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A few years ago, I mentioned Wisconsin was retroactively changing their tenure contract<\/a>s. To summarize what I said in 2015: no more new tenured faculty, and tenure can be removed from old faculty whenever admin wants.<\/p>\n Now, admin said these changes were necessary but\u2026you\u2019d have to be pretty stupid not to see what the general plan was here. With tenure destroyed, it was only natural for academics to be removed from any management positions which might impede the plundering, and faculty not in management positions could be removed at will.<\/p>\n Gosh, what could happen next? With faculty gelded and removed from power\u2026it was time for the plan of complete removal of academics from academia in Wisconsin to go forward<\/a>:<\/p>\n That\u2019s when the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point announced<\/a> its plan to cut 13 majors — including those in anchor humanities departments such as English and history and all three of the foreign languages offered — and, with them, faculty jobs. Tenured professors may well lose their positions.<\/em><\/p>\n –\u201cmay\u201d? HAhahahaha, nice attempt at sugar coating.<\/em><\/p>\n Wow, removing English and history? Those are\u2026pretty foundational concepts for an educated person in this country to not know. We\u2019re already at the point where college graduates are vague on what century the US Civil War was fought, and can\u2019t find Europe, much less individual European countries, on a globe, and similarly their grasp of English is usually sketchy at best.<\/p>\n The reason for this is because the material taught in these college courses has, much like in mathematics, been watered down to the point that what you learn there is little different than what you might find in a 9th grade course.<\/p>\n I guess it\u2019s nice that Wisconsin will cover up their fraud by eliminating the courses entirely but\u2026yowza, that\u2019s quite the gutting of education.<\/p>\n What, pray tell, will Wisconsin Higher Ed focus on now?<\/p>\n The plan is part of the campus\u2019s Point Forward initiative<\/a> to stabilize enrollment by investing scarce resources into\u2026business, chemical engineering, computer information systems, conservation law enforcement, fire science and graphic design.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cScarce resources\u201d? Maybe if the schools didn\u2019t pour endless resources into \u201cinitiatives\u201d and insane administrative pay, we\u2019d have the resources. I\u2019m sorry, student loan debt has gone up half a trillion dollars in the last five years, and these institutions get great tax breaks and other boons from the governments supporting them. It\u2019s hard to take that \u201cscarce resources\u201d line seriously when I know so much about how the money is being spent.<\/p>\n \u201cStabilize enrollment\u201d is an understandable goal. Our \u201cleaders\u201d in higher education piled huge rewards on themselves back when higher education was growing\u2014the business model then was \u201clower standards so anyone who wanted free money could stay on campus,\u201d and it worked. Unfortunately, around 80% of the population now goes to college, and the 20% left are so generally so low in intelligence or capacity that there\u2019s just no way to call them college material no matter how much standards are lowered.<\/p>\n Additionally, enough people know the \u201cfree money\u201d game is rigged, that the money gained through the student loan scam is a trap from which students (at least those who can\u2019t become prostitutes<\/a>) cannot hope to escape. Higher ed in its current form has run out of suckers. It\u2019s that simple.<\/p>\n Growth isn\u2019t possible, not that the leaders will reduce their pay for failing to maintain growth. Now the plan is to \u201cstabilize\u201d enrollment, and to do this by removing academic knowledge from campus.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, I see their point to some extent: the only reason you should go into debt is to get something that will help pay off the debt. So, yes, with tuition so high that going into debt is the most common way of going to college, it makes sense to focus on jobs training programs. That said, higher education isn\u2019t supposed to be a jobs training program, and seeing how badly higher education has failed, the Wisconsin state government would be better off with jobs training by creating actual jobs training programs\u2026there\u2019s just no reason to trust Wisconsin higher ed to do the job right.<\/p>\n The cynical view of the new Stevens Point plan, held by many faculty members on that campus and off, is that it\u2019s exactly the kind of thing the Legislature, regents and administrators who supported those changes had in mind all along.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s \u201ccynical\u201d to watch the chess pieces move on a board and realize when the checkmate is coming? Seriously, the only possible reason to cancel tenure contracts and remove faculty from management positions was to get rid of faculty and their insistence on educating people. There\u2019s nothing \u201ccynical\u201d about that.<\/p>\n The less cynical view shared by others, including Provost Greg Summers, is that the changes present an opportunity for Stevens Point to fight for its future as enrollment declines and state funding dwindles. The campus faces a $4.5 million deficit over two years.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely some truth in there — this new [tenure] policy provides us an avenue that would perhaps not be possible otherwise,\u201d Summers said in an interview. \u201cBut there is absolutely no truth to the idea there was a purposeful agenda. Higher education institutions, no matter where they are, need to be more nimble, and we\u2019ve been urging redirection for a long time.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Hmm, 4.5 million bucks over 2 years. Hey, Greg, as a public employee, you know we can find your salary, right? <\/a>He makes over $180,000 a year in Wisconsin\u2019s higher ed system. Toss in perks and benefits, and we\u2019re talking a quarter million bucks a year is spent on this guy, almost certainly more.<\/p>\n Wisconsin higher ed, like every other state\u2019s higher education system, is completely bloated with people at the top raking in the plunder. All Wisconsin would need to do to make up the shortfall is get rid of NINE, just NINE, of these overpaid admin, of the 500 or so they employ, if not more.<\/p>\n Instead of a 2% reduction of the failed leadership, they\u2019ll close down multiple departments and eliminate 13 majors, in the process fire perhaps a hundred or so faculty, destroy academics in Wisconsin, and call it a day.<\/p>\n Hey, start paying me that kind of money and perhaps I\u2019ll be less cynical too.<\/p>\n While enrollments are somewhat steady right now, Summers said, all those factors will make Stevens Point\u2019s target enrollment of about 8,000 difficult to maintain.<\/em><\/p>\n The school has around 500 faculty, but, alas, and there are more administrators than faculty on most campuses today, so my estimate of 500 admin is reasonable enough. It\u2019d be nice to know an exact number, because I\u2019m certain with the firing of so many faculty, there won\u2019t be a commensurate firing of admin. But there should be right? I mean, with less serfs to administrate, you should have less administrators.<\/p>\n But I again want to point out, their claimed budget shortfall could be fixed by eliminating 20% of the faculty\u2026or 2% of the admin. Is the purpose of the school education, or administration? Obviously, they\u2019re saying it\u2019s all about administration.<\/p>\n Prospective Wisconsin students should get that message loud and clear, and go elsewhere.<\/p>\n www.professorconfess.blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"