The New Badger Partnership - What it Means for You

We’ve all heard talk of the “New Badger Partnership” somewhere, whether it was on the wisc.edu homepage, in one of the local papers, or from a professor or friend. But what does this Partnership really entail? Who is partnering and for what purpose? The details may seem foggy, but the way I see it, there are three main parts to this idea: efficiency within the University of Wisconsin-Madison, flexibility for the UW, and creation and retention of jobs at the UW.

Everyone is aware of the economic climate, and while we’ve heard that “economic times are tough” over and over, sometimes it’s hard to see what’s being done about it. The New Badger Partnership is proposing to increase its efficiency in order to keep costs manageable. With Governor Scott Walker’s budget work underway, the UW wants to be part of the solution to the economic hardships facing the state of Wisconsin, not one of the problems. Asking for additional funding at this time is somewhat unreasonable, and instead of asking for more money, the New Badger Partnership proposes reallocating within instead of asking from the outside.

The Partnership also proposes greater flexibility in order to give Wisconsinites the proper return on their investment in the University. This includes setting market-based tuition, providing adequate financial aid, and pay employees separately from state agency pay plans. This hits especially close to home for students who are wondering what this Partnership could mean for their tuition right now. (http://badgerherald.com/news/2011/01/17/state_budget_will_te.php)

Finally, the Partnership reinforces the ideas of nearly every politician in office or running for office in the past year: job creation. As a major research institution, the University has numerous outlets across the state for job-generating enterprise. The Partnership wants to provide opportunities to recent graduates who are looking to stay in Madison by creating new innovations and creating new job offerings to spur economic development.

To read more about the New Badger Partnership, visit newbadgerpartnership.wisc.edu for information, listings of recent news coverage, and events pertaining to the development and fostering of the Partnership.

New Year, Same Issues

With 2011 getting underway, students are beginning preparations for the 2011-12 school year. As a soon-to-be sophomore, I’ve corrected a few of the errors I made as an incoming freshman and realized two of the most important things in preparing for the next year are housing and tuition. Both are relatively expensive prospects and require planning ahead.

In terms of housing, many students prepare far in advance, signing leases as early as October. But for new freshman, is one month really long enough to decide where and with whom you want to live? And while a lot of freshman (myself included) are having a hard time navigating the renting market and finding a place that’s affordable and acceptable to all of their roommates, older students who are already secure in their housing choices are limiting options for freshman, leaving something of an uneven playing field for fall rentals. This is a hot topic in the upcoming aldermanic race for the District 8 (campus area) seat on Madison’s City Council. A number of candidates are pushing property management groups to delay lease-signing dates in order to improve the rights of tenants and reform housing policies.

And of course as a new school year approaches, tuition is never far from any student’s mind. Especially for those students paying their own way through school (again, myself included), tuition is something of a sore spot. While Governor Scott Walker prepares his new state budget, students are left wondering whether or not University of Wisconsin funding will decrease and affect tuition. Free Applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) are now available for the upcoming school year online, but in the current economic climate, loans and grants may seem uncertain. US News and World Report published a story today with some tips for seeking financial aid. (http://www.usnews.com/education/paying-for-college/articles/2011/01/31/6-steps-to-beating-the-shortage-of-financial-aid)

The UW provides a number of resources to help students manage their finances, including the job center (jobcenter.wisc.edu) and the Financial Aid Office website (finaid.wisc.edu). Likewise, our organization, the Working Class Student Union offers a support network of students who are going through or have gone through the same struggles to pay for the various costs associated with going to college. We want to lend our experience and advice to those first-generation and working class college students.

Hockey and the Myth of Meritocracy

I have just finished reading one of the latest additions to our WCSU library, Outliers: The Story of Success. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who is interested in thinking critically about the process of social order and deeply imbedded cultural legacies and how they are related to social class.

Author and reporter Malcolm Gladwell details the intricacies of several well-known success stories – Bill Gates, The Beatles, John D. Rockefeller, and ultimately, his own – to illustrate how a fortunate series of unlikely opportunities are key to each example’s success.

He is not dismissive of hard work, genius, or talent; he simply makes the case that there is more to success than those elements. To start, he points out that 40 percent of Canadian hockey players were born in January, February and March.

There is nothing about being born in those months that innately makes one a superior hockey player. But when pre-adolescent players begin to be divided up by their ability, the arbitrary, bureaucratically imposed cut-off date of January 1 for age-class hockey gives the oldest players a built-in advantage over those born in October, November or December.

Six or eight months is not much time in the course of an adult’s life. But when we’re considering developing youths, that six-to-eight months is crucial. Gladwell argues that if the cut-off date were May 1, 40 percent of Canadian hockey players would be born in May, June and July and opportunities would be opened to a completely different – yet equally qualified – group of hockey players.

This arbitrary date assignment that has no reflection on ability squanders the talent of countless athletes, Gladwell writes, and gives the older players opportunities that will later have financial rewards – such as college scholarships or the money and celebrity that comes with being a pro hockey player in Canada – partly on account of their birth date.

Later, he argues that simply being born in the right time and place were key parts of the successes of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and oil baron John Rockefeller.

This book is an important addition to the WCSU library because of its insight into social organization and Gladwell’s assertions that there are unseen obstacles and advantages deeply embedded in our systems that affect individuals’ success.

One of our most treasured national narratives as Americans is that of individuals “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.” This frame allows us to ignore the nuanced experiences of the individual and not acknowledge the benefit and pure luck of being in the right place at the right time. Gladwell uses well-known cases of success stories to convincingly deconstruct the myth of meritocracy.

Check My Math

Following the announcement that the regents are once again recommending a 5.5 percent tuition hike, the local media contacted our outgoing president Chynna regarding WCSU’s position on the increase.

I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the complexities of Chynna’s experiences reduced to a narrative of “$22,000 in debt despite working three jobs.”

The same general frame was used in a Daily Cardinal article at the end of last semester. Commenting anonymously, one reader said “the math doesn’t seem right.”

It’s difficult for some students and other members of the university community to imagine what a working class experience is like if they have not lived it. Unfortunately our experiences here are often generalized by our relationship to the financial aid office.

I disagree with the comment about “the math” of a student’s effort to self-finance their education – numbers tell the story quite easily. The financial struggles that working class students face in trying to pay for their education can be illustrated by using Chynna’s situation as a model.

According to information from the Office of Admissions, tuition alone in 2006-2007, Chynna's freshman year, was $3365.12 per semester. Even without accounting for tuition hikes, that number times eight semesters equals $26,920.96. On top of that, students must pay for housing, textbooks, and food.

That doesn't include any extra expenditures, for example, car insurance, gas, football games, spring break or block parties.

According to University Housing, the cost of housing and food is $7400 for the upcoming school year. Lets round low and say that a student attending from 2006-2010 had a cost of $6,900 a year. That's $27,600.

So roughly, tuition + food = $54,520 for four years, meaning Chynna paid $34,520 out of pocket for school costs after the loans. Divided by four years, she paid $8,630 per year with out any help from her parents.

Remember that number does not include items not related to tuition, food or housing.

I don’t know Chynna's hourly wage while she worked. But minimum wage in Wisconsin is currently $7.25 an hour and many student jobs at the UW hover around $9 an hour.

The university recognizes that work interferes with a student’s ability to be successful and there are institutional barriers to a student working more than 20 hours a week at a campus job.

Working 20 hours a week at $9 an hour, a student makes about $180 a week. A student enrolled for two semesters would earn about $5760 at this wage. This leaves $2870 to be earned during the summer months.

Again, these numbers are just to break even for tuition, fees, housing and food. It does not include any other necessities or entertainment.

Hopefully that helps anyone who has trouble with the math.

What’s with the hammer?

“What are you building at work?” my boyfriend asked me one day.

I had no idea what he was talking about. I don’t build things. I write.

“What?”

“Well, your logo has a hammer. So, what are you building?” he asked, smiling snarkily. He was teasing me, but I suppose it’s a reasonable inquiry.

As WCSU moves forward and spreads our message across campus, many will have the same question: What’s with the hammer?

Obviously not everyone with a working class background does construction work. But many working class jobs involve physical labor that the hammer represents.

It is also emblematic of the do-it-yourself ingenuity of the working class. Hey, if the car-TV-toilet-washing machine-bookshelf is not working, you fix it yourself.

Maybe you can’t afford to call out for help, maybe you’d rather just spend that money on something else, or maybe you’ve got the skills or the determination to figure it out and take care of the problem regardless of your ability to pay for it.

It’s unlikely (never say never) that I’ll ever have to swing a hammer to earn a living, but I embrace our logo because it is emblematic of the work so many people I know do or have done regardless of their race, gender and educational achievements.

Contemporary working class jobs are moving toward the service sector but the hammer honors working class history and reminds the campus community that not everyone has or even wants the sort of career that a university trains you for.

In creating a logo for WCSU, we found it a nearly impossible task to create a logo that encompasses the diversity of working class identities. The hammer, and the delicate flower within it, represent the strength and perseverance of the working class.

If the task of representing all working class identities were up to you, what sort of imagery would you use?