H -°, L 23° | Tomorrow: 
H 23°, L 9°At least seven high-profile professors who are leaving the political science department have some University of Wisconsin officials worried about a growing trend across campus.
According to Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, some departures are due to retirement, including political science department chair Graham Wilson, professor Pat Riley and professor Herbert Kritzer.
More startling to the department, Sandefur said, are those heading to other universities. Professor David Leheny will start at Princeton in the fall, professor Jon Pevehouse will be leaving for the University of Chicago, professor Joe Soss to Minnesota and professor Virginia Sapiro, former interim provost, to Boston University.
"It's very unusual to have this many faculty leave one department in one year," Sandefur said. "In my three years as dean, we haven't seen that happen. The turnover has been about 5 percent for the past few years. We're talking about 20 percent of the department leaving in one year."
Sandefur said current data suggests that UW's median salary is about 10 percent below its peer institutions, including UCLA, Berkeley and Michigan.
"I think one thing to remember is the market forces are very competitive. So to recruit the best faculty, we have to pay competitive salaries, and we're not doing that," Sandefur said. "Until we can make it more competitive, we'll be vulnerable to this from other institutions."
According to Wilson, who will join his wife, Sapiro, in relocating to Boston, the university has a policy of offering counteroffers in an attempt to retain faculty, but UW only succeeds about 60 percent of the time.
Wilson said the large number of professors leaving is a "wake-up call" to the state to continue fighting for higher salaries.
"The state has got to pay attention to the need at the university because with an international marketplace, you can't just sit back," Wilson said. "It's a powerful reminder to the state that you could see big problems if they don't commit to keeping it at the top internationally."
With Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's budget still in committee and scheduled to be passed later this summer, UW System spokesperson David Giroux said he is hopeful a $7 million fund aimed at faculty retention is included to help alleviate similar situations occurring all over the state.
"It's been a trend, and it's growing. It's not just UW-Madison. It's every one of our UW campuses," Giroux said. "Salaries are low, our benefits are good generally speaking, but unlike other Big Ten institutions, we're unable to offer domestic partner benefits."
According to Wilson, the future is not as bleak as some in the department see it. He said four professors are due to arrive next semester from Harvard, Pennsylvania, Southern California and Grinnell College in Iowa.
"I grieve over those people leaving, but it's like any international marketplace," Wilson said. "We've got four great people coming through the door as opposed to going out."
Political science professor Donald Downs, however, said the "real hemorrhaging" of faculty members leaving has some wondering about the future of the department.
"Its disillusioning — you need to start rebuilding areas," said Downs, a 22-year veteran of the political science department. "It creates a sense of concern, and it makes you worry about things you weren't worried about before. It saps your energy."
Downs added that the university-wide problem has several contributing factors, including a "coastal effect," where large endowments are only available at high-profile campuses.
Pevehouse said his offer from the University of Chicago was too hard to turn down, despite the valued time he spent with UW colleagues and undergraduates.
Pevehouse said he did not think there was a systematic failure on UW's part in his departure, and he added that it is a good sign that elite colleges look to UW for professors.
"It was a very difficult decision for me. They did as well as they could to match my offer," Pevehouse said. "Political science has lost people, but we're losing them to good places. In some places, you want to be at a place where occasionally you get raided."
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god i hate my life
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Perhaps if tuition wasn’t so low they could afford to pay a higher salary?
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I’m glad I graduated in 2005. Godspeed my kinsmen…..Godspeed.
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Perhaps if the state funded the University, they could get higher salaries.
In 10 years, a UW degree isn’t going to mean anything. Thanks, Republican legislators!
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maybe if they stopped lowering IN-STATE tuition theyd be able to keep all the great profs.
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“maybe if they stopped lowering IN-STATE tuition theyd be able to keep all the great profs.”
Apparently raising tuition 56% over 4 years is actually a reduction. Looks like the decadence has begun.
Perhaps if the legislature and the governor stopped hiking tuition while cutting spending even faster, this wouldn’t happen. I think state Republicans would be happy WITHOUT a world-class university in the state.
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Let’s step back and take a breath before going off half-cocked. Use the education you supposedly got to analyze the situation. A. Business has found that money is not the prime motivator for job retention. Let’s look at the context for people leaving before assuming its salaries; B. Cost of living in places like Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles requires higher salaries than Madison, WI; C. Show us a correlation between effective teaching performance and compensation. I suspect the difference between level 1 and levels 2 or 3 is insignificant, especially for undergraduates. D. Other than a few high profile grad schools (e.g. Harvard and Yale Law), there is no correlation between career success and instititution (e.g. check out the background of Fortune 500 CEOs).
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you actually WANT higher tuition? Sorry, daddy doesn’t pay tuition for all of us!
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so let me get this straight you’re going to blame Republicans for yet something else? Are you going to blame them for the crap you took this morning too? get a life!
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I bet Kevin Barret will work on the cheap.
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For an interesting read, compare this article to today’s NYT’s article on the cozy and mutually lucrative relationship between student-loan lenders and the Republican National Convention.
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David Leheny was by far my favorite Professor of my past 4 years at UW
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I won’t know what this story means until Steve Nass releases a statement that helps me focus my outrage and tells me which budget cuts are most appropriate now.
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Well well it seems the PR Dept. is not doing a good spin of its own demise. Yeah I am sure the “no benefit for my gay lover” is the driving force since all PR people are gay?
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I thought we had to worry about Professors leaving because of the marriage ban; you've won this round invisible hand! - Germain E. Stemme
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If Wisconsin wants to maintain a great university, we (state residents, legislators, donors, staff, students, alumni) have to be willing to support the people who work here. The legislature can’t expect the UW to flourish if it continues to cut funding and cap tuituion. No amount of external funding for new buildings can substitute for investments in the people who serve this state through their teaching, research, and administrative work at UW. Those of us who care about the UW — its tradition and its future — should make ourselves heard.
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to 9:50:
If this was a teaching college, rather than a research institution, you might have made half of a relevant point.
Salaries are of course not the whole picture. You must also include research support, graduate funding, conference travel, etc. When you do, UW-Madison falls even further behind universities that are traditionally tiers below us.
Lastly, “Business has found …”? Take it easy, Monty Burns. Pay attention to the recent rash executive compensation issues and get back to us on that point. Half-cocked indeed.
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You get what you pay for.
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Stop complaining about increasing tuition already. The UW’s tuition is like the 10th lowest of the 11 schools in the Big Ten. It’s an incredible value for the education you get here.
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Like it or not, it has been the Republican controlled state legislature (now they only control the assembly) that has been responsible for the lack of appropriate funding. Republican legislators miss no opportunity to bash the UW system (Madison in particular) simply because its good for their numbers to sharply and irresponsibly criticize the supposedly liberal, decadent, godless, baby killing, homosexual, academic snobs in the fantasy island that they consider Madison; their conservative god-fearing constituents eat it all up.
However, public education is extremely important. In fact, I would place it on the same level (dare I say higher level?) as national defense. How can a society that relies on the wisdom of the majority function when the said majority has had an overall poor education? It can’t. Public education is ABSOLUTELY essential to democracy. After all, what if the majority is wrong about something important (civil rights anyone?)?
Ergo, it is the responsibility of the state legislature and the taxpayers of Wisconsin to fully and adequately fund the University of Wisconsin system.
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2:49
I am sorry, but you won’t win our current slate of republican state legislators over by invoking the triumphs of the civil rights era.
Otherwise, it was a nice, well-reasoned post, set squarely in a venerable tradition of civic republicanism. Unfortunately, your post only served to remind to some of our state leaders why universities are so dangerous and need their budgets cut further.
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“Business has found that money is not the prime motivator for job retention.”
Then why is it that why CEOs got a 38% raise last year?
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Just glad I was able to have a class with Pevehouse and Leheny before they left! They will be missed.
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it is just obnoxious to see the ivy leagues and equivalents get even more high quality professors at the cost of our ignorance…the perpetuation of their already “great name” will contine
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Don’t like this? Vote at home and kick your GOP legislator out of office.
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David Leheny is a genius and the best professor I have ever had, but the entire department has been disillusioned (and losing professors dramatically) since Hawley Fogg Davis & Mark Pollack left for Temple Univ. a few years ago. UW does a lot more for the science departments, and it is finally beginning to really hurt more liberal arts programs.
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No one here really understands the problem. Funding has been cut drastically by the Republican controlled state legislature over the last few years. This has wreaked havoc on the university and it is now at a tipping point that will take years to recover from. The university is one of the biggest employers and players in the WI economy. Every dollar invested in the university returns ten dollars back to the economy, so it’s a no brainer investment, really. And as of now, the university is still a world-class institution that just needs money to continue it’s work and improve the lives of all the citizens of Wisconsin. The rising tuition in recent years has been due to lack of state funding. This, in effect, limits access to higher education to only wealthy families or students willing to take on massive amounts of debt. Fund the university and fund yourself!
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One must remember that for a state like Wisconsin having an institution like UW-Madison is a fluke. Given Wisconsin’s size and wealth UW is a gem and it has done the state well. The problem is the Steve Nashs of the world don’t value that. The fear is it takes decades to build a reputation like UW-Madison and only years to destroy it. Look at the University of Colorado-Boulder pre- and post-TABOR. Boulder’s rankings are dropping like a rock.
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Salaries have nothing to do with this catastrophe in the PS department. It’s a massive grade fraud scandal that is closely connected to the Barrows case. That’s what is causing this meltdown in the PS department. Wilson and Sapiro are leaving because they have really screwed up.
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Right. Rumor has it that this grade fraud scandal will be exposed when the Barrows case goes to trial. The PS department has screwed up big time, which is why Bascom is turning against them.