14 corporate lobbyists working for privatization of UW?

Efforts to make the University of Wisconsin – Madison into a semi-private entity are moving very fast. We learned only recently that a private lobbying group, Badger Advocates, was formed "to advocate and build support for the University of Wisconsin - Madison", according to their disclosure form (here).

It's amazing that 14 big money corporate lobbyist have been hired to work on "the 2011-12 Wisconsin State Budget as it relates to UW-Madison". Considerably more amazing is that the Chancellor, at Monday's Faculty Senate meeting, declared no knowledge of this group or these people.

The most detailed story to date is here. The piece concludes that …

the Walker-Martin initiative is really about corporatizing a formerly public institution.

Is there any other way to read this situation?