples to follow. None are given. What is offered as thinking? “More like CEO’s . . . the boss . . . power.” I wonder if people do actual research on such things? Who would those people be, and where might we find them? Hmmm . . .

Summary: Although, as admitted by President Ray Cross, all shared governance is advisory, we should empower chancellor CEOs to make decisions about . . . advice? Wisconsin has a ton of solutions looking for problems.

Exhibit C: State leaders, who are all about the middle class and helping people get access to affordable education, rejected a student loan refinancing proposal.[9] Here is the dynamic wisdom of how to solve this problem:

Nygren and Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, both said colleges ought to focus on making sure students graduate on time, and that students should consider which degrees will help them pay off their debt.

The degree a student chooses likely has more impact on debt and the ability to pay it off than any other factor, Nygren said.

That makes complete sense! Thinking! As we all know, there are no important professions that require a college degree while not landing you in the country-club boardroom. You know, mildly important things like social work, journalism, and agriculture. But there is a budding major in a new field called “automatic profit from everything you do”! Also, get your degree faster while we construct budgets that cut positions and course offerings.

Summary: Education is valuable only if you are wealthy with plans to continue being wealthy.

Exhibit D: Every piece of empty rhetoric you’ve heard from upper administration. Can anyone possibly zombify her way through another “listening session”? I recently heard the phrase “the humanities are going to have to get on board!” With what? Teaching humanities curriculum? Making the university a profit with our full classes and waiting lists?

Still, I’ll ask, how is the “behind closed doors” strategy working out down at Central for President Ray Cross? Now, there is a “resignation” plot that the press keeps referring to, and given the recent news about revenue, about restoring K–12 funding, lessening the cut to public broadcasting, all while not bringing in any new revenue, things look bleak. To be honest, I have little to no hope of good outcomes for education in a landscape of grudges and prideful simplicity. And when those bad outcomes arrive, we’ll have had no look at the mechanisms. How effective were the backroom conversations that people like me are too immature and unimportant to be privy to? I’d say, going forward, that I’m about as fond of this rhetorical (non)strategy as I am of gas-station hot dogs. It is gross and uninspiring.

I feel we are at the point where real ideas are offensive. When was the last time, in relation to the UW budget, that you heard meaningful discussion? Instead, just major in wealth, something tenure, you’re not ready for autonomy or lobotomy, science is for losers, Rebecca Blank is mean, and “don’t worry, the big cheeses got this covered.” Here’s the reality about “tough decisions”: doing what you always planned to do is easy; going against the ideological crowd, changing your mind to do good—that’s tough.

I’ll make one point about public servants and the UW: the situation we are in, right now, as a system, is the result of a lot of people doing their jobs poorly and predictably. For as much flack as UW faculty and staff (and students) receive, here’s a news flash—they’re the only ones who did their jobs this year and excelled. We are now at the end of the academic year. Faculty and staff did their jobs. It’s time for some other folks to do theirs.

Horseshit Preemption Edition

As expected, there will be no new revenue to help alleviate violent cuts to various Wisconsin public services and institutions.[10] Let’s preempt our planned horseshit-water rafting excursion—a deliverance, if you will, from the oncoming tide of lies about “tough choices” that supposedly appear via magic rather than their own deliberate set of calculations.

We can begin with the article footnoted earlier, especially this supper club–sized serving: “Republican leaders have stood firmly against raising taxes, leaving them few sustainable options except to make cuts.”[11] Journalism! Let’s rephrase: because of a nonbinding choice entirely in their control, they have no control. Got it.

And let the “tough choices” gnashing of teeth begin.

Announcement: there are no tough choices now. The choices were already made, and the results perfectly match the desired outcomes. Lower tax revenue = smaller government; therefore, freedom! At the very least, media outlets, let’s not pretend that revenue shortfalls are a sudden change in unpredictable weather. They are the result of deliberate policy and deliberate choices. What we have now are not “tough choices.” What we have are tough results.

A current Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline reads, “No Hike in Revenue Estimates Forces Tough Budget Decisions.” Let me rewrite the headline to not make excuses for people and circumstances that have clear, identifiable causes: “State Revenue, Declining because of Tax Cuts, Allows Leaders to Move Forward with Desired Cuts to State Services and Institutions.” There is no “forcing” involved.

And here’s a reminder: when the “choice” you must make is your desired outcome, it is not tough. Got it? When buildings fall, let’s not make martyrs of the architects.

Here’s another reminder: this is all about money. It has always been about money and the ideological reorganization of who has access to it. So tenure, shared governance, cash reserves something or other, all relate to this budget . . . how?

We pause for an interview with Chuck Rybak! An important man who was generous enough to put down his coffee and speak with us!

Here is your guide for dealing with media and opinion from here until the final budget is passed:

1. 1. There are no tough choices. The choices that have produced this situation were already made by the very same people in question.
2. 2. There are no tough choices. The preceding is very important for accountability (buzzword, I know). Let’s make this an election issue now: deliberate policy has deliberately weakened education in Wisconsin. Easy choices for them; hard results for everyone else.
3. 3. There are no tough choices. Push against any rhetorical horseshit that positions the upcoming cuts as a situation that “just appeared,” hanging in the sky as if a distant sun we cannot reach. Our current leadership—in the Capitol and UW Central—deliberately brought us here. That’s the starting point of all discussion: “specific choices by these specific people have us in this specific situation.”

If the results are not good for Wisconsin and its citizens, the decision makers should be held immediately accountable. You know, just like they expect of teachers.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.