Bryce Richter/UW-Madison photos
There’s a lot of bad blood between stakeholders in our higher education system. There is tension between the Republicans who control the state Legislature and University of Wisconsin-System leaders, between the Board of Regents and the faculty, and between rural residents and the bigger schools, particularly UW-Madison.
UW System President Ray Cross is focusing on repairing relations with lawmakers and business leaders. These efforts are important, as the Legislature is ultimately in control of our universities, and business leaders are ultimately in control of the Legislature.
But there needs to be a parallel effort to reach out to Wisconsin residents who aren’t CEOs or senators. There will be need to be a large multi-year effort to reinvigorate and expand the Wisconsin Idea. Wisconsinites need to believe that our public universities, colleges and tech schools do provide something for them.
People from all parties made a stink when Gov. Scott Walker’s budget tried to excise the Wisconsin Idea, the century-old mission statement to extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of the UW campus. The budget language was relatively easy to fix; the real damage occurred when the UW System treated the Wisconsin Idea as more of a historical relic of the progressive era than an actionable item for the here and now.
Luckily, there are successful and growing events already in place that can point the way forward and provide a model for the type of outreach the UW System should be doing. Case in point: this weekend’s Wisconsin Science Festival, which takes place on the UW-Madison campus and around the state.
The idea behind the festival, according to the event website, is that “a wide variety of [Wisconsin] institutions participate in science, technology, engineering and math research and exploration and yet are almost invisible to the public. The Wisconsin Science Festival offers a chance to bring these gems to light, allowing the public to interact with and explore the scientific wonders in their own backyard.”
That sounds like a pretty good modern revamp of the Wisconsin Idea to me.
They have events for children — play with robots! They have events for adults — play with beer! But what I love about the Wisconsin Science Festival is that it is statewide. The Wisconsin Film Festival is fantastic. The Wisconsin Book Festival, which also takes place this weekend, draws incredible authors. They are even airing part of the book festival on C-SPAN. But both of these festivals are mostly Madison events, for people who live in Madison or have the means and time to travel here. They could easily be called the Greater Madison Film Festival and the Dane County Book Festival.
The Wisconsin Science Festival truly takes place across Wisconsin. Of the 161 listed events on the festival’s website, only 84 — a little more than half — take place in Madison. For a festival curated by a group on the UW-Madison campus, that’s pretty good.
Kids who are way up north in Bayfield can explore sustainable aquaculture at a facility run by UW-Stevens Point. Adults in nearby Ashland can learn about the art and science of beer. In Milwaukee, a professor of architecture connects the Fibonacci sequence with Frank Lloyd Wright. High school students near UW-Platteville can take part in a bilingual English/Spanish Science Day.
This festival provides the rare opportunity for the entire state to come together for something that doesn’t involve the Packers or a Final Four game.
This is a chance for families to meet staff from across the UW System and realize they aren’t just tenured bureaucrats who leave the ivory tower only to collect more tuition dollars and federal grants. A lot of UW staff are just nerds who devote their lives to studying snakes, astronomy or the ancient mating habits of whatever. Beyond that, they are regular working people who pay taxes, have a mortgage and so on.
On the flipside, the science festival is also a good opportunity for faculty to meet with the communities they serve. Particularly at a large research institution like UW-Madison, it doesn’t hurt to remind faculty that they are still at a public university.
Wisconsin’s institutions of higher education are at a crossroads — community outreach can not only help residents feel better about their local campus, it can protect the future of post-secondary education in this state.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons and blogs at isthmus.com/madland.
