Dear Readers, I’m writing this from the SweetSpot, where people come for coffee, muffins, and conversation. Many regulars are lifelong residents of the city (pop. 15,000). Others are students at the University of Wisconsin campus here, just up the road. Lacey Reichwald, the cafe’s owner, bought the place a while back to give those very different neighbors — who often misunderstand one another — a place to gather under the same roof.
That’s no small thing in this deeply divided state, whose conflicts echo those happening across the nation. Here, Democrats and Republicans engage in especially rancorous showdowns. Taxpayers hold many contradictory opinions of public universities. And the conservative whirlwind known as Gov. Scott Walker has swept voters into two camps: those who adore him and those who wince at the sound of his name.
As you may have heard, Governor Walker, a potential presidential candidate, recently proposed cutting $300 million from the state’s university system over the next two years, while freezing in-state tuition. Then he suggested that the system’s 26 campuses could save money by asking every faculty member to teach one more class each semester. And then came the news that he had proposed changing the “Wisconsin Idea,” the system’s long-cherished mission statement, by removing language about public service and “the search for truth,” and adding a promise to “meet the state’s workforce needs.”
Although the governor soon backed away from the latter revisions, it’s fair to say that he, like many other Republican governors, has challenged higher education’s status quo. For that, politicians and pundits applaud or criticize him. But I wondered: What do his constituents make of this higher-ed hubbub? With whom do his ideas about Wisconsin’s universities resonate? And do their concerns make sense to folks who keep the campuses running day to day?
The SweetSpot and the Whitewater campus are part of Walworth County, which covers 576 square miles of the southeastern part of the state. In his successful bid for re-election last fall, Governor Walker won 64 percent of the county’s votes.
While criss-crossing this snow-coated terrain for a few days this month, I found many shades of red. Fans of the governor shared blunt criticisms of the universities. Some said outlandish things about professors. A few described themselves as conflicted, even angry, about the proposed cuts. And some praised higher education as eloquently as any chancellor might, insisting that the prosperity of Whitewater’s campus was essential to that of their community.
Darren Hauck for The Chronicle
Lacey Reichwald is owner of the SweetSpot, a cafe in Whitewater where longtime residents mingle with students
from the local U. of Wisconsin campus and where town-gown differences take a back seat to coffee and muffins.
Under the budget plan, the university would lose $6.4 million, or 19 percent, of its state funds, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Whitewater, which relies more heavily on tuition than other UW campuses do, would see the largest percentage cut in state funds, which are used mainly for academic support, instruction, and student services.
How the university might offset such a reduction concerned many people who walked into the SweetSpot for breakfast one morning. More than a quarter of the university’s 1,400 employees live in the Whitewater area, where a majority of voters cast ballots for Governor Walker’s opponents. Not surprisingly, nobody here had an unkind word for UW-Whitewater, or higher education in general, really. But farther away from the campus, I heard a different tune.
Bob Kordus Jr. lives 40 minutes away, in Lake Geneva. Over a beer at Sprecher’s Restaurant & Pub, he described how he had affixed a Walker sign to a 12-foot pole last fall. He proudly carried it during a campaign rally for the governor, whom he considers down to earth and fiscally responsible.
Want to caricature Walker supporters as hostile to higher education? Mr. Kordus isn’t your guy. Where some see a governor giving universities their comeuppance, he sees a leader of a state with major budgetary challenges making common-sense decisions. The suggestion that professors should teach more classes offended many educators; he heard only a call to roll up your sleeves.
Not long after dropping out of nearby Carroll University, in the early 1980s, Mr. Kordus re-enrolled, more determined than before. He worked full time while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration, which he earned in 1987. Sometimes, he napped in his car before class.
These days Mr. Kordus appreciates the many ways the University of Wisconsin system benefits students and the state alike, he told me. He has no problem with philosophy courses or asking students to, as he said, “read To Kill a Mockingbird and analyze the hell out of it.”
Generally, Mr. Kordus respects educators. After decades as a banking-industry executive, he now splits his time between consulting and substitute-teaching. The experience has helped him appreciate the many travails of full-time teachers.
But Mr. Kordus, a data-processing expert with an eye for inefficiencies, is also convinced that the public-school system is full of “administrative waste.” The same, he said, is true of higher education: “The bigger an organization gets, the more people create these little fiefdoms and try to protect them.”
That sentiment sounded throughout Walworth County. I heard it at a gas station in Elkhorn and at a McDonald’s in Delavan. What ails universities? Bloated staffs, too many services, some people said. Professors are too inaccessible, others insisted. Mr. Kordus often hears the latter concern from high-school students. Some have told him they hope to avoid large campuses, like UW-Madison, for fear they’ll have too little contact with instructors.
Darren Hauck for The Chronicle
With many university employees living locally, few residents criticize the
campus or higher ed in general. Miles away, you’ll hear a different tune.
Several people who called themselves concerned taxpayers here didn’t seem to understand that faculty members help their institution in many ways, like bringing in research grants or mentoring graduate students. Others, who understood the complexity of the job just fine, nonetheless thought professors spend too little time with undergraduates.
Over at Anthony’s Steakhouse, in Lake Geneva, members of the Republican Party of Walworth County gathered for a monthly meeting. Afterward, James Loftus, a retired chiropractor, told me too many professors spend too much time on inconsequential scholarship that their universities overvalue. “They say they have to do all this research — that is bull,” he said. “They’re supposed to be educating our students.”
A moment later, the mother of a freshman at UW-Madison said her son was struggling because he often couldn’t understand what professors and teaching assistants from other countries were saying. “I know it’s not politically correct to talk about,” she added.
The angriest person I spoke to was the restaurant’s owner, George Condos. Decades ago, he attended Wisconsin’s Oshkosh campus but did not earn a degree. He had to help his late father, Anthony, run this place, where these days the king-size filet mignon goes for $36.95.
After seating a couple for a late dinner on a frigid night, Mr. Condos told me a story: His youngest son, a junior at one of UW’s four-year campuses, had received low grades on several assignments because his conclusions didn’t square with the political views of his professors. “I’m trying to keep him from being indoctrinated by these liberal-spewing pieces of puke,” he said. “I want to yank him out of there.”
When I asked Mr. Condos if his son was unhappy on the campus, he shook his head: “No, he likes it.”
Out of touch. Inefficient. Wasteful. On my road trip through Walworth County, those words kept coming up among critics of the university system.
Back on UW-Whitewater’s campus, those perceptions sounded odd to Steven Bertagnolli, the buildings and grounds supervisor. “We’re bare-bones,” he told me. “Everything’s about not being a burden to the taxpayer.”
Sure, in any state the six- or even seven-figure salaries of college presidents, coaches, and big-time professors get a lot of attention. Those are often the people taxpayers tend to picture when they think of payrolls. But all kinds of people’s livelihoods depend on universities. Down in the General Services building, Mr. Bertagnolli described a colleague who makes $13 an hour and another who’s on food stamps.
When Mr. Bertagnolli was hired, 15 years ago, he saw that the university was spending $7,000 to $8,000 a year to plant eight flower beds, but otherwise the campus lacked horticultural charm. “Something needed to change,” he said.
So Mr. Bertagnolli got creative. He brought plants from home. He collected scores of seeds. And he helped build a makeshift greenhouse with recycled materials and an old water heater.
This spring Mr. Bertagnolli hopes to grow at least 35,000 flowering plants to blanket the campus in color. All for about $1,200, he figures. A small fraction of the cost of paying someone else to haul in all of those begonias and petunias, which have been known to impress prospective students and families.
He has found other ways to cut costs. Like planting prairie grass, which requires less-frequent mowing than the grass it replaced, or using a brine mix that reduces the amount of salt required to clear snow.
Around the corner from his office one morning, a student was painting birdhouses — built from scrap wood — in the Warhawks’ purple and gray colors. The plan was to sell them at the campus bookstore, with the proceeds going back to the university. “If all hell breaks loose,” Mr. Bertagnolli said of the possible budget cuts, “we’ll sell annuals.”
Over at the athletics department, Pat Miller, the men’s basketball coach, had just finished watching tape of the next day’s opponent. Since the budget was proposed, he has thought about what might happen if the university raised out-of-state tuition to help offset state cuts. That could limit the basketball program’s appeal to high-school players in Illinois, a recruiting hotbed. Whitewater, which competes in Division III, cannot offer athletics scholarships. “We’re concerned,” said Mr. Miller, who’s led the Warhawks to two national championships since 2012, successes that have delighted local donors while giving the university national exposure.
Inside the Center for Students With Disabilities, Elizabeth Watson wondered how cuts might affect her staff’s ability to serve the campus. Last year the center helped 901 students with physical, learning, sensory, or psychological disabilities. One minute, that means figuring out how to ensure that a student who uses a wheelchair can participate in a chemistry experiment. The next, it means counseling an anxious student who’s arguing with her roommate. For those who already face many challenges on the campus, even small conflicts can cause them to struggle — or leave.
Ms. Watson, the center’s director, said if she were unable to replace employees she expects to retire over the next few years, everyone’s caseload would grow, leaving them less time to help students with day-to-day challenges. “Doing more with less,” she said, “is already where we are.”
Budget cuts can reach many corners of a campus. They also can shape the fortunes of a town.
Jeffery P. Knight thinks about that each day. As president of the Greater Whitewater Committee, he has helped spur economic development here. Before the state’s higher-education budget is finalized, in the Republican-led Legislature in Madison, he plans to have his say with lawmakers. He hopes to see the proposed cuts to the system minimized, and expects that he will.
Mr. Knight happens to be a Republican. He strongly supports the governor, whose funding initiatives, he said, had played a critical role in fueling Whitewater’s new Technology Park’s Innovation Center, an entrepreneurial hub that reached capacity in under four years. The upshot: 87 full-time jobs, and 47 paid internships for students. “There’s a pretty strong case that the governor’s been good for Whitewater,” he said.
Like many Wisconsinites I spoke to, Mr. Knight believes state universities have helped dig their own financial hole. Two years ago, a legislative audit revealed that the system had accumulated more than $600 million in unrestricted funds at the end of the 2012 fiscal year. That disclosure prompted lawmakers to question why the system had needed to raise tuition and trim budgets.
Darren Hauck for The Chronicle
Jeffery Knight, president of the Greater Whitewater Committee, worries about how Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget cuts might affect the U.
of Wisconsin at Whitewater and, in turn, the local economy. Still, he says, “there’s a pretty strong case that the governor’s been good for Whitewater.
It was much more complicated than that, the university explained. Officials said that year-end reserves were necessary, and that much of the money in question had been designated for approved purposes, such as capital projects. Nonetheless, skepticism stuck. “That’s what got the caldron boiling,” Mr. Knight said.
Over coffee one morning in Whitewater, Mr. Knight pulled out a yellow Post-it note covered with numbers. They were estimates, drawn from research on the local economy, of what might happen if the university were to raise out-of-state tuition beyond a certain threshold. Whitewater, which enrolls 1,643 students from other states, lacks the drawing power of Madison. So an increase of just $1,000 (it’s now $14,000 a year) could cost the university 64 students, he said. As a result, the local community would lose $687,000, based on estimates of what students spend in Whitewater each year.
“Everything that happens at the university,” he said, “has an impact on our community.”
And that’s why Stephanie Abbott is angry about the proposed budget cuts. She doesn’t want anything to keep Whitewater from thriving.
Ms. Abbott, who grew up in northern Wisconsin, started watching C-Span at age 5. In high school she decided she was a Republican and fell hard for Sarah Palin. On the night of the 2008 presidential election, she cried as she peeled her McCain-Palin sticker off the back of her Chevy Blazer (she also broke up, temporarily, with her boyfriend, a Democrat).
After enrolling at Whitewater, in 2009, she joined the student government. Later she won a city-council seat. She has since thought about running for higher-profile political offices one day.
Ms. Abbott met Governor Walker while volunteering for the College Republicans, in 2010. She found she could relate to him easily. She was raised by a single mother who, like the governor, lacked a college degree. Early on she understood how that worked against her mother. “She got less respect because she had no degree,” she said. “You have to work a little harder when you don’t have the piece of paper.”
Since graduating with a degree in political science, in 2013, Ms. Abbott has worked at a company that rents houses and apartments while continuing to serve on the city council. She plans to stay in Whitewater, get married, and raise children here. So she took it personally when the politician she’s long admired proposed substantial cuts in the university system. She thought of the Whitewater professors who had encouraged her interests, the dean who, without anyone asking her to, had nominated her for an award.
“I do think he’s lost his way a little,” Ms. Abbott said of Governor Walker late one afternoon at the SweetSpot. “It’s difficult for me to support him in a more sweeping way. You can’t just make these big cuts and simultaneously freeze universities’ means of collecting revenue.”
In February the university’s chapter of the Young Democrats led a protest against the cuts. Ms. Abbott spoke at the event, expressing concern for how the cuts might affect the city.
Some young Republicans share her misgivings about the governor’s budget, she said. Others, she thinks, especially those who are older, are more skeptical of higher education, less likely to understand its value.
Darren Hauck for The Chronicle
Stephanie Abbott, an alumna on the city council: “Just because there’s a
letter next to your name, D or R, doesn’t mean you must believe this or that.
Ms. Abbott still hopes Governor Walker runs for president. She can’t imagine not voting for him. Still, local members of her party have questioned her loyalty, which she shrugs off.
“Just because there’s a letter next to your name, D or R,” she said, “doesn’t mean you must believe this or that.”
If there’s a lesson worth taking home from the SweetSpot, maybe it’s this: Political ties aren’t always as strong as those that bind a campus to its community.
Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.
