Chancellor highlights successes, challenges at state of university address

Despite absorbing one-time cuts and ongoing cuts in the state budget adopted this summer, UW–Madison was able to land on its fiscal feet, Chancellor Biddy Martin told faculty senators during the annual state of the university address on Oct. 5.

“We ended up doing better than many other public institutions and many private ones, too,” Martin said.

While there is still “a lot to grapple with” on the budget front, Martin applauded the extension of employee benefits to domestic partners, state funding for a new lakeshore dormitory and a building project to house the Wisconsin Energy Institute. The budget also included operation funds for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.

Martin acknowledged the difficulties posed by the absence of a state pay plan. She added that, through reallocation, the faculty salary schedule will see a boost in the form of an increase in the raise upon promotion to associate or assistant professor. While not ideal for faculty who have already won promotion, the change should help UW–Madison remain a competitive recruiter and attractive employer.

“We have to pick up the tools where they lie, and it is important that faculty we are able to attract know that there are salary bumps with their promotions,” Martin said.

The university is certainly an attractive place to teach and learn, according to the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The association’s visit and reaccreditation assessment conducted in the spring was a smashing success — a result of the effort put forth by hundreds of faculty, students and staff to compile the 317-page self-study (PDF) key to the process.

Commissioners called the document “one of the best self-study reports they’d ever read — possibly the best,” Martin said.

The visiting team of consultant-evaluators lauded the university’s research and public engagement efforts — singling out adherence to the Wisconsin Idea — and signed off on 10 more years of accreditation.

“They had no recommendations for us, no serious concerns of any sort,” Martin said.

The Madison Initiative for Undergraduates is up and running, Martin reported, with the help of a number of departments that crafted programming aimed at improving undergraduate education. The chancellor urged faculty to visit the initiative’s Web site and mull over a request for program funding ahead of a Sunday, Nov. 15, deadline.

“Consider whether you have some program ideas or that may benefit your undergraduate students,” she said. “These are the proposals we want to fund — those that make deep and meaningful improvements to the curriculum and services for undergraduates.”

The humanities are also getting a boost from renewed attention, garnering 50 full or partial fellowships as part of the Year of the Humanities celebration.

The university’s research endeavors placed it 20th on an international list measuring influence by the number of citations generated by papers published by faculty, and funding from the federal government’s economic stimulus effort flowed to Wisconsin in commensurate amounts: to date, more than $90 million in grants for 226 projects.

“It’s a testament to the productivity of our faculty that they’ve made 764 proposals so far,” Martin said.

She pointed out the impending retirement of Andrew “Sandy” Wilcox, president of the UW Foundation, as a particular challenge for the coming year. Wilcox’s leadership will be sorely missed, she said, and the search for a successor key to meeting the university’s funding challenges.

“I think (the search is) one of the most important things that will happen during my tenure,” Martin said.