Advocates for accessible, quality and public higher education should count the recent news as a definitive victory: The Martin/Walker plan to split UW-Madison from the UW system has been removed from the state budget.
Public Authority status for the UW-Madison, part of the Walker-driven neoliberal trend toward privatization of state services, had neither the support of progressive Democrats nor Republicans with state universities in their districts. This is a resounding rejection of Chanellor Biddy Martin’s vision for UW-Madison. I can certainly respect her intentions (though not her lack of honesty) in her advocacy, but it might be time for new leadership on Bascom now that her ideals have no chance of being implemented.
Reflecting back on the year’s campus debate regarding this issue, I think the discussion revealed sharp divergences – the best and the worst – in the university community. Supporters of the NBP (not the most diverse group of people) were adamant in their stated beliefs about a number of things: 1) UW-Madison has no obligation to the rest of the state and the less privileged students who attend other universities should be counted as irrelevancies in this discussion and 2) Public good, accessibility and concerns with privatized research aren’t as important as UW-Madison’s status and selectivity.
It might be easy to blame the student architects of these opinions for their elitism, but the ambition-driven impulses of this university’s admission process and atmosphere are also at least partially at fault. How many times are UW-Madison students reminded that they are at the “flagship” institution and better and brighter than everyone else? Of course, larger cultural factors play a role in forming this kind of thinking, too.
Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab, recounting a Twitter discussion she had with a pro-NBP student, had some interesting comments about this on her blog:
A moment later, I got a reply: “It isn’t my job to be concerned with students at other universities.” And a few minutes after that, he added: “It was my job to maximize my education and the value of this university, if that benefits other universities too, great!”
It was like a punch in the gut, as I suddenly realized that the whole UWNBP situation is but a microcosm of the broader threat to public education.
Too many of our fellow Americans are downright compassionless.
If we at UW-Madison cannot teach our undergraduates compassion for their fellow undergraduates– at all public institutions throughout the state– then we are doomed to a competitive race to the bottom. If the only route they can see to helping others is by helping themselves, we have not done our jobs.
On the other side of this debate, we had a group of students who understand that higher US News rankings and Koch brothers money won’t make them better educated. They also understand that there is no greater educational achievement than an unrepentant commitment to solidarity, equalityand altruism. Finally, they understand that “helping others” is a prequisite for “helping themselves.” (Human beings are like that; empathy is part of our nature, whether we like it or not.)
Let’s put it another way. Is the goal of education – higher education in particular – to give students more credentials in their endless pursuit of status? Or is it to create more consientious, dynamic and enlightened individuals? Is the university a place that should foster opportunism and careerism or a commitment to the greater good?
An education devoid of values creates a society without a soul. Let’s keep up the good fight.
