Biddy's Leaving

Colleges & Universities University of Wisconsin
1

<p>Not surprised.</p>

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2

<p>This deeply troubling and upsetting. I credit BM with stemming the decline UW faced in the mid 2000’s as some of the best faculty left for jobs elsewhere. That was completely reversed in the last 2 years under her. I also think she was liked and trusted by the students which is tough at a sometimes contentious place like UW. While the NBP did not succeed the conversation about more freedom for the UW became real and much more positive than ever before.
My Badger flag will be at half mast. I think attracting a similar independent tough-minded person to head the UW will be very tough. The BOR will look for a yes person now.</p>

3

<p>Will probably be an insider. Many folks feel that we have been abandoned at the worst possible time given the governor and the legislature.</p>

4

<p>Not sure how long she has been there, I have only had a kid at UW for a year, so my knowledge of UW history is not as good as barron’s :). However, she is clearly brave, and she had to have been looking into this (or been targeted by a headhunter/search firm) for more than a few weeks, these things take time. However, this is a great job at UW, and I think they’ll get amazing people who are interested in it. Would love to see someone from the sciences (parental bias here).</p>

5

<p>The choice of the Provost from the Medical School was made to balance Biddy’s career in the Humanities.</p>

6

<p>I hope UW find a Leader, not a follower.</p>

7

<p>Leaders often get their heads cut off. Ask Biddy.</p>

8

<p>Very sad. Particularly touching near the end as she comments on UW’s students in this video:</p>

<p>[Vmix</a> : Martin discusses departure from UW-Madison](<a href=“http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/video/vmix_5a19be66-96c1-11e0-a640-001cc4c002e0.html]Vmix”>http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/video/vmix_5a19be66-96c1-11e0-a640-001cc4c002e0.html)</p>

9

<p>Very good column by Prof Suri on BM and other related topics. </p>

<p>[Destroying</a> Ourselves : Jeremi Suri](<a href=“http://globalbrief.ca/jeremisuri/2011/06/15/destroying-ourselves/]Destroying”>Destroying Ourselves | Global Brief Magazine)</p>

10

<p>Very interesting discussion indeed. From a pure political perspective, Martin may have been too aggressive and less tactical (as a good political operative should be) for getting this reform done. I would not agree with the dooms day sentiment. I think there always be someone with vision and necessary political skill to lead UW into the glory. Indeed, Darwinian Theory works every time. If we are not good enough, we will fail in passing on our genes to the future generations. UW can only survive and thrive, when it stays at the top by doing all the right things. We are not the Ivies. We are land-grant universities. Set our goals and objectives accordingly and compete with other State U’s and world leading research U’s head-on in the areas where we are good at. Focus on a few areas of research, like the cell biology and such. I don’t think we are as good on Law in comparison to Harvard and Yale. But we can beat most on stem cell research. Do what we are good at and develop critical areas for future research. If we do not differentiate, we will be just another one of these average schools near the Great Lakes. UW is capable of and will be better than that. I am voting for this great school with my money and sending my son to the school.</p>

<p>So On-Wisconsin!</p>

11

<p>I am hoping for more than Purdue with a better football team. </p>

<p>Indeed the UW has been more, with world famous departments of history, sociology, economics depts and many others. It is not uncommon for ivy league prof’s to come to the UW (Prof. Cronon is one). Budgets are tight and decisions need to be made, but there is no reason the UW shouldn’t continue to be a leading university in many many fields. Michigan can do it. Berkeley, UCLA etc… can do it. They have more money. The UW has always operated with less and been successful, but is more fragile than these other universities. The New Badger Partnership was one way to hopefully stay in the big leagues, hopefully there is leadership in the future who can build on what Biddy’s completed and get the UW there. And I agree, it’s possible that better tactics would have been more successful. Slower maybe? Small bites? Not sure. </p>

<p>The campus was contentious and exciting and confrontational when I attended in the late 1980’s. I loved it, but was too young to see the potential for this environment to potentially cause paralysis. I do hope these painful experiences lead to greater sucesses.</p>

12

<p>Just to clarify on my point of needing focus: There are many good examples of how a focused approach can bring successes to the university and, indeed, to the state. SUNY Albany wasn’t a very prominent U on other subjects. However, it has a group of very strong professors doing microelectronics. As a result of the focus, plus the effort from the NY state, it attracts many microelectronic industries to that location: International Sematech (from the state of Texas), Global Foundries ($3 Billion chip manufacturing fabs and a lot of good paying jobs that could have gone overseas). An example on the other side: UIUC is the place where many Integrated Circuit inventors were worked. However, it did not focus on this area and the state did not actively support the IC industry. That is partially why the Silicon Valley did not build at Illinois. (Well, granted, the location did not help…).
Now come back to the topic of what Wisconsin could do in achieving success in education and help the state economy, I venture to guess that we could take advantage of our strength in bioscience and biotechnology. With focused investment on our critical mass and we can build a biotech industry within the Badger State. Creating a few successes like this will start a snowball effect our the way to success.</p>

13

<p>kxc, I completely agree on a focused approach. It seems like sciences are doing comparatively well at UW with successful research $ flowing. Not many U’s have an organization like the WARF that can commercialize research resulting in an approx. $2b endowment that yearly kicks in $. That’s not to say the new Institutes for Discovery could ever be approved under the current admin.</p>

<p>The real struggles have been in the humanities and social sciences, which ironically cost less.</p>

14

<p>I would agree that humanities and social sciences cost less. However, the pay off is larger on a longer horizon. I am not sure, if our average politicians can see the picture clearly. They are trained to be short-sighted and only care about his/her term in office, or get elected for the next term.
With regarding getting some success in commercialization of sciences into $$ that politicians and average Joe/Jane can see and understand, we will then be in a better position for asking for investment in humanities and social sciences.</p>

15

<p>UW has been actively supporting and creating biotech firms and there aremany–mostly small to medium in size so far. One problem is the lack of venture capital. Washington which is a similar sized state with a similar state U gets many times more VC funding for the simple reasons that it is closer to California, VC firms have been active here for decades, there is quite a bit of local VC money to partner with.</p>

<p>They are doing what they can to create jobs out of research but you have to accept failures too. Wisconsin has a hard time with failed deals. Out here you just go on to the next–failure is part of the game.</p>

<p>Joe and Jane Wisconsin have seen those new jobs and dismiss them as only for out of state highly educated people. Not the average person. They can’t win unless they build a new car plant.</p>

16

<p>So we are the red-neck of the Midwest? That is too bad. We can’t win if we don’t have the desire for it.</p>

17

<p>I might not use red-neck. Just unispired and lacking vision. 90% of the people or more are born and raised there. Outside Madison there is little influx of educated people from other states. It is just very insular.</p>

18

<p>Yes. I do have a few friends here who had never traveled beyond the boundaries of Chicago to the south, Green Bay to the North, Lake Michigan shore to the East and Madison to the West……They are great people and great friend and all. However, their vision is somewhat limited by their life experiences.</p>

19

<p>My daughter is a blogger for Amherst, and wrote a nice piece on Biddy. Just from what I have read and seen on video, I understand how you feel, you have lost a true gem. </p>

<p>Wednesday, June 15th 2011</p>

<p>BIDDYYYYY. Biddy fever has swept the Admissions office. (In case you’ve been away from Facebook or Twitter for the past 22 hours, yesterday Amherst announced that Dr. Carolyn “Biddy” Martin will be the 19th president of our delightful college.) I’ve got Biddy on the brain. Even if I wanted to stop being excited, the occasional shouts of “BIDDY” in the hallways keeps my endorphins and Biddy blood pumpin’. Why is Biddy such a big deal, you ask? Well, there are the obvious facts that she is our first female president, loves diversity and opportunity as much as any good Lord Jeff, and is highly lauded for her work in higher education. That’s wonderful, but let’s not forget how bodacious Biddy is in general. She loves sports, can do the dougie, and the students at her former institution, U. of Wisconsin-Madison, found it necessary to organize a flash mob for her birthday. I’m wicked pumped to meet her at her welcome meeting/picnic tomorrow. What should be the approach for my introduction? Handshake? Hug? Fist bump?</p>

<p>Students are so riled up about Biddy, there is a party in her honor this weekend. It won’t be long until Biddy becomes a verb, like Google. “A+! I totally Biddied that exam.” “Let’s head to that party and Biddy all night.” Last night, a group of us played trivia in the area and our team name was “Biddy’s Buddies.” Some call this enthusiasm creepy; I call it supportive.</p>

<p>That all being said, I’m still depressed about losing T-money/T-pain/Tizzle Mizzle/The Big T, aka Tony Marx. He revolutionized Amherst’s policies and obtained legitimate celebrity status, both on campus and in the world of academia. We appreciate everything you did, Tony, and are excited for you to bring your talents to the NYPL. Rock on, dude.</p>

<p>Peace, Love, and Biddy.</p>

<p>EDIT: Met Biddy, love her, shook her hand. Fireworks shot from her fingertips. She’s so wonderful! Everything she said in her speech was genuine and charming. I also got my five seconds of fame during her welcoming reception. Watch the entire thing here, and look for my question at about 35 minutes.</p>

<p>You can watch Biddy speaking fondly of UW here.
<a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/19th_president/college_meeting[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/19th_president/college_meeting&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;