Press | United Academic Professionals of UW-La Crosse

Protect general education program at UW-La Crosse - Heather Walder

Auniversity’s general education courses help students gain broad knowledge across disciplines and cultures. They also help students develop and practice critical thinking, communication, leadership, problem-solving and other skills that help them understand and shape our future world.

As trained educators and experts in their field, faculty at colleges and universities including UW-La Crosse and around the world collaborate to design general education requirements, reflecting local expertise and insight into student needs.

For example, as an anthropological archaeologist at UW-L, I study how

Protect the academic autonomy of UW campuses - Grace Deason

The Universities of Wisconsin system is pursuing a new systemwide general education policy. Faculty across the UW system have voiced strong opposition to the proposed policy, passing formal resolutions to protect the academic autonomy of the campuses.

Contrary to the claims of the UW system, the proposed policy is not mandated by state law. Act 15, signed this summer, directs the UW system to make core general education courses transferable among campuses. It does not mandate a uniform curriculum.

UW system president Jay Rothman is pushing a one size fits all plan that violates Wisconsin law

New study: NOLA charter schools deliver inequitable educations

A new study from Stanford University says that the proliferation of charter schools in New Orleans has “created a set of schools that are highly stratified by race, class, and educational advantage, operating in a hierarchy that provides very different types of schools and to different types of children.”

AAUP/AFT-Wisconsin Joint Statement on Wisconsin Biennial Budget

The AAUP and AFT-Wisconsin stand together in condemning the attacks on higher education that the Wisconsin Legislature included in its biennial budget, which Governor Walker signed into law last Monday. We call on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and the UW System and campus-level administrations to work with their faculty and academic staff to reconstitute the language previously included in Chapter 36 into system-wide and campus policies.

The legislative changes to tenure, due process, and shared governance and the $250 million cut to the UW System budget are direct attacks on

AFT-Wisconsin statement: Scott Walker Presidential Announcement

Madison, WI: Statement from AFT-Wisconsin President Kim Kohlhaas, a teacher in the Superior School District, on Scott Walker’s announcement of his presidential campaign:

AFT-Wisconsin release: JFC budget a disaster

Governor Scott Walker’s proposed 2015-17 budget for the state of Wisconsin, introduced earlier this year, was jam-packed with shameful attacks on working Wisconsinites. Since then, Republican majorities on the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee (JFC) have been finding ways to make a bad budget even worse. Now that the JFC has wrapped up budget deliberations, its budget proposal will be taken up by the state Senate and Assembly, then head to Governor Walker’s desk for his signature. Here's what AFT-Wisconsin President Kim Kohlhaas had to say:

AFT-Wisconsin press release: UW System union members condemn funding cuts, attacks on academic freedom

Madison, WI: Responding to the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee’s expected vote to slash $250 million in UW System funding and remove legislative protections for academic freedom and shared governance, union members in the UW System condemned the funding cuts and called on System and campus administrations to protect academic freedom. “Today’s move by JFC Republicans to pay for Scott Walker’s tax breaks for his wealthy donors by slashing public education is shameful,” said Eleni Schirmer, a UW-Madison graduate student and co-president of the Teaching Assistants’ Association, AFT local 3220.

Madison, WI: Massive budget cuts and fundamental structural changes to the UW System proposed by Wisconsin governor Scott Walker today will lead to a significant reduction in the quality of education for UW System students, AFT-Wisconsin members and leaders predicted. “Scott Walker’s proposal to slash $300 million from the University of Wisconsin System shows that he’s willing to do just about anything as he puts his presidential ambitions above the needs of Wisconsin,” said AFT-Wisconsin President Kim Kohlhaas, a teacher in the Superior School District, in response to Walker’s plan. “He’s scrambling to find money to pay for his irresponsible tax cuts for his wealthy donors, and Wisconsin’s college students will have to pay the price. These cuts to the UW System will almost certainly threaten the ability of current students to graduate on time, and will damage, perhaps irrevocably, the ability of the UW System to attract and retain the best faculty and staff.”