UW-L chancellor surprised by staff’s no-confidence vote against regents

Chancellor Gow did agree with part of his senate’s decision

Last week’s vote of no confidence of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents and it’s president, Ray Cross, from UW-La Crosse’s faculty senate caught Chancellor Joe Gow off guard.

“I’m not entirely sure what they hope to attain,” Gow said, “because when you say, ‘We have no confidence in the entire board of regents and the pres of the system,’ surely those people aren’t going anywhere, so I don’t know where that leaves us.”

Along with the no-confidence vote, the faculty senate cited the drop in funding, as well as a change in tenure as reasons. 

And that is something that Gow agrees with.

“What we’d like to see is, at least, flat funding – do not cut us anymore,” Gow said. “And then someday, we have to talk about tuition. I know it’s very politically popular to freeze tuition, but you can’t do that forever.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has blasted the votes as nothing more than people upset on tenure changes.

“Both sides of that dispute are at the extreme,” Gow said. “I think we have a good tenure system. Having said that, in cases where there are no students in a major and we have people we’re employing, then we’re going to have to let them go, and I don’t think that’s unrealistic.”