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Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes: Fall 2004
Future looks strong – if the university’s budget survives
Greetings. This past year, the La Follette School joined many of its alumni who work in government in tightening our budgets.
The public may not be fully aware of the difficulties of cutting a budget where the major cost is salaries, and where civil service, union, faculty and staff agreements complicate personnel practices. In our case, an added factor is the implied commitment we make to our students by outlining a curriculum in the course catalog we use when recruiting them, and the even greater implied commitment we make to continuing students in the timetable that is published each semester.
Working around these many constraints in the university environment of "shared governance" has been a challenge. Shared governance means that the dean controls the budget, but the faculty serves as my board of directors and makes the academic decisions. The faculty decides who we will hire and which courses must be taught, but the dean decides which courses and faculty he will pay for.
Many good things happened amid this turmoil.
Students attended conferences and shared their research findings with their real-world clients. Their spring 2004 projects include crafting suggestions to help the Mexico City police department reduce corruption, examining the effects of the South Asia free trade agreement, and recommending incentives for local government collaboration in Wisconsin.
Faculty served communities around Wisconsin and the world with their research and conferences. John Witte organized a conference in August that examined charter schools in Wisconsin. Clark Miller received a National Science Foundation grant to examine the social effects of nanotechnology. Graham Wilson continued his study of methods of collaborative environmental regulation, methods that protect the environment and aid economic development.
Many of these activities would be more difficult to conduct without support from alumni and friends of the La Follette School who donate funds to sustain our work. This support is essential for the school to maintain the quality of its programs and services, especially since we likely will be asked to continue to tighten our budgets.
In terms of faculty, while we sacrificed positions in our basic budget, our small faculty grew through the internal transfer of slots to La Follette from other departments, at the request of the faculty being transferred. Our biggest loss was Don Kettl, who accepted an offer from Penn with a huge increase in pay and more attractive working conditions. This year we are recruiting for three positions, one of them to fill the void in our management program caused by Don's departure.
Several new faculty, hired in 2003, arrived last fall and have strengthened La Follette in many ways. Carolyn Heinrich, hired as part of a cluster of positions awarded to the Institute for Research on Poverty, is an effective and popular instructor of statistics and advanced management. She received the 2004 Kershaw award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Menzie Chinn, an international economist who has worked for the International Monetary Fund and the Council of Economic Advisers, quickly became a mainstay in our international program. And Joe Soss, another poverty cluster hire, joined us as an expert in the politics of the low-income population.
Public policy programs around the nation — our competition — are growing as the need for policy expertise expands. The cuts the La Follette School has made in our faculty and staff compromise our ability to respond to the many requests we receive. We hope soon to be able to share in the growth in well-being of the population we serve.
Index to fall 2004 issue of La Follette Notes