Visiting Scholar Report
Spring 2012
Global Education Committee
The Global Education Committee has devoted a significant amount of time this
Spring to discussing issues surrounding the presence of Visiting Scholars in the
SoE1. We have gathered information about these visitors, including who they are,
what processes are needed and are in place to support their travel and presence
here, and what guidelines individual departments have in place. We are aware that
Visiting Scholars present challenges to campus, but also stress the importance of
their contributions. In this report we summarize our conversations and suggestions
regarding Visiting Scholars.
Who Are Visiting Scholars
It is clear from the information we have gathered that there is no one, or even two,
typical ‘profiles’ for visiting scholars. They may be graduate students or faculty
from international institutions, or artists. They may be funded by fellowships from
foundations or their governments, or not. They may be here for a semester, a year,
or longer. Some may desire to attend classes, some may wish to pursue research,
some may want to collaborate with our faculty and students. For this reason- the
diversity of scholars we have- it is difficult to put one set of procedures and
guidelines into place.
Recommendation #1
We may wish to distinguish categories for Visiting Scholars. Thus, for example, we
may have Visiting Artists, Visiting Students and Visiting Researchers. While there
remain individual differences, visitors in each category engage in different activities
while here, make differing contributions to our campus community, and to some
extent draw upon different resources.
Benefits to Our Education Community
Committee members strongly stress the benefits such visitors bring. These include:


artists who teach, and create new works for public venues, and perform
for the UW and Madison community, without charge. This makes not only
the artist more visible nationally, but the UW-Madison campus and
community as well.
reciprocity: institutions visiting scholars come from may host our faculty,
staff and students
In this report Visiting Scholar refers to international visitors. While there may be
domestic Visiting Scholars, we feel that they are outside of the purview of this
committee.
1







research partnerships: visiting scholars’ work here provides
opportunities for research partnerships
international partnerships: visiting scholars time here may lead to, or be
part of, larger institutional partnerships that benefit faculty, staff and
students
funding opportunities: work and activities undertaken here can (and
have) lead to future Fulbrights and other funding
cultural innovations: the result of the synthesis of visiting scholars work
and our own
classroom enrichment: visiting scholars’ presence in classes contributes
multicultural dialogs, perspectives and personal stories
international reputation: visiting scholars’ accounts of their time here
enhance our international reputation, and gain us international students
through word-of-mouth
connections for graduate students: many of our graduate students obtain
information about possible research sites and international employment
through our visiting scholars
Recommendation #2
We wish to support the presence of Visiting Scholars on our campus, and stress the
importance of their contributions in whatever policies we put in place.
Challenges
It is clear that there are challenges to hosting Visiting Scholars. Some of the major
challenges that we have identified are: increased workload for administrative staff;
increased demand for technological, media and library resources; increased
workload for faculty (especially but not exclusively those who are requested to
allow visiting scholars to attend their classes); requests for office space and help in
relocating. In addition, visiting scholars offer significant resources for globalization
on campus, but these resources are not being leveraged in large part because we do
not have concerted coordination. Further, there is a clear discrepancy in procedures
(and in numbers) across SoE departments, which exacerbates the inequities in
workload. While we support policies being put in place that address these
challenges, we want to ensure that we simultaneously respect the autonomy of
departmental decision-making. Thus we make the following recommendations:
Recommendation #3
While departments should have flexibility in setting acceptance procedures,
sponsoring faculty should present to their department on behalf of the proposed
scholar: a cv; letter of application; plan for how the visiting scholar’s time here will
be spent; sources of funding; and how the scholar will contribute to the School of
Education. Departments should put in place a structured decision-making process,
with clear criteria for acceptance. Limits should be set on numbers (perhaps per
2
faculty member sponsor) through departmental discussion of reasonable effort and
demand.
Recommendation #4
There should be centralized accountability and oversight. We suggest that this be
the responsibility of the Associate Dean for International Studies/School of
Education. The Associate Dean’s office would:
1) Receive from each departmental administrative assistant a list of resident
visiting scholars each semester.
2) Receive from the faculty member hosting the scholar an end-of-stay report
describing activities, what was accomplished, and the contribution and
engagement of the scholar while here.
3) Receive from each department chair an end-of-year summary of
contributions of visiting scholars to their departments.
4) Work to connect visiting scholars to various entities on campus (area studies,
faculty members, graduate students, etc.) who might benefit from the
scholar’s expertise and experience.
Recommendation #5
There is clear responsibility on the part of the hosting faculty member and
department. As detailed above, the sponsoring faculty member must put together a
‘case’ to present to the department for acceptance of the scholar, and must also set
up a system to ‘track’ the scholar while here. This may be through requiring regular
reports from the scholar on activities and progress, or, preferably, through holding
regular meetings throughout the scholar’s stay. The faculty member has
responsibility to write a report (detailed in #2 above) at the end of the scholar’s
stay.
The hosting department will submit a list of current visiting scholars at the
beginning of each semester to the Associate Dean, will provide support to the
Visiting Scholars as they currently do (help with information, visas, etc prior to and
after arrival, support in obtaining an id, library and technological access, etc), and
will provide an end-of-year summary as outlined in #3 above.
Recommendation #6
We acknowledge that Visiting Scholars put demands on resources- both human and
material- in the SoE. The committee feels, however, that the potential contributions
of the visiting scholars are adequate recompense for the expenditure of resources.
We recommend that there be no fees imposed on Visiting Scholars for their time
here. However, if the SoE does institute a fee structure, we feel strongly that this be
cost-recovery only. Given all of the benefits of hosting Visiting Scholars, and the
contributions they make to globalization on campus, we do not wish to see this
become a for-profit endeavor.
3
We have a number of concerns. We recognize that Visiting Scholars have different
profiles, engage in different activities while here, and draw on different resources.
We also want to ensure that Visiting Scholars whose stays would be mutually
beneficial, but who do not receive funding and may not be able to afford fees, will be
supported to come. We therefore suggest a tiered fee structure. There should be:
a) a basic administrative fee for all visiting scholars (tbd; covers support
with entry, paperwork, library access, visa and health insurance
information support, wisc email account, access to gym and facilities, etc)
b) an additional fee (tbd) per course for auditing courses, with no more than
2 courses per semester allowed. Should Visiting Scholars wish to fully
participate in courses (doing assignments, receiving grades, etc) then
they must register as students for the course, and pay associated fees.
There is an existing audit policy for the university that should be taken
into account in determining fees.
c) 2/3 of funds received go to the hosting department, 1/3 to Dean’s office.
The Dean’s office portion will be placed in an account to offset expenses
for scholars who need funding support. An application procedure will be
put in place.
Again, we wish to stress the importance we place on keeping these fees as minimal
as possible. We urge the Business Office to conduct a cost-analysis related to
Visiting Scholars, and to maintain cost-recovery fees only.
Conclusion
We deeply appreciate the contributions that Visiting Scholars make to our School
and our campus. We wish to acknowledge the challenges associated with their
presence, but to emphasize the mutual gains. We feel that strengthening application
and acceptance procedures, putting in place accountability measures for faculty and
departments, centralizing oversight, and if necessary instituting a cost-recovery
model of fee structures while maintaining a support fund will adequately address
the challenges, while sustaining the benefits of our global visitors.
Respectfully submitted by:
Margaret R. Hawkins
On behalf of the Global Education Committee
4