In the most recent Small Business Times Commercial Real Estate Spotlight by Andrew Weiland, Milwaukee County Supervisor Michael Mayo is quoted as saying he will work with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to use the county land in Wauwatosa (to build a research center).
The problem with the proposal to fragment UWM and send its pieces to other municipalities, such as Wauwatosa, is that it has been presented as necessary. In a document to the faculty concerning a so-called master plan, the document makes vague references to lack of "assignable" space. It then quickly goes on to state that UWM has to move the Engineering College. The use of such vague and in fact nonsensical statements like "assignable" makes this rather deceptive.
The fact is there is plenty of land on which one can build a new Engineering College. The area between Maryland and Cramer includes a vast wasteland consisting of concrete slabs and inefficient surface parking, along with a one-story 1940s Kunckle building. The physics building next to this concrete wasteland is falling apart and needs replacement sooner rather than later.
To accommodate these needs, a science/engineering complex can easily be built between Maryland and Cramer, and with 3,000 parking spaces underground, it will go a long way towards minimizing, if not solving the parking problems that the students desperately need solved.
The students who drive have to drive. They are forced to work 20 to 40 hours per week to pay the ever-escalating tuition and fees. The window of opportunity for them to take a class is rather small. Many of them just do not have time to take buses. So they are resigned to drive and get saddled with massive parking fines.
Then there is the statement by the UWM spokesperson about "green" space. This rather disingenuous reference to green space implies that this is somehow an environmentally friendly proposal, when in fact it is precisely the opposite. This is an urban area. Building an eight- to twelve-story complex between Maryland and Cramer avenues is much more friendly to the environment than fragmenting UWM helter-skelter.
The carbon emissions to transport the students back and forth will hardly be friendly to the environment.
Then there is the matter of a different use for the proposed county land that some in that area have in mind, including the preservation of pieces of that land in Wauwatosa for a true green space.
There are other pieces of land in the UWM area that are also available for building more offices, labs and classrooms. The areas near and around Chapman Hall similarly are made of concrete slabs and inefficient surface parking.
The Engleman Soccer Field and the inefficient surface parking is another area that can be put to better use. It is used about 10 times a year and is hardly an academic priority. It too, like baseball, can be done elsewhere in the city, a much simpler problem than transporting students to and from Wauwatosa many times during the day.
In addition, the College of Engineering and Applied Science is not the only college that needs more space. The Department of Letters and Science, which has expanded its programs with the addition of Ph.D. programs, also is in desperate need of quality space, labs and seminar rooms.
There is a reference in the article to the incubators for business. This is just a cover for hiring H1-visa engineers from other countries, and not to help Wisconsin kids go to graduate school. A CEO stated as much at the Public Policy Forum in January: to help economic development, this CEO proposed, the cap on H1 visas needs to be lifted. In my opinion, these plans are a cover for that.
One would think that at a university, one would rely on data to back up claims of contributing to economic development.
Just what are UW-Madison and UWM doing for economic development? Presidential candidates have made reference to the fact that jobs that have moved to China and India are gone for good. Even if that were not to be accepted, the proposals for competing globally all seem to point to advanced research and development, not lagging-edge product development, precisely what was shipped abroad.
To engage in advanced cutting-edge research and development, one needs not just a building, but graduate students from Wisconsin, not H1 cheap engineers.
At one count I did for UW-Madison, there were about 8,400 graduate students. Of these, only about 2,600 were from Wisconsin. In other words, there were about 6,000 students from outside of Wisconsin - about 3,000 from other states and 3,000 foreign graduate students.
A close look at the data as to what the tiny 2,600 Wisconsin graduate students were studying may well reveal that they were not in economic development-relevant areas like engineering and science. One may find that the number of Wisconsin graduate students pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering or science is rather dismally small.
Then there is the drain on the Wisconsin budget: educating 3,000 students from other states and 3,000 foreign students costs the state at least $300 million in direct costs, not to mention the lost opportunity costs of not using those funds to support tax cuts to lure business to the state.
This shows that the state is suffering from double jeopardy: the children of its taxpayers are cleansed from graduate programs and they are being charged the cost of supporting the economies of other states and countries.
UWM has a much smaller graduate program, but it is not all that different: not many
Wisconsin kids in graduate programs in science or engineering. The reasons that Wisconsin students are not in graduate programs are not rocket science: the students are loaded with tuition and fees that they and their parents cannot afford, so they take jobs, working 20 to 40 hours per week. That does not make for a graduate school-bound GPA. So they are sidelined. Besides, when they graduate, tired and demoralized, they are hardly in a position or mood to take on more loans, as they have to start paying off undergraduate loans.
The solution is not to build buildings at taxpayer expense, only to have them filled with H1 visa cheap engineers to increase the already bloated CEO salaries and profits to the investors. What is needed is for the state, county and city to insist on enrolling Wisconsin kids in graduate programs. Once there, they will surely rise to the challenge of the graduate program demands.
Besides, the Wisconsin students have superior communication skills compared with many foreign students, whose English is often so poor as to render them unintelligible. But the Wisconsin students need funding, fellowships and not deceptive talk about economic stimulus masquerading for H1 visas hires.
It is obvious that building a complex where UWM is will have a substantial positive impact on the economy of the City of Milwaukee. It can help the depressed area west of Oakland near the current engineering building.
Not even McDonald's could survive there. This area can be revitalized with such a complex, with businesses and apartments/condominiums being developed to match the growing science/engineering activities.
It is appalling that the leadership of the city seems to be looking the other way while a major employer is proposing to leave the city.
Professor George Davida is the director of the Center for Cryptography, Computer and Network Security in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
14 Comments
BRAVO! Perhaps some of the money could go to 6-12 graders to improve the love of math and science and the expectations and outcomes in these disciplines so we could fill our colleges with students from Wisconsin. I think your response is right on! The parking was miserable in 1964 and hasn't gotten any better!
Sometimes the truth is obvious that nobody seems to see it and say "the king is naked". This is the case discussed by Prof. George Davida. If he and Chancellor Santiago swap the positions at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, there will be a very positive overall outcome. The Chancellor will be able to encode his already encrypted messages to mislead the public opinion even further, and Professor Davida will provide the kind of leadership we all want.
Michael P Wnuk, Prof. Emeritus, CEAS, UWM
I don't think you could have summarized this situation better. UW-Milwaukee has continously been the target of investors with grandiose ideas, but always at the students' expense. I endured the days of Chancellor Zimpher and her "Milwaukee Idea" that resulted in nothing at the end. That is nothing for the students, most Milwaukee area businesses still salivate over the Marquette students and view the UW-Milwaukee students as backwards blue-collared peasants (even though we have the strong blue-collar work ethic). The jobs for graduating students never increased as promised, and we couldn't get out of this city because we had to pay off our undergrad loans. It makes absolutely no sense to move a portion of the "urban campus" off of campus. What's the point of talking "green" when a major component of your plan is to send students to buildings 15 miles away from each other. I'm proud to be a Panther Alumni (twice), but I just hope the campus (and its students) avoids being screwed again.
Great article. When the taxpayer is picking up the bill, the spenders dream big. But logistics are an obvious problem: the traffic is bad during the day from the East Side to Wauwatosa, and it isn't going to get better. I agree with author's sensible ideas for UWM's near future. He should be listened to and have a seat at the table.
I could not disagree further with the comments of the author. They appear to be just as one-sided (although the polar opposite) of the Chancellor's plan. The author's rhetoric about reducing the H1 visa hires and non-Wisconsin / foreign students is very disheartening, and discriminatory in nature. We are an institution of access for all to attend not to mention of of stater students have to pay a higher tuition cost too. You want the University to be a draw for all types of students, not just Wisconsin students. The idea that we wasted 300 million in direct costs on non-Wisconsin native students has no basis.
His suggestions for building up the existing campus are admirable but lack the support of not only the University leadership but more importantly the surrounding community and the State. Lastly, let's not forget about the athletic department. Our students already suffer from a lack of identity and college spirit, moving athletics off of campus (which happens to be a common bond that students share) does not help our identity or college experience for our students.
Please stop pushing your rhetoric via University email onto fellow faculty and staff members. We don't want to read it! Save it for the appropriate forum and venue.
I am perplexed by the comment of John Smith, who is trying to suppress the entire discussion. John, you belong with Saddam of Baghdad and other Ayatollahs in the world. This is a free country and the very essence of the democracy is ability to speak and write freely. This is why we are in Iraque, is it not? Professor Davida disagrees with Chancellor's new concepts for the College of Engineering. The Chancellor is not an engineer, Professor Davida is and he knows what he is talking about. Let him speak up! Perhaps we can save this urban university from the onslaught of reforms and improvements that are useless, harmful and in the end will bankrupt this fine university for the sake of imagined and false fame.
Michael P. Wnuk
Mr. John Smith seems to be someone who has
received email from me sent to faculty. I checked
my list, twice, and found no email address for a John Smith faculty member.
It seems that this person wants to hide, which is fine with me,
so I shall refer to him as John Doe instead.
John Doe seems to be rather sensitive to the H1 visa references.
I wonder why! John Doe thinks it is discriminatory to not hire H1 visa
employees. That is rather odd, since all of the US Congress
is then guilty, as they are trying, even if not altogether successfully,
to protect American workers. John Doe seems to have problems with
math: there are approximately 6.65 billion people on this earth.
Wisconsin has a population of about 5.6 million, with about 3.5 million
between the age of 19 and 65. Assuming all these 3.5 million
adults work and pay taxes, it is rather bizarre to suggest they
can issue H1 visas to anyone from the world! Discriminatory? That is
just absurd. John Doe then overreaches using the word "access".
John Doe perhaps does
not know that these ideas have to do with access to education for
Wisconsinites, more specifically the poor and disadvantaged in
Wisconsin.It is not
access for the 6.65 billion people in the world, even if they were
all poor and disadvantaged, as sad as that may be.
Finally John Doe wants this author to not send email. His suggestion
has been received and acted on promptly.
I agree completely with Dr. Davida. Being a Milwaukee native and having done my Electrical Engineering degree at UWM and my Computer Science Master's at MU I can attest to the value that both Universities bring to the city and state. Moving the engineering complex off campus will only isolate the program and reduce the image of a fine program that can compete with any school in the state.
From a practical standpoint, I was one of those students who did commute and work 30-40 hours a week; not because I had to but because it gave me the practical experience to get ahead. Parking was a nightmare, shuttle buses were always late and let's face it, the areas south of the engineering building aren't attractive or efficiently used.
Finally, I agree that graduate programs need to be more accessible to in state students. I was lucky enough to have scholarships and my parents help me with my education but most people weren't as lucky as me. Some of my friends and co-workers came on a H1 visa, and are smart, hard workers. But when I entered graduate school I was shocked to discover that both funding and teaching assistant positions went preferentially to foreign students as a source of income, and often ignoring issues such as language difficulties.
Generally speaking, I'll be very disappointed if UWM begins to divide it's campus. While it may put the CAES college in a more "prestigious" area, it will hinder the cutting edge image UWM has been working so hard to achieve.
I am in the engineering program at UWM and completely agree with this article. It's really sad how they are so adamant about splitting up the campus when there is absolutely no need for it. As Mr. Davida said, there is a lot more room on this campus then Santiago is willing to admit. Santiago's plan is very impractical and leads one to wonder what his real motives are for splitting up the campus. It's definitely not student friendly and doesn't do any good for the city of Milwaukee either. I've always wondered what that one-story Kunkle building was for...well apparently, it's unimportant and is taking up space. There is ample room to build on the West Quad, all it takes is a little planning and restructuring. I wish there was some way that we could change what is happening and let them know that we DON'T want the engineering campus moved, but I don't know if there's anything we can do to change their minds. I'm not sure how much say the students really have in all this, but I wish someone with power could stand up to this guy and give him a reality check before it's too late and UWM becomes a fragmented school and people are forced to drive all over creation just to catch a class. Also, isn't the idea for companies to stay close to their research? And in that case, don't we want to keep those kinds of businesses in the city of Milwaukee? It doesn't make sense to put the research farther away, if anything else.
I'd also argue that if expansion on the Eastside is not workable why not consider expanding in downtown Milwaukee as there is vast amount of empty land. Further an expansion of UWM Engineering programs downtown could offer better collaboration opportunities with JCI, Rockwell, Marquette, MSOE, and MATC. This could truly create a critical mass of engineering in the city.
There are plenty of problems with Mr. Davida's "solutions," but let's just focus on one of the most outrageous proposals. He writes:
**and with 3,000 parking spaces underground, it will go a long way towards minimizing, if not solving the parking problems that the students desperately need solved.**
This is, literally, a 100-million-dollar "solution."
Earlier this decade, the university built the Pavilion. It has about 600 underground parking spaces dug out at a cost of 20 million dollars. The university wanted to build an above-ground parking ramp at a much smaller cost, but the university's very vocal neighbors would have none of that perceived eyesore.
Now Mr. Davida would have UWM spend a majority of the proceeds of its recent 125-million-dollar fund-raising campaign on one incredible parking cavern. And at the same time he accuses the university of making "nonsensical statements"? Please.
Mr Davida,
I am a part-time UWM CS MS Student and am working full time (40+) hours at a company in downtown Milwaukee. I am also on a H1-B visa. Every paycheck I pay my WI state taxes and my Federal taxes, the same amount that a US citizen, from WI, in my tax bracket would pay. I am not getting a free ride because I am on a H1 visa. I have to pay my taxes like everyone else, and on top of that if I find a better job opportunity somewhere else I am unable to leave my present company, because of my H1. I am unable to vote, I am unable to exercise many of the basic rights that you take for granted. However, I work hard. I worked hard during my high school, during my undergraduate years and I am working hard now. I want to get a good education from a good college because I like computer science and I like UWM. My English is not that bad. I can write, as you can see, and I reckon I can read a bit too. Also, you should be aware that H1 visas are given to citizens of countries where English is the native language, like England or Canada. But I am guessing you didn't speak about them when you called H1 visa holders cheap and with bad English. Studying at UWM is not cheap for a foreign student. According to current data the fees for a out of state graduate UWM student is $11,809.46 per semester. For a in-state graduate UWM student the fees is $4,626.50. Another thing, an international student who is not on a H1B visa, but is on a F-1 visa, which probably most of your TAs are on, are not allowed to work off-campus. They have to work on campus. They don't get state or federal help. If they do need a loan, they have to find someone who has a green-card or a citizenship to co-sign with them. These students are at UWM because either their parents are spending their life-savings on their education or they get some kind of assistantship from UWM.
Let me tell you another thing. My wife is a UWM graduate as well. No, she is not foreign, she is American and grew up in a town close to Milwaukee. She has her graduate Accounting degree from UWM. She worked during her undergraduate and graduate years. Her education was not paid for by her parents. Her rent was not paid for by her parents. She worked hard, plain and simple, as do thousands of students in WI and other states in the US. Please don't blame foreign students and H1 workers for the low number of WI graduate students in engineering. There are only 65000 or so H1 visas given out every year in the whole US. A H1 visa process is long and uncertain. Firstly you need a lawyer, so you have lawyer fees, then the application process itself costs money, plus you have to pay the employee his wages as well. I don't think there is any employer I have met who gives more preference to H1 visa holders. In fact most of them are hesitant because of the uncertainty with the visa process.
Thanks,
Shao
It may be that there is merit in the idea that hiring people with H1 visas can be pursued in such ways or to such a degree that it has some consequences many Wisconsinites might wish to avoid. That said, this is a tangential issue that detracts from the main issue (UWM's proposed site in Tosa) and thereby jeopardizes it.
Also, if you must get into the H1Bs, your best shot at not shooting yourself in the foot is to do it in a way that does not smack of xenophobia but focuses on the merits of particular policies in light of local interests in a global (i.e. international) market, not the relative value of people based on their citizenship.
I kind of agree that UWM should provide more hard data to support the idea of building another campus. However, the response and comments from many people here, especially those native Wisconsin, make me feel why UW-Milwaukee will probably be even close to UW-Madison within 100 years, simply because of the narrow-thinking, including this Professor Davida. Wisconsin "suffers" little from H1 visa, when compared to other states, but still one of poorest state in America. California is more diversified, but they do not complain this much and they are doing fine. Stop point finger to other. Just work your ass off. That is all. Foreign students are hired on campus, simply because they do better in science. It is a free market and anybody has a chance.