Here & Now

Noon Wednesday with guest Nerissa Nelson

Marisa Wojcik:
Welcome to Noon Wednesday, I’m Marisa Wojcik, a multimedia journalist with Here & Now, on Wisconsin Public Television. So, after more than a year of turbulence at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, drawing national attention for potentially cutting liberal arts majors, and laying off tenured faculty, the campus is actually now pulling back from that proposal. Nerissa Nelson, a professor and librarian at UW Stevens Point, is calling the solution as coming at a great cost, and, thanks so much for joining us.

Nerissa Nelson:
Thank you for inviting me.

Marisa Wojcik:
So, ultimately, a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall has been resolved without cutting these majors, without major layoffs of tenured faculty. So, how did that even happen?

Nerissa Nelson:
That’s a good question. I think what happened recently, when they pulled back the plan that they said that there were enough, in terms of retirements that we had on our campus, and people who had left, that that sort of helped with the budget deficit that we have right now. So, because of that, they didn’t have to cut some of the humanities that they were planning to cut.

Marisa Wojcik:
So, does that mean that everything just goes back to normal? Is everything back to the way it was before?

Nerissa Nelson:
No. I think that the difficulty, and one of the reasons that I wrote the pieces, is that, it’s been a very tumultuous year. And, the process that happened has been difficult for a lot of the people on the campus, students, faculty, and staff. And so, I don’t think that, I think it’s going to take some time before anything really goes back to normal. I would say that it’s still in a state of flux right now. They’re going through some academic restructuring, some plans have been solidified, but it’s still kind of in process of how it’s going to look.

Marisa Wojcik:
One word that you used was unsteady.

Nerissa Nelson:
Unsteady.

Marisa Wojcik:
So you feel like the ground is kind of moving underneath your feet a little bit?

Nerissa Nelson:
Yes, I do, and I think it has for a while. And I think that some people on our campus have left because of that unsteadiness. I mean, in any type of job situation, if you have a family, even if you don’t have a family, if you feel unsteady, and that your job is not secure, then, you need to sort of work on making some type of viable living that feels a little more secure.

Marisa Wojcik:
Who is calling this a victory, if anyone?

Nerissa Nelson:
I don’t know if they’ve actually used the word victory, but I think that our administration has said that this has been successful, that the process worked. That the process of this past year worked. And, my point in that article that I wrote is that, this is sort of a pyrrhic victory, that it comes at a great cost, and that cost is a human cost, of people who have been let go, who have retired in a sort of a forced way, you’ll be really helping us out if you retire. And people who have left, because, again, they don’t feel secure. The victory, I think, is the fact that they haven’t eliminated those programs, and that they haven’t gotten rid of tenured faculty members.

Marisa Wojcik:
So, where do things go with those majors now? Is it status quo, or is there still this need to say, you know, these liberal arts majors aren’t serving everyone the way that they should?

Nerissa Nelson:
I don’t think it’s going back to status quo. So I think right now, again, there’s been an academic restructuring, so after this whole process went through, the academic restructuring looked at the colleges that exist on the campus, including the branch campuses, from Wausau and Marshfield, and, looked at, how are we going to redefine these colleges? How are we going to redefine those programs? They’ve created some schools, such as the School of Design, that incorporates interior architecture, and art, graphic design, so, that’s how they’re kind of, they use the word reimagining the liberal arts.

Marisa Wojcik:
You mentioned a human cost, and that, some of these stories have been lost in all of the media attention on this. Can you give us an example, or examples?

Nerissa Nelson:
Sure, I can give a couple of examples. One example that is happening right now is, a history professor who was hired a few years ago. History was a program that was slated to be eliminated, including tenured faculty members. And again, that was pulled back. He was asked back in the spring, this is kind of when this whole point forward was happening, he was asked back in the spring if he would be willing to sort of revamp his role a little bit, that would include something in international programs. He agreed to that, thought it was kind of a creative way of dealing with the budget, and, over the summer, he and his wife purchased a house for their two children, his parents moved here from California, and in the fall, he had not received a contract yet. And he asked, you know, when is my contract coming? Again, he’s a tenured track faculty person, so not tenured yet. And, the administration said it’ll be here next week, it’ll be here next week, that went on for several weeks. And then, later in the fall, he was told you need to go in the job market. We’re not going to be able to keep you. So he did that, and he actually did find a job at Indiana State University. And then, in February, the administration said, wait, we actually need you to stay here, we’re short-staffed now. So this kind of back and forth that you do with families, is, I call poor management. I mean, that’s, you can’t do that to people. That’s where the unsteadiness comes from. So people feel, what am I going to do? So now this history professor is leaving, with his whole family and his parents, to go to Indiana State. That’s one example.

Marisa Wojcik:
Is that the new normal?

Nerissa Nelson:
I hope not. I’m afraid that, in the last year, it has become sort of the new normal. I know of several people who have left, really excellent, excellent faculty members, who have left because they just don’t, again, don’t feel stable in the environment we’re in.

Marisa Wojcik:
Has there been messaging that this needs to be a positive thing, that we all need to be positive going forward, coming from the university, that, maybe has inhibited some of these other realities from being known to the public?

Nerissa Nelson:
I think so. I think that a lot of the, one of my criticisms has been that I feel that the media has focused a lot on, the articles seem to be based on UWSP press releases. And so, any kind of investigation or the voice of the people which is what journalism is supposed to be about, has been lost. And so, sure, the administration, of course, they want positive stories, and there are positive stories. I mean, to me the positive story is the faculty. I think we have amazing faculty there that really care about students. That, to me, is the core of why you go to school. But I think what’s been lost in that, is that these kind of, the human cost stories, you just haven’t heard about, and that’s why I felt like it needed to be written. That this is a victory, attached with a cost.

Marisa Wojcik:
Do you think that there’s an acknowledgement of that by the administration? Because, Chancellor Bernie Patterson said, you can’t always cut your way to prosperity. Does that show an acknowledgement of, okay, maybe this wasn’t the way to do it, maybe that’s not how we should do it in the future?

Nerissa Nelson:
I hope so. I hope that they see that this process has not worked. I mean, you cannot, to me, being a good leader means that you build consensus, that you work together with your campus to figure out a strategy. To figure out what we’re going to do. You don’t make a decision and then announce it in the newspaper, and then that’s how your campus learns about decisions, that is a horrible way to treat people. So, to me, that’s not a transparent process. To me, that’s an imposed process that is problematic. I think there might be some recognition from the administration that some of the process did not work. I mean, I think that they agree that the Point Forward release last March was a disaster, and it was.

Marisa Wojcik:
Part of UW’s systems in general includes this idea of shared governance, that faculty, staff, students have a voice in these processes. Do you think that shared governance was a component of this process at all?

Nerissa Nelson:
I think it was a weak component. I think that shared governance on our campus has been strong. And we have excellent people in shared governance. But I think that it sort of happened at a late time. It should have happened at a much earlier time. And there are some policy procedures that you have to follow that sometimes preclude that happening earlier. But I think on every campus, that shared governance is important. I think that there has been a weakening of shared governance through our former governor, and through the Board of Regents, and I hope that that process does not continue. So I hope that we maintain a strong shared governance for faculty and tenured positions.

Marisa Wojcik:
So if this is kind of a bittersweet solution, do you think that this could have been prevented at all? Or some tough decisions needing to happen in some way, shape, or form?

Nerissa Nelson:
That’s a good question. I definitely think that there are some tough decisions that needed to be made. I don’t even know that you could necessarily have 100% consensus. But the process and the communication on our campus of how they went about this, has really, in my mind, been atrocious. You, again, you don’t announce big decisions through the media. I was on a committee recently that worked very well, where we met with departments that were slated to be eliminated, where there were conversations, where we looked at data. If a process like that had happened before, where you engaged people, I think that the outcome would have been very different. Not necessarily the outcome of, I just think that the process, and the outcome, yes, it actually would have been different than it is right now.

Marisa Wojcik:
Is it difficult for this not to be super personal, because UW-Stevens Point isn’t the size of UW-Madison. Is there a sense of community that’s been lost?

Nerissa Nelson:
I definitely think so. I mean, to me, I think that a lot of what we offer, to rural students especially, anytime you take anything away for, we have a lot of first generation students, a lot of rural students, once you take away choice, and if they are given the fact that, maybe they can only go to Madison, that’s not always an option for people. They can’t afford it. Some people can’t leave home. I mean, so you restrict choices for students by taking away options for students, or academic choices. You know, and when you go to school as a young person, you don’t have like a perfect path of what you want to do. The whole idea is to explore, and to see what’s out there. And you want students to have that ability.

Marisa Wojcik:
Is healing possible?

Nerissa Nelson:
I think so, I think healing is probably possible, but I think it’s going to take a lot of time. I think a lot of damage has been done. I think that, I mean, to be honest with you, friendships have been sort of destroyed. I think that families have been torn apart. There’s been a big, trust is gone. I mean, that’s the big thing, trust is gone. And so, once trust is gone, you know, one announcement like this doesn’t fix everything right away. You need time to build that. So maybe over time, I think the healing process can start.

Marisa Wojcik:
UW Stevens Point doesn’t seem like a school that is so incredibly unique to any college campus. What do you think are the biggest lessons to be learned, and takeaways from this year and a half long process?

Nerissa Nelson:
Well, I think, to me, I look at this as a labor issue. I’m also part of our campus union. And, I think that this can absolutely happen at any campus, in the UW system, or even nationwide. And, a lot of it is happening in higher ed, if you look at the higher ed literature. So, I think people really need to pay attention to what’s happening. In one of the reports that we did, from one of our committees, we have some sort of cautionary tales, or what you should expect if this happens to you, things that you need to look at, so, we provided that information. So if people kind of go into this, they know what they’re facing.

Marisa Wojcik:
What are some of those things that someone should maybe mentally expect, if they see this coming down the pike at their campus?

Nerissa Nelson:
Well, going back to Point Forward, we were the first campus to do the RPD 2024 policy, which is a Board of Regents policy. They looked at, that gives you the leeway to eliminate a program, and tenured faculty. So we were sort of the first test case for that. And the data that we were given, and, quite a bit of information was difficult. We didn’t have very consistent data, so, we developed a process within that report to sort of give people examples, like, if this is going to happen on your campus, you know, here are some things that you need to follow. I mean, Superior has had issues with programs, and other campuses have, too. Everybody’s had cuts, major cuts.

Marisa Wojcik:
If that’s the case, do you see this as a fight that’s over?

Nerissa Nelson:
No, definitely not. No, I don’t think that just because they have walked back on Point Forward, and they’re not eliminating programs, or tenured faculty people, I absolutely don’t think that this fight is over. I think this is something that everybody has to be proactive with, paying attention to, and seeing how the development is, and keeping in touch with all the campuses. You know, we need to know what’s going on. And we do that through our unions.

Marisa Wojcik:
Well Nerissa, thank you so much for joining us, and telling us your story.

Nerissa Nelson:
Thank you, Marisa, I appreciate it.

Marisa Wojcik:
For more from Here & Now, and Wisconsin Public Television, you can visit WPT.org, and thank you so much for joining us on Noon Wednesday.