Letter from Chancellor Carolyn “Biddy” Martin regarding the budget
Dec. 18, 2008
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,
I am writing about the budget, and I hasten to warn you that this letter may be longer than you would like. Please bear with me as I provide information and context.
As you know, we are living through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. People across the state, the country and the world are struggling with losses of jobs, pension plans, homes and health insurance, or dealing with even worse circumstances. Gov. Jim Doyle announced several weeks ago that our state faces a $5.4 billion shortfall for the 2009-11 biennium. We do not yet know precisely what impact this deficit will have on the university, but we want to work cooperatively with the governor and the legislature as they seek ways of dealing with harsh economic realities and as we advocate for the role of higher education in addressing some of our most challenging problems.
Difficult times produce great challenges, but they also create opportunities to think about how we might do our work differently, to reflect on what matters most and to think about how we can protect, and even advance, what we value. Higher education is critical to the economic, social, environmental and cultural future of our state, nation and world, and it is essential that we make it through this difficult period with our greatest strengths intact, with bold new approaches to what we do and with a strong sense of community.
I scheduled three brainstorming sessions this week, open to students, staff and faculty. They were designed to permit freewheeling discussions of opportunities for innovation in our approaches to what we do on a day-to-day basis. Two of the sessions have now occurred and exceeded my expectations. Attendance was strong at both forums, and we heard the kinds of bold ideas and interactions that are characteristic of the members of this community. If you were unable to attend the first two sessions and will not be able to attend on Friday, please plan to attend another session that we will offer near the start of the spring semester.
With the help of our communications team, we intend to communicate more frequently and effectively with you about the budget going forward. We will begin using the Web to provide regular, weekly updates about the outlook and our approaches to it throughout the next several months. In addition, members of my senior team and I will meet with the University Committee, the Academic Staff Executive Committee, the Associated Students of Madison and the leadership of the nonrepresented classified and the represented classified staff to talk about the budget situation as we receive more information, gathering input through your representatives.
At the university level, we have, of course, begun planning for probable budget cuts, and we have asked the deans and directors to do the same. Because we do not yet have precise information, our efforts are preliminary and are intended to prepare us for more extensive discussion in the coming months.
In the wake of Gov. Doyle's announcement of the budget forecasts, the UW System asked member campuses to stop all but essential hiring and instituted a process of pre-approval for all travel using state funds. On this campus, I have delegated authority to the deans and directors to determine what counts as essential hiring. We are also working with deans and directors on travel requests, asking everyone to assess whether trips using state funds can be postponed or handled in a way that avoids out-of-state travel. Of course, faculty members and academic staff at major research universities are expected to travel to fulfill their primary research, outreach and educational responsibilities. In fact, it is part of the job description for many of us. We ask, however, that you carefully evaluate any travel that would use state funds and that you seek the required pre-approval.
Though it is difficult to plan without more concrete details, I can share some of the principles that will guide our approach to the eventuality of cuts. I have asked the deans to work together on strategic approaches to potential reductions, rather than approaching such reductions in isolation from one another and without assuming only across-the-board decreases. We are committed to protecting the fundamentals student access and affordability; faculty and staff recruitment and retention; and educational, research and outreach activities that are central to our core missions. We will inevitably have to set priorities and make hard choices. Although we would like to excel equally at everything we do, realism requires that we be strategic. We will want to preserve long-standing and current strengths and use any available flexibility to strengthen areas that are central to our core educational mission, yet may not be as strong as they need to be.
As we consider affordability, we will approach tuition increases by seeking to balance the good of our students and the public with the good of the institution. In fact, these aspects are not at odds. Our students and state citizens need and want a flourishing world-class research institution. Tuition increases will be necessary to preserve not only our preeminence, but also our service to the public. We will find balance by ensuring that these increases do not affect students from low-income and median-income groups.
Faculty and staff recruitment and retention are obviously essential to our efforts to remain both preeminent and public. The UW System Board of Regents has recommended a 2.5 percent pay plan for faculty and staff, a significantly lower rate of increase than the system and board had foreseen when they studied how to reach the median of our peer group in faculty salaries. The request for a 2.5 percent increase is a responsible request under the circumstances. We have no way of knowing whether the pay plan will be approved, but we will emphasize its importance. We will also join the system in advocating for a continuation of the high-demand faculty fund in the governor's budget. Because pay plans have been so low over time, we need to address compression and equity problems, and we will make every effort to provide some funding on our own, even if it is only minimal under the circumstances, to address these problems. The regents have once again included a request for domestic partner benefits, and we will advocate strongly for those benefits.
As you know, the UW System has made requests for its Growth Agenda. UW-Madison's portion of that agenda would provide funding for graduate student support, a very significant need. We continue to hope that the governor's budget will include funding for the Growth Agenda, and for some of our high-priority, high-impact projects, such as the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative and several key facilities projects.
It is essential in this environment, as in any other, that we do everything possible to be good stewards of our resources, that we take innovative approaches to our work, that we risk new ideas and practices. The Administrative Process Redesign, an effort sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Administration to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of our administrative operations, is just one example of a project whose time has come. We will work with you to improve the rate at which we undertake administrative redesign in key functional areas.
Despite the absence of money, we can take other steps to make this an even better place to work, to discover and to learn. I urge every unit on campus to increase efforts to create the most open, openly appreciative and collegial environment possible, an environment in which every person's contribution is recognized and everyone can flourish. Campus climate surveys at other institutions are consistent in their findings that universities can be surprisingly unwelcome places to work or to study when unconscious biases or disrespectful treatment of others shape behaviors and interactions. Faculty, staff and student recruitment and retention are affected significantly by the tone and tenor of interactions, by the level of collegiality, by the degree of mutual respect and by our willingness actively to engage with one another even by the amount of fun in the workplace. Let us make a concerted effort to appreciate one another and to create an environment in which it is exciting and enjoyable to work and to learn.
Let me end with a very, very cautiously optimistic note about revenue. President Reilly has been involved in discussions among public university system presidents about the role of the federal government in higher education. I am convinced that the future of public higher education depends on greater investment by the federal government. I call your attention to a recent symposium at the University of California-Berkeley at which UC System President Mark Yudof and UC Berkeley Chancellor Bob Birgeneau called for federal investment in infrastructure for public higher education. The news media have reported that the Obama adviser who attended the symposium supported the view that a stimulus package would include investments in critical infrastructure for public higher education. We will make sure that you are kept informed about what are now very preliminary developments on this front.
Please visit the chancellor's Web site at
Sincerely,
Chancellor Biddy Martin