June 20, 2011

"But who will want to be the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison?"

It will not be easy replacing Biddy Martin.
Historian William Cronon, who served on the previous chancellor search committee, said the ideal candidate has to work with the university's diverse constituencies, as well as the governor and Legislature. But he said the candidate also must reach beyond the university community.

"Can this person go to the Green County Fair and hang out with the 4-H kids?...Wisconsin is not a state where people have a lot of patience for people who are holier than thou"...

"There is no question there is a morale issue and a morale challenge, but we have extraordinary resources and it's an extraordinary institution with amazing students, faculty, staff," Cronon said...
In a blog post after Martin announced her resignation, [Historian Jeremi] Suri praised the chancellor for being unwilling to coast in the face of challenges. Her departure is part of "a broader, nationwide purge of creative institutional leaders," Suri said. And there's plenty of blame to spread among both Republicans and Democrats, he added.

"Look around. Does anyone deny that the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has suffered in the last 10 years? Congress? Corporate CEOs? University presidents? American attack politics have destroyed these leaders"...

43 comments:

vet66 said...

The failed policies of academia have brought us 'leaders' who toe the progressive party line. Faculties whose leftist professors outnumber conservatives 10 to 1 have created an echo chamber of like-minded individuals like those of Obama's economic team. Having failed yet again at making Keynesian policies work they retire back to the Ivory Towers from which they came to hide from reality.

Let's get real and find a chancellor willing to face down the entitlement drones of academia. In other words, demand productivity, responsibility, academic discipline, and accountability from the grifters posing as teachers polluting the minds of their students. Students shouldn't be victims of a shakedown education system where the professor is absent and the class is taught by a TA.

Anonymous said...

"American attack politics have destroyed these leaders."

Seeing as these are the "smart, beautiful people" who got us into the fucking mess we find ourselves in today, I'm glad our attack politics are working to get rid of these insufferable pricks.

Fire for full effect!

Anonymous said...

Let's see:

A $550,000 annual salary/benefits package and a free 11,000 square foot mansion.

And they don't think there's anybody out there who'll want to take a chance on this job, eh?

Fucking retarded.

Anonymous said...

This story is nothing but battlefield prep for the inevitable ... they want to raise the salary/benefit package and are afraid they won't be able to get away with it in the current economic environment.

Fact of the matter is that colleges and universities have not tightened their belts like American families have been required to.

it's obscene the amount of money these people are taking. A millionaire every two years? What are these people thinking?

American families are losing their homes in record numbers and these people just want more and more and more.

Fully 17% of Americans cannot even find a full-time job and yet they appear to be setting the stage to raise this obscene salary.

It's amazing what these thieves are getting away with. Republicans need to defund this university at the federal level and return to the taxpayers the $1 billion a year this school is getting because it's being wasted on 11,000 square foot mansions and other obscene perks.

Kevin said...

Cronon,

Isn't he the professor who got his emails subject to an Open Records Request by the state GOP?

Guess he was able to put his new-found celebrity into being a media source.

virgil xenophon said...

Present-day Univ Presidents are nothing more than glorified fund-raisers/boosters, period. And they buy peace on campus by appeasing their mainly--hell, overwhelmingly-- leftist faculty by showering them with new Depts (think the fill-in-the-blank minority studies Dept. de jour.) and new positions for their lefty buddies.

I'm Full of Soup said...

If these wonderwful institutions had not become bloated, fat, out of touch but still able to suck hard on the public teat, maybe their leaders would be more respected.

Btw - is it really so hard to run a non-profit university like UW? For God's sake, people need to get a grip on reality.

TosaGuy said...

"Wisconsin is not a state where people have a lot of patience for people who are holier than thou"..."

That is why the public unions are getting their butt handed to them.

gerry said...

Historian William Cronon, who served on the previous chancellor search committee, said the ideal candidate has to work with the university's diverse constituencies

The candidate will either have no opinions (and so, no meaningful policies) about anything that matters in order to avoid offending politically correct and potentially powerful interests that have miniscule attraction for fiscal support from the political mainstream, or one must adopt opinions and policies that offend those powerful, PC "constituencies", but which support the values and beliefs of those who are paying the bills.

Transvestite, transgended, fecal-material-throwing Marxist art-history theorists pounding on drums while condoning transmission of life-threatening e-mails to elected orfficials are a bit of a turn-off to alumni who are sick and tired of all that crap.

MadisonMan said...

The failed policies of academia

Right. That's why no one from anywhere but the US wants to get into an American University.

David said...

I'm surprised that Professor Suri is willing to be so open in his opinion that George Bush was a much better president than Barack Obama.

gadfly said...

"Can this person go to the Green County Fair and hang out with the 4-H kids?...Wisconsin is not a state where people have a lot of patience for people who are holier than thou"...

I cannot picture in my mind that Donna Shalala ever went to the Green County Fair, let alone patiently interact with other "holier-than-thou" people. I doubt that she could even find Monroe.

chickelit said...
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chickelit said...

MadisonMan wrote: Right. That's why no one from anywhere but the US wants to get into an American University.

That may true for the present will it be true tomorrow and the next day?

University faculty have grown politically smug. This has happened in a relatively short period of time--within my living memory at least. Even the Althouse blog catalogs outrageous pandering to the left. Where in the last 10 to 20 years is there evidence of the depoliticizing of the campus? Maybe the belated recognition of the Sterling Hall bombing with a plaque counts.

MadisonMan said...

I cannot picture in my mind that Donna Shalala ever went to the Green County Fair

The Donna was a great UW Booster, and would have gone anywhere to talk about the Badgers.

Lincolntf said...

"a broader nationwide purge..."

Good Lord, these Academics are more self-impressed than any politician or overblown athlete I've ever seen. Somehow the nation, and the State, will survive, even though Miss Biddy has taken her talents to South Beach. Chill.

SteveR said...

the ideal candidate has to work with the university's diverse constituencies, as well as the governor and Legislature. But he said the candidate also must reach beyond the university community.

How is that unique to UW?

bagoh20 said...

"American attack politics have destroyed these leaders"..."

No, they are out there as always. It hasn't destroyed them - it just keeps them away from political jobs.

Jeff with one 'f' said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jeff with one 'f' said...

"Look around. Does anyone deny that the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has suffered in the last 10 years?"

Try the last 40 years. Hmm, but what cultural trends back then led us here? Who rose to power in those decades and foisted their "personal is political" theories on all levels of American society? Who relentlessly mocked and protested almost every leader in society in order to "speak truth to power"? Who is shocked that their juvenile Daddy-hatred has had a hugely corrosive effect on the the society they so wanted to Change? Who?

If only I was a really smart person involved in... history, maybe at an academic level, I might have the knowledge and perspective to solve this riddle.

But I'm not that smart.

The Dude said...

You should consider hiring the chancellor of NCCU - an HBCU. First of all, you need more diversity up there, and she is inarticulate enough to appear to be a UW grad. She actually used the word "converstate", more than once, recently. She smrt!

WV: dreno - and away go your troubles, down the dren.

Automatic_Wing said...

The Donna was a great UW Booster, and would have gone anywhere to talk about the Badgers.

For $500K a year, I'd be a great UW Booster, too. I'd even lower myself to hang with the rubes at the Green County Fair every now and then.

ignatzk said...

One can only hope that Martin and her elitist sapphic mafia are irreplaceable.

MadisonMan said...

How is that unique to UW?

What makes UW unique is that Wisconsin is the #1 dairy state.

SteveR said...

What makes UW unique is that Wisconsin is the #1 dairy state.
Thanks, I knew he was talking about something far more complex that what seemed to apply to every state university in the U.S.

MadisonMan said...

The Chancellor has to be comfortable with Agriculture. And Beer!

Fred4Pres said...

Chancellor Althouse has a nice ring to it...

RonF said...

Does anyone deny that the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has suffered in the last 10 years?

Me. I think the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has been pretty constant for the last 10 years. I think that the decline began quite some time ago and reached a floor around 10 or 15 years ago.

edutcher said...

Hmmm, Chancellor Althouse...

Nah, take way too much time away from blogging, road trips, necking in the back seat of the Audi...

PS The decline in leaders probably goes back to allowing anyone who didn't own property to vote.

MaggotAtBroad&Wall said...

Society is so unjust. Dispensing with the indispensable career administrator. The horror.

Unknown said...

No, Ann's busy.

I nominate Meade! Who has a better finger on the pulse of Mad Town than he?

Carol_Herman said...

You know what I see? The New Yoke Times is no longer the "recruiter of choice," influencing those in Boston, NYC, and LA, to drop everything and aim for the University at Madison's open chancellorship.

It's not that academics don't know Biddy left.

But we live in a world where you're probably living in an expensive house you cannot sell. Your kids are in schools they like. And, telling the family that you're changing jobs ... probably having to give up a good one ... And, you can see U-M will have to choose an insider.

Let the fights in the parking spaces BEGIN.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Fred said:

"Chancellor Althouse has a nice ring to it..."

How great would that be especially the first time Althouse yelled "pussy" at some whining d-bag!

Phil 314 said...

Well if they would pay a living wage...

A. Shmendrik said...

I am available, however I am not LGBT. Or is that GLBT?

Ralph L said...

Does anyone deny that the quality of our leaders at all levels of American society has suffered in the last 10 years?
More like 50.

wv - unsconiz = Unscon is the new abbreviation for University of Wisconsin.

Curious George said...

"What makes UW unique is that Wisconsin is the #1 dairy state."

#2. California is #1.

wv: poundsit

too easy

traditionalguy said...

A black lesbian Marxist would get 100% faculty support. So finding a new Chancellor should be an easy decision.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Let me get this straight, the Governor of Wisconsin makes less than 140K/year and the UW chancellor makes over 430K/year (plus a 11,000 square foot house with "full staff")?

I have to hand it to you college folks. You've really have quite the scam going. It's a good thing the students are too dumb to figure out who "the man" really is.

MadisonMan said...

George, I should have been clearer.

Wisconsin is the #1 Dairy State in Quality.

Hope this helps :)

granmary said...

The quality of our leaders at all levels of society has been in decline since the '60s hippie/radical bunch decided to infiltrate our universities,political parties & judicial system in order to destroy America & rebuild it to fit the socialist society of their drug induced dreams.

Steve Koch said...

This is a great opportunity to get a conservative leader who is committed to reducing the cost of college education and increasing intellectual diversity (i.e. fewer leftists and more conservatives) among the professors.

It is outrageous and criminal that state universities routinely brain wash students with lefty politics. States that are quite diverse politically should not accept state universities to have faculties that are overwhelmingly leftist.

Andy Freeman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.