It’s a rare thing when a public official offers to hold himself accountable and literally puts his job and career on the line.
But that’s what happened when University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross told an audience at UW-Milwaukee that he would resign if he couldn’t convince legislators to whittle down Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million in cuts to the UW, as well as protect shared governance and tenure for UW faculty.
Cross is in a tight spot right now. The UW System president is hired by the UW Board of Regents, the members of which are appointed by the governor. In his latest budget proposal, Walker promised to make the regents the governing body of his proposed UW Authority. So Cross could do the easy thing and go along with his boss’ wishes and not put up much of a fight in this budget cycle and become the president of this new UW Authority. However, Cross appears to be fighting for something he believes in and that is the integrity of the UW System. Walker’s massive cut to higher education would cripple it and harm the UW System’s reputation as an academic leader in the world. And granting the UW more independence as a public authority sounds interesting on paper but there are too many unknowns right now to understand what it really means and whether academic freedom would be preserved. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Walker’s plans for the UW System are also getting blowback from Republican legislators, especially those who have UW campuses in their districts, so hopefully Cross will be able to reason with them and develop an adequate funding stream and academic protections for the UW System.
We hope that Cross won’t have to make good on his promise. But his willingness to sacrifice his job to rescue the UW System is refreshing. After all, we live in an era when leaders say “hold me accountable” but never actually take responsibility for their poor decisions or failure to accomplish their goals. Case in point, Walker himself promised to create 250,000 private sector jobs in his first term to get himself elected governor, but he didn’t have the integrity to say, and if I fail, then I will not run for re-election. Unfortunately for the many unemployed individuals in our state, Walker’s economic policies failed miserably and he created a little more than half the jobs he promised. Rather than hold himself accountable and take responsibility for his failure, he simply ignored that promise when he was campaigning for re-election. We wish that more public officials would follow Cross’ lead and actually act like leaders who believe in what they are fighting for rather than using their positions just to advance their careers.ble and actually means it. But that’s what happened when University of Wisconsin System President Ray Cross told an audience at UW-Milwaukee that he would resign if he couldn’t convince legislators to whittle down Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed $300 million in cuts to the UW, as well as protect shared governance and tenure for UW faculty.
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