Votes of no confidence by faculty at several University of Wisconsin campuses were “a big mistake,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said earlier this month.

If it weren’t for the urging of UW System President Ray Cross, the target of a series of the no-confidence resolutions, faculty might not have any tenure protection at all, Vos told Wisconsin Eye at the Republican Party state convention in Green Bay.

“I might have eliminated tenure altogether,” Vos told Wisconsin Eye producer Steven Walters, as reported in Walters' column published Monday. Vos also said he hopes he can keep state aid for the UW System in the next two-year state budget as high as it is now, $2.08 billion.

Resolutions passed by faculty at the Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse, Stout, River Falls and Parkside campuses criticize Cross and the Board of Regents for their lack of effective advocacy to the Legislature in the face of a $250 million state funding cut and the softening of tenure protections in the 2015-2017 biennial budget.