Master Chief Petty Governor of Wisconsin - Scott Walker

By Jeff Simpson

The University of Wisconsin System has been holding no confidence votes in President Ray Cross and the Board of Regents.   Since Scott Walker has packed the Board of Regents with unqualified cronies, he took it personally.

That led Scott Walker to channel his inner 6th grader and write(have ghost written) an op-ed heavily criticizing, one of our finest public institutions in the state, that he laughingly titled

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Faculty Fuss Leaves Out Important Facts

“The facts speak for themselves,” Governor Walker said.  “The bottom line is UW System funding stands at an all-time high, spending per student at UW-M is up more than 40 percent since 2002-03, and faculty is spending less time in the classroom.   We want to preserve the world-renowned quality of the UW System while protecting students and taxpayers.”

I say laughingly, because Walker's press release where he fills in "important facts", was given a "pants on fire" rating by Walker friendly politifact.

It was not just Scott Walker either, Career criminal and GOP assembly majority leader Jim Steineke. warned the faculty about these no confidence votes that they had better shut up.

On Tuesday, Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, defended Cross and the Regents, described the changes to tenure as "minor" and criticized faculty for bringing the no confidence vote.
“This action ... shows an arrogance that doesn't serve the university or its students well," Steineke said. "It’s a clear example of the complete disconnect between UW-Madison faculty who seem to expect their job to come with a forever guarantee and the average Wisconsin family struggling just to make ends meet.”

A college dropout, who was part of an incredible unethical redistricting of Wisconsin to make sure that he has a job for life telling Phd level world renowned professors that the changes to tenure were minor.

If only we could mine irony.

These attacks on the UW system and Professors, went unanswered by the Administration but not by the Professors.

Ironically, it is Walker himself and the rest of the GOP who are preventing the University of Wisconsin from offering a competitive product in a global marketplace.
Let’s start with price. Businesses charge market rates for their products and services. Top-tier private colleges and universities right now are charging $44,000 or more in tuition each year, more than four times the rate of in-state tuition for an education at the UW-Madison,ranked in the top 50 universities around the world.
Why are prices so low? Because politicians have put a cap on tuition.
It’s like telling Toyota that they must charge a particular price for their cars, while letting Honda and General Motors and Hyundai sell the same — or inferior — vehicles to the same customers at four times the cost.

Unfortunately the Professors that are fighting back, are doing so as they are packing their cars to go to greener pastures.

I myself am now leaving the University of Wisconsin after 14 years. At my new university in another state, I will have stronger tenure protections than I now have here. I will earn about 50 percent more than my current salary for the same job. And I will be free from the strange crazy-making double-speak that on one hand demands that higher education deliver value like a business, and on the other hand, methodically prevents it from doing so.
Caroline Levine will be resigning from her job as professor and chair of the English department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this summer.

These continued acts of telling the truth about whats happening in their workplace finally drew a response from the administration and sadly, it was directed at the faculty.

The adversarial relationship between the University of Wisconsin and Gov. Scott Walker is perilous, UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank told faculty Tuesday.
“It makes me really worried going into this budget round how we maintain a civil and useful conversation,” Blank said at a session of the campus Faculty Senate. Beyond that, a strained relationship with the governor jeopardizes the long-term prospects for investment in and future strategic growth of the university, she said.
And the kind of war of words in the media that emerged recently between the governor and UW faculty is “dangerous, should it continue,” Blank said.

Let me translate for you.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank told faculty that they need to stop telling the truth because Scott Walker and the GOP Legislature are a petty vindictive, childish bunch that will punish them in the next budget for daring to fight back.  

The attacks on the University of Wisconsin system have had real and long last effects.   The University of Wisconsin system is truly the engine that drives our economy and for someone in a position as Scott Walker to punish his perceived enemies, because they have a differing opinion while making the whole state suffer for years shows you exactly who Scott Walker and his allies are.

That an op-ed written by a Professor would have any effect on the UW-System funding in the next budget shows that they are not fit to be on a Junior High Student Council.

We need to show them in November that pettiness makes one unemployed!

Jim Villa InAction

By Jeff Simpson 

 

Remember a few months back, when despite the strong opposition of the hiring committee, the University of Wisconsin hired Scott Walkers good friend, Jim Villa to be a political "strategist". Being so tight with Scott Walker, they even had to make Villa a Vice President and pay him over $200,000 taxpayer dollars a year.   

See not everyone struggles in Walker's Wisconsin.  

Even though Jim Villa was vastly unqualified for this job, and by hiring him it took some of the shine off our great University System, it was accepted because he could deliver results with his good friends at the Capitol.  

Now the University of Wisconsin has found out what so many others have, its not about competence its about cronyism.  

In Villa's first chance to lobby for the UW System, he delivered,  

An out of nowhere, massive $300 MILLION cut that will devastate Wisconsin's key economic driver and force layoffs, and campus closings.  

Good job Jimmy, as if the Bigotry wasn't enough!  

See the important thing is that people that actually "like" Scott Walker get paid for their efforts.   It is unfortunate that we have to pay so dearly for that reward.   

Competence in work is so last administration.   

At least UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank has recognized incompetence and moved on.   When looking for help in stopping these disastrous cuts, she no longer looks to the person being paid so handsomely to do so, she is going over his head!

UW-Madison will tap influential alumni and the parents of students in a campaign to convince state legislators that Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million budget cut to the University of Wisconsin System is too much to bear.

Since he is bad at his job, let's hope at the very least, that he is as big a hit at office parties as he is at ALEC conventions and that he used his taxpayer funded healthcare to get his personal problems cleaned up!