Here & Now

President Ray Cross Weighs In On System Restructuring

Frederica Freyberg:

For many across the state, it’s still sinking in that the UW System wants to restructure the way it does business. Wisconsin Public Television is part of the UW System and would be affected by these changes. We will revisit the details of the plan in a moment. But first, this background. It's certainly not the first time in the university’s 169-year history that changes, mergers and consolidations have happened. But some people we’ve talked with have concerns the mission of the university, with its underpinnings in the Wisconsin idea, is at risk in this new political era. The Wisconsin Idea, that the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state, firmly took hold at the turn of the last century when then UW President Charles Van Hise established the Extension division to help farmers and industry and the environment by bringing UW’s research knowledge to people across the state. Two-year colleges opened in the 1940s to serve people returning from war time service. Now to today, the new plan would help avoid closing two-year UW colleges by combining the 13 of them with four-year campuses into kind of regional institutions. It would also move UW Cooperative Extension, best known for county agents, into UW-Madison. Additionally, Extension Continuing Education Division of Business and Public Broadcasting would move to UW System administration. And so with many questions about the “why” of the move and the “how” of it, we turn to UW System President Ray Cross, who expects to present his plan to the Board of Regents next month. Thanks very much for being here.

Ray Cross:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so you want to improve student access by merging the two-year colleges with the four-year schools, but isn’t it really about maintaining access because without this kind of move there would be the danger that those two-year colleges would have to close down?

Ray Cross:

I think it’s both. It’s not only maintaining access, which is really important, especially for those two-year campuses. But it also involves expanding it because part of the plan would be to bring additional three and four year level course work to some of these campuses. So that’s expanding access. And in some of these communities working closely with the businesses and community leaders to determine exactly what they need for those kind of degrees.

Frederica Freyberg:

Extension and Colleges, as you know, just reorganized suffering some kind of 110 layoffs to weather a $250 million budget cut in the last budget. How many money will be saved by having Madison and System take over Extension functions eliminating duplicative services?

Ray Cross:

We don’t know now. I’ve been asked that question a number of times. Preciously, “What are you going to save from this?” I can’t answer that. Many people will say, “If you can’t answer that, why are you doing it?” What I do know is that the consolidation of services, what we would refer to as administrative support services, by consolidating a bunch of those or standardizing those processes, what we achieve is some savings. That clearly is self-evident. How much, I don’t know. And I think it’s going to take time for us to work through these steps to figure out exactly what will be consolidated, centralized, standardized, et cetera.

Frederica Freyberg:

How usual is it to have a plan and put it out and not have the details?

Ray Cross:

I think it’s actually quite common, because now it’s up for public discussion. Enough details within the concept to say, “I like this or I don’t like that.” Most of the concerns that have been expressed at this point relate to “How did you get here?” rather than “I don’t like the plan.” So I think the process itself is being scrutinized and that’s fine.

Frederica Freyberg:

In terms of that process, many stakeholders, I would suggest, I think most stakeholders, were not included in devising this plan or necessarily even notified of it. Why not?

Ray Cross:

I think a part of what we were attempting to do is study the data. So internally a number of folks have been studying the data. Externally, so have many others. So while they may not have been involved in the plan that we ultimately put on the table, they were certainly looking at a lot of the same data that we were studying: declining enrollment, demographic issues, transfer issues. All of those issues were front and center.

Frederica Freyberg:

Speaking of transfer issues, I know that a lot of people, you know, in these schools or thinking about going to these schools want to make sure that there’s some kind of seamless transfer process. Will there be?

Ray Cross:

Absolutely. In fact, I hope it’s much better in the future. I’ve had concerns for quite some time about the inability to always consistently, course by course, accept transfers and that this will help that course by course, but it will also push us to do more block course transfer. A number of credits — we’re not going to make you retake courses within that. Hopefully it’s seamless and it’s easy and it’s received well by those that are involved.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, others have raised this, saying that they are suspect of the move of putting public broadcasting into UW System administration, concerned, among other things, that editorial freedom would be diminished. What do you say to that?

Ray Cross:

Perhaps I should ask you, do you feel that editorial freedom is diminished today? I don’t think so. And you’re part of the UW System. Nothing should change with that regard.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact, because that editorial freedom is kind of enshrined in the UW System policy and you’re telling us that it would continue to be so under this kind of transfer of BAMI to your administration.

Ray Cross:

Technically it’s under my administration today in some way, so I see no changes. In fact, I would hope that as a pillar of principle, public television, public radio, which functions, in my opinion, in a very, very ethical, center path, but not afraid to ask questions on either side, probe questions. I hope that continues and perhaps becomes even more effective in that role.

Frederica Freyberg:

As you know, we take that extremely seriously.

Ray Cross:

I think you do it well.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what about concerns — and there are some — that folding Extension either into UW-Madison or System administration could erode the Wisconsin Idea?

Ray Cross:

Well, I differ with that. Obviously, Cooperative Extension at one point was a part of the land grant institution, and in every other state that I know of, the land grant institution actually administers Extension. And it brings the application or the evidence-based application in the field more tightly to the research side, which fuels the evidence. These are the things we know work through research. It tightens that relationship. So I think the Cooperative Extension piece of this makes good sense. I think it will help the university. It will help serve the counties, the businesses and the people of the state well.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Ray Cross, thanks very much.

Ray Cross:

Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:

In tonight’s closer look, we check in with an expert in the topic we just covered with President Cross. He’s Director at the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, which describes itself as supporting the pursuit, sharing and implementation of promising ideas for addressing fundamental challenges in postsecondary education in Wisconsin, the United States and internationally. Noel Radomski is here. Thanks very much for being here.

Noel Radomski:

Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so what is your first reaction to the plan to merge the two-year campuses with the four-year schools?

Noel Radomski:

The first reaction is it’s very interesting and it has great promise. To some degree, it’s kind of going back in the past because the — what we now call UW colleges were called UW centers and prior to that, they were called Extension centers. And they were all branch campuses of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So it’s almost as if we’re going back in time.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you think it has promise?

Noel Radomski:

It has promise because then you have the two-year UW colleges that are closest to the four-year university and that way it allows students to move back and forth. Maybe they’re working on a baccalaureate degree or an associates degree and they can move back and forth. So that’s the concept. Very interesting.

Frederica Freyberg:

What about putting Cooperative Extension within UW-Madison?

Noel Radomski:

Again, same thing. It goes back in time. In 1965 they divorced Extension from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So now basically they’re going pre — this is 1964.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think about the way it was kind of unveiled?

Noel Radomski:

Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s the negative side, because not only — you can say, “Well, it should have done better. It’s just process-oriented.” And people hear that, like why. But the problem is if you unveil it and you have poor planning, the likelihood of success is going to be very low. So they haven’t thought out the details. They haven’t consulted with the, for example, county executives that pay for the buildings of the UW colleges. They had minimal consultation with faculty who are going to have to move around, among many other issues like what happens — where does a student apply? Do they apply to UW-Marathon County or UW-Stevens Point? All those issues haven’t been discussed and planned out.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do we know that they don’t have an ironclad plan? Before it goes before the Regents really soon here.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

I mean, they could have a plan. They just haven’t shared it?

Noel Radomski:

No. If they do, perhaps we’ll hear today or tonight. But when I have talked to legislative staffers, when I've talked to county executives around the state, they don’t have it. So why wouldn’t they have it? If there’s a plan beyond the October 11 press release, why haven’t they shared it?

Frederica Freyberg:

You also say that there needs to be adequate time to put this in place.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

Once this planning is put in place.

Noel Radomski:

Right.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is by July enough time?

Noel Radomski:

No. Absolutely not. One, November's not enough time. We don’t know what the fiscal–there’s no fiscal–we don’t know what the cost is. Number two as it relates to July implementation, students are already applying. My son’s a senior in high school. So he’s applying. So no. There’s no chance. And then all the really operational details; are admission staff going to stay at UW-Marathon County or are they going to move to UW-Stevens Point? Are the faculty at UW-Marathon County going to stay there or are they going to move to UW-Stevens Point? All these very — and when you look at past restructuring efforts in Wisconsin as relates to issues like this, at a minimum, at a minimum, it’s been two-year planning processes.

Frederica Freyberg:

I want to get to this. You called the proposal to move three Extensions divisions to UW System highly suspect.

Noel Radomski:

Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:

You're including in that Wisconsin Public TV and Radio. Why do you call it highly suspect?

Noel Radomski:

Because what the proposal is doing is moving educational, informational divisions of UW-Extension into administration. And you don’t want that. You want that independence. You want that separation between public radio, public television and other entities that are involved in knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, creation, when you interview people. So if it’s part of administration, what type of influence will they have? There’s a potential conflict of interest. We’ve never done this in the state of Wisconsin. We’ve always had a separation between those entities that are involved in preservation of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge, creation of knowledge. And if you put those, not as reporting to a dean or chancellor, but put it into administration, that’s a recipe for failure.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Noel Radomski, thanks very much.

Noel Radomski:

Thank you very much.