Last Thursday students, faculty and administration held a panel discussion on education rights. The panel was in response to a student protest, held March 4, which resulted in the arrest of 15 students outside Chapman Hall.
The purpose of the demonstration was to protest budget cuts by administration. Cuts have resulted in reductions in the salary of faculty and staff and increases in tuition.
The panel included UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago, Vice Chancellor Christy Brown, Michael Spector of the UW Board of Regents, UWM professors and a member of the student association.
The panel was moderated by Nik Kovac, alderman for Milwaukee’s 3rd district. Members of the panel gave an opening statement and then were asked questions written by members of the panel. The event concluded with questions from the audience.
A wide range of topics was discussed. UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago discussed the state’s decreasing interest in funding education. He said cuts at UWM are a result of a decrease in funding by the state legislature. UWM has seen the percentage of its funding by the state drop from 50 percent to around 25 percent. Santiago believes this trend will continue.
Santiago said he believes that in ten to fifteen years, the state funding for the university will be around 15 percent. He said this is due to a decreased interest by the state as well as taxpayers to fund higher education.
“Public perception has changed,“ Santiago said. “It has changed from the view that public higher education as a public good to public education as a private good. The payers of that education increasingly became the students. I do foresee a change in that particular trend.”
Santiago believes a building on UWM as a research institution is the way to acquire funding – by building partnerships with businesses, the university will generate revenue.
Professor of Geography Mark Levine agreed that a cut in state funding is a major issue. Levine disagreed with what he called the chancellor’s “defeatist attitude.” He believes focus should be on organizing students, faculty and administration to petition for the need for funding education.
He argued with the chancellors belief that research can supplement for state funding.
“Research is a good thing [and] we should be growing that at UWM, but it is not a money maker,” Levine said. “When you get funding, it is for specific projects for specific things. We incur costs for that. It is called overhead. Consequently every research project that we do needs money. That is a cost; we need to recognize that.”
UWM student Rachel Matteson said that the chancellor’s salary is a key issue. She asked the chancellor if he would be willing take a reduction in pay. The chancellor responded to this by saying he does not make decisions about his salary.
Other members of the panel believed this would be a symbolic gesture, yet not an answer to the university’s financial problems. The chancellor is paid on par with others in the UW system. Significantly higher than that of other faculty members, the chancellor makes $273,000. However, this is a very marginal amount when compared to the $500 million the school operates on annually.
Other topics discussed were racial representation in the student body, graduation rates and decisions about where to expand the campus.
This discussion is expected to be the first in a series of dialogues between the administration, faculty and staff. The chancellor says he is interested in continued participation. Alderman Nik Kovac would like to see future panels focus on specifics that will allow in-depth conversation on many key issues, such as how UWM will be utilizing the $240 million recently given by the state.
This is just about the worst piece of journalism I’ve seen yet. The journalist has no mention of who organized the event, has no idea who actually sat on the panel, and what was actually discussed. Another classic article by the UWM Post. Thanks!
During the forum, Chancellor Santiago was asked, several times by several different people, whether he’d consider dropping the charges against “the Milwaukee 16.” He hemmed and hawed, and finally said “no” outright – but before that, his main posture was an attempt at chancellorly neutrality, noting that there was an investigation going on, in which he was participating, and implying that therefore he should not comment on his opinions until the investigation was complete.
Sounds good…unless you happen to recall the e-mail Santiago sent to the entire campus, days after the event – and remember also that, by his own later admission, Santiago had talked only to police or police representatives, and no one representing the protesters or their views. In that e-mail, Santiago wrote:
“UWM…has no tolerance when speech is replaced with violence. That is what happened yesterday on our campus when several individuals… punched and kicked, and threw ice chunks and snowballs at UWM Police Officers who were engaged in their duty of safeguarding university people and property. One UWM Officer suffered a leg injury during the demonstration. [note: the officer was injured while trying to tackle a student who'd been standing still, across the street, who had moved there after having been ordered to do so.] As a result of yesterday’s violence, 15 individuals…were arrested for violations of the law. Laws violated include unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and throwing hard objects….For these individuals who demonstrated no respect for our campus community, we will pursue legal action and, for the students, we will review whether any university rules were violated that require additional action according to Chapter UWS 17 Student Nonacademic Disciplinary Procedures and Chapter UWS 18 Conduct on University Lands.”
That doesn’t sound very neutral to me. In advance of investigating an incident that occurred when he was off-campus, and before even hearing from all sides involved, Santiago sent an e-mail to everyone on campus that pre-judged the protesters as guilty.
He should recuse himself from any investigation – since clearly, he is not a neutral observer or investigator.