June 8, 2015--On, Wisconsin
At football games the University of Wisconsin Badgers' fans sing this song--
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Plunge right through that line!
Run the ball clear down the field,
A touchdown sure this time
(U rah rah)
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Fight on for her fame
Fight! Fellows!--fight, fight, fight!
We'll win this game.
Ah, if only Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor and for the moment the front-runner for the GOP nomination, could appropriate this song instead of trying again to get John Mellencamp to let him use "Small Town"--
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town,
Prob'ly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities.
Liberal Mellencamp told him, No way!
But with the governor recently turning his attention to undermining the quality of one of his state's institutional crown jewels--the University of Wisconsin--even he doesn't have the audacity to use the Badgers' fight song.
He finished off the state's municipal unions--his claim to national fame--survived a recall election, then reelection, and now is moving to take on the state's professors. A soft-touch group of opponents if there ever was one who are more used to taking sabbaticals than fighting a hyper-ambitious governor.
His plan for the university is to eliminate tenure.
Currently at UW, and almost all other private and public colleges and universities, tenure is universally available. Typically, anyone who holds the rank of associate or full professor who is rehired over three to five years is eligible for tenure, which, if awarded provides lifetime employment.
We could debate whether tenure is necessary or even a good idea. Advocates claim it allows professors academic freedom--to hold and teach any views they wish, very much including controversial ones. It protects faculty, they say, from being fired for their views, which has occurred at various times in our history, including the 1950s when Senator Joseph McCarthy led a campaign against alleged communist penetration of our government and universities. Scores were intimidated and others fired for their supposed beliefs.
Others say tenure causes professors to lose their intellectual edge and too often, no longer interested in teaching but protected, to phone in their lectures.
Walker is not making similar claims, not demonologizing the faculty, merely asserting that tenure allows faculty members too much say about how universities are governed--it diminishes the power and control of the central administrations. In effect, he is saying, tenure and its privileges give too much authority to employees and too little to those that are expected to lead them--university management.
So much for right-wing Walker being true to his anti-government, anti-institution posture.
But Walker has a point. His real agenda is not university governance but to grab headlines by bully-style beating up on, in truth, rather powerless state employees who are stereotypically portrayed as absent-minded, lazy, and over-privledged. They typically "work"--teach--three days a week, at most nine months a year, and every seven years or so get the year off while receiving either half or full pay.
A pretty good deal by any measure.
As with other state workers, whose union he busted and from whom he then demanded and secured various financial givebacks, Walker is now going after another subset of Wisconsin employees who have little support among Wisconsinites, many of whom struggle to get by, not infrequently working two or three jobs just to stand still. How many trying to stay above water have any sympathy for others who they feel are less deserving of an easy ride? Walker is betting many and that that discontent, that anger, will propel him to the presidency.
Wisconsin has traditionally been a liberal state. Progressivism, liberalism has deep roots there. But now three times voters have turned out to keep Walker in office. He has been able to attract big Koch-brothers money likely because they see in Wisconsin's political transformation their hoped-for vision for America's future. If it can happen in the home state of La Follette, Proxmire, and Feingold, it can happen anywhere. But, we need to remind ourselves, Joseph McCarthy was also from the Badger State.
And, yes, Governor Walker is a college drop-out.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Plunge right through that line!
Run the ball clear down the field,
A touchdown sure this time
(U rah rah)
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Fight on for her fame
Fight! Fellows!--fight, fight, fight!
We'll win this game.
Ah, if only Scott Walker, Wisconsin governor and for the moment the front-runner for the GOP nomination, could appropriate this song instead of trying again to get John Mellencamp to let him use "Small Town"--
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town,
Prob'ly die in a small town
Oh, those small communities.
Liberal Mellencamp told him, No way!
But with the governor recently turning his attention to undermining the quality of one of his state's institutional crown jewels--the University of Wisconsin--even he doesn't have the audacity to use the Badgers' fight song.
He finished off the state's municipal unions--his claim to national fame--survived a recall election, then reelection, and now is moving to take on the state's professors. A soft-touch group of opponents if there ever was one who are more used to taking sabbaticals than fighting a hyper-ambitious governor.
His plan for the university is to eliminate tenure.
Currently at UW, and almost all other private and public colleges and universities, tenure is universally available. Typically, anyone who holds the rank of associate or full professor who is rehired over three to five years is eligible for tenure, which, if awarded provides lifetime employment.
We could debate whether tenure is necessary or even a good idea. Advocates claim it allows professors academic freedom--to hold and teach any views they wish, very much including controversial ones. It protects faculty, they say, from being fired for their views, which has occurred at various times in our history, including the 1950s when Senator Joseph McCarthy led a campaign against alleged communist penetration of our government and universities. Scores were intimidated and others fired for their supposed beliefs.
Others say tenure causes professors to lose their intellectual edge and too often, no longer interested in teaching but protected, to phone in their lectures.
Walker is not making similar claims, not demonologizing the faculty, merely asserting that tenure allows faculty members too much say about how universities are governed--it diminishes the power and control of the central administrations. In effect, he is saying, tenure and its privileges give too much authority to employees and too little to those that are expected to lead them--university management.
So much for right-wing Walker being true to his anti-government, anti-institution posture.
But Walker has a point. His real agenda is not university governance but to grab headlines by bully-style beating up on, in truth, rather powerless state employees who are stereotypically portrayed as absent-minded, lazy, and over-privledged. They typically "work"--teach--three days a week, at most nine months a year, and every seven years or so get the year off while receiving either half or full pay.
A pretty good deal by any measure.
As with other state workers, whose union he busted and from whom he then demanded and secured various financial givebacks, Walker is now going after another subset of Wisconsin employees who have little support among Wisconsinites, many of whom struggle to get by, not infrequently working two or three jobs just to stand still. How many trying to stay above water have any sympathy for others who they feel are less deserving of an easy ride? Walker is betting many and that that discontent, that anger, will propel him to the presidency.
Wisconsin has traditionally been a liberal state. Progressivism, liberalism has deep roots there. But now three times voters have turned out to keep Walker in office. He has been able to attract big Koch-brothers money likely because they see in Wisconsin's political transformation their hoped-for vision for America's future. If it can happen in the home state of La Follette, Proxmire, and Feingold, it can happen anywhere. But, we need to remind ourselves, Joseph McCarthy was also from the Badger State.
And, yes, Governor Walker is a college drop-out.
Labels: "On Wisconsin", "Small Town", John Mellencamp, Municipal Unions, Republican Nomination 2016, Scott Walker, Tenure, University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:21 AM
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