This is hopefully my most refined personal testimony on the separation of the University of Wisconsin Madison from the University of Wisconsin System and will contain information I didn’t think I would ever share:

I admit it; it’s about my personal interest. I’ve gone about this debate the wrong way. I haven’t revealed why I care so much about the direction the University of Wisconsin Madison takes. So I hope this will clear up any questions as to where I come from.

First and foremost I am a Wisconsin native. I have lived in Madison, Sauk Prairie, Verona, Lodi, and now Hudson. My family grew up in an apartment building, a small town, the country, the cul de sac, the farmette, and the suburb. I’ve studied in many different school districts, and I’ve worked as a farm hand, an intern for lighting company, and at a grocery store. I would say I’ve met, talked with, and befriended many different types of Wisconsinites in my lifetime–a large number of my high school friends are staunch Mr. Walker supporters. I also happen to be a fifth generation University of Wisconsin Madison student; the blood in my veins pounds Badger red.

Now there’s a pretty significant reason I don’t usually admit that, saying so many generations of my family have been able to attend here is a statement that comes with a lot of privilege. It’s a pretty personal part of who I am, but I’ve come to realize that I need to share my own experience truthfully.

I didn’t always think I would want to come here. I considered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell (in retrospect I wouldn’t have really fit in at either of those institutions), and finally settled on this school. I think ultimately the promise of a multicultural learning community, proximity to home, and of course the subtle pressure from my parents, and grandparents, to attend the institution they graduated from and cherished so much. There’s also a special part of Madison, Wisconsin and its legacy, in who I am.

My great great grandmother Mrs. Anna Norsman (later betrothed to Mr. George S. Love) graduated from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1898. There, it feels good to say it.

Why am I choosing to share this now? I think my great great grandmother would want me to be proud of my heritage. I really don’t think she’d want me to be proud of the university’s administration, and the government in its current form though. In fact I think if she found out the current state of affairs, she’d be rolling over in her grave (ironically as a side note, my great grandfather wrote a pamphlet documenting his correspondence with the head of the political science department at the University of Wisconsin Platteville expressing his discontent with an announcement he perceived as a call for students to come to Platteville and the political science department and build a counter culture movement which he considered a breach of academic freedom and resulted in his call for the resignation of the department head). Sharing that story is illustrative that I couldn’t accurately assume how my great great grandmother would view the current socio political economy, but I can imagine that if she was anything like my immediate family, she’d be nothing short of upset.

Long story short, I think she’d expect me to be especially frustrated with proposed public authority status for the University of Wisconsin Madison. She’d be familiar with the Board of Regents of 1894 which to their predecessors and successors have held:

“We cannot … believe that knowledge has reached its final goal, or that the present condition of society is perfect … in all lines of academic investigation it is of the utmost importance that the investigator should be absolutely free to follow the indications of truth wherever they may lead … we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which the truth can be found”.

She’d expect me to be FURIOUS that the Governor’s budget proposes eliminating in state tuition to undocumented minors, many of them here since birth. Is this continual and fearless sifting and winnowing? Sure, it’s sifting out an important subsection of the student body, and winnowing in homogenization. Is this the Wisconsin Idea? Not at all!

I’d like to question what our Chancellor is doing for those who aren’t at the university yet; for those whom an university education means possible attainment of the United States dream–even if in practice, a dream that is somewhat mythological. This proposed public authority model will deny access to the university through increased tuition, and certainly will limit accountability without a system wide check such as the Board of Regents. This proposal and the budget is a naked power grab, why have we put our trust in Mr. Walker, he has already proved to be no more competent than an angry toddler. He will have an immediate majority on the proposed Board of Trustees effective July 1st of this year!

I say, “austerity at what cost”? Privatization of education does nothing but deny working class families the ability to send their children to school. If you look at it critically, it fits perfectly in with Mr. Walker’s plan to create jobs for Wisconsin.

We’re open for business, but exactly what kind of business? Minimum wage, family destroying business–if the answer is yes, then it makes sense for us to continue on the dangerous route of neoliberalist policy played off as quasiprivatization. A simple question; will the children of our generation have the same ability to attend this institution as I and the four generations ahead of me have had?

If this budget passes, it will be a call for a movement of young people to stand up and say that we are NOT okay with the way the world is being run, and that we demand–and will help contribute–to solutions to make our vision for a just world a reality. This isn’t a dream, rather this is a movement.

This movement will not be completely realized until young people are the ones that are taking back the halls and offices of our state capitol, and the halls and offices of our Congress nationally. If you decide to make these cuts now, we will stand up and fight back, because we can’t stop and we won’t stop. We are game changers–a part of a bigger family of forward thinkers–and we are here to stay.

I know that I intend to stick around as long as it takes to do my great great grandmother, Mrs. Anna Norsman, proud.