Biddy, you might want to take back those words…

I know this is quite late, but I just had to point this out since no one else seems to have picked up on it ’round the blogs.

Something Chancellor Martin said at graduation has severely irked me. She made these comments at the L&S graduation ceremonies on Sunday:

We need you to help preserve the quality of this great university. You’ve already shown that you’re willing to contribute what you can. You are among the students who voted to raise your own tuition and I know that the families who are gathered here are really happy that you did.

I want to thank you for voting to raise you own tuition, because I congratulate you for taking the long view, and for caring not only about the value of your own degrees long term, but also about the welfare of future generations and the university as a whole. It’s taking the long view that we need another generation to seize hold of.

Was there a vote? Sure. From ASM. And Martin was very happy about that. But to say that the student body voted for that is appalling. I support the Madison Initiative and with the Herald Ed Board, put in my vote for it, certainly. But one of the things that North Park super-wonk Pat McEwan griped about when I saw him on the street last summer was that they tried to make it seem like campus assented to this. At the time, I half-heartedly agreed, thinking that democracy was never really on the table for such an increase — it’d be nice if it was, but ultimately, it would be up to the Board of Regents. If the students felt incredibly strong about this hike, they’d organize to stop it. That didn’t really happen, though many could argue that was due to the meeting being held out of town.

But for Chancellor Martin to come out and thank students for “voting” for the MIU is preposterous. I heard many students watching from the stands say, “We voted to raise our own tuition?” Yeah. That didn’t happen. If NatUP had passed, maybe she could have confused people with that statement and just seemed to be overzealous for cardio-training. Instead, she recast the MIU as a brave step of self-taxation for the greater good. Greater good, sure. But when you take into account that ASM’s own (albeit, rudimentary) surveys found that 20 percent of students supported it, 40 percent had no opinion and 40 percent opposed it, it’s hard to argue that UW’s student body approved the measure themselves. In addition, 30 percent of students had no idea what it was and another 30 percent were only “slightly” familiar with it. A later poll showed support for it, but only by a slim margin.

I mention the incident not because I think Biddy is wrong. That part is obvious enough. I mention it because it highlights an aspect of her tenure that unsettles me. I can’t quite pin it down. Part of me thinks its that she sails the waves of academic turbulence on her steady ship of self-assurance, which sometimes ignores subtle undercurrents. But so far it’s only seemed like minor things, such as recasting MIU as a student backed initiative, or initially supporting DeLuca’s grad school plan steadfastly before backtracking under pressure.

Mind you, this is much better than inaction and I prefer to have a chancellor that knows exactly what she’s doing, is sure of it and uses that confidence to guide her. But occasionally, it starts to manifest itself in little myths – the MIU is only one example. I wonder what will be said a year down the road about the second-term abortion vote or the Year of the Humanities. Think — what benefit would Chancellor Martin likely attribute to her decision to create a vice chancellor of university relations? They’ll all contain some amount of spin that needs to be corrected.

It’s nothing to be concerned about, really, but it does give some credence to taking a more cautious and critical stance with the chancellor. Martin is a likable chancellor and one of the more level-headed rational university heads we’ve had in some time. I like her. I think most students do. But her likability can make it easy to fall into lock step with her. And that’s something to keep an eye on, even when you agree with her.

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