Advice for Chancellor Blank from a UW Employee

This afternoon I received the following email from a UW employee who, unlike myself, does not enjoy tenure and thus prefers to convey this advice to the incoming chancellor anonymously.  I recognize and sympathize with that concern, and thus am simply reprinting it here in full.  I believe this advice, coming from someone with plenty of experience at the institution, is worth full consideration. If you have your own words of advice to share, please send them along!

Dear Dr. Goldrick-Rab –

If Dr. Blank is willing to listen to you, and I hope she does, one thing you might want to suggest is that she does not start calling herself “Becky” but instead be referred to as Rebecca when she wants to go “casual.”

David Ward was never been referred to by anyone as “Dave,” and if John Wiley had a nickname or pet name as a child, he certainly did not use that on his official correspondence or when he was quoted in the press.   This is, after all, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.   Excellence in teaching and research is how we convince people to give us their money or send us their children to educate. 

Trying to be cute or folksy is not what the alumni, citizens, or corporate  and foundation donors are looking for.  Two of my children were enrolled at UW-Madison when “Biddy” was the Chancellor, and neither one of them understood where the widely reported “love” that all the students at Wisconsin supposedly had for Biddy came from.

Thank you.

Cautions for Chancellor Blank

It seems UW-Madison's system of shared governance may be a new act for Chancellor Rebecca Blank to learn.  An interview conducted with journalists today shows her on the record weighing in on both tuition strategies and the composition of the student body.

A word to the wise:  This year the University Committee charged two committees to work on these exact issues.  The tuition committee has been meeting and working hard all year long -- hiking out-of-state tuition and differentiating tuition further by school or college are strategies that come with significant potential consequences.  Reciprocity with Minnesota is costing the university a great deal of money and ending it should not be dismissed out of hand.  Regardless, these are not choices made simply by the chancellor, but by the shared governance system.  In addition, the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions, and Financial Aid was tasked with developing a profile of the ideal freshman class and working on ways to achieve it.  Chancellor Blank does not decide where students "should" come from-- we all do.

Hopefully these are just initial missteps on her part. Hopefully the next time she is asked about these things, she'll inform reporters that it's impossible at this stage to say what will come next, since she hasn't spent time on campus in decades.  And hopefully she will schedule a "telebriefing" with shared governance groups soon, seeing as how the one with reporters is now over.

On Process

Paul Fanlund's column today on the process through which Rebecca Blank was selected as chancellor raises some very important questions.  These strike me as the sorts of questions that one should ask regardless of whether or not they agree with the choice of Blank.  After all, these process issues go to the heart of how we select a chancellor at a shared governance institution.

1. How are we to know whom the campus "unanimously" supports?

The current practice is that the process of official input from shared governance bodies ends when the search and screen committee names its four finalists.

When that committee meets with the Regents special committee, it is to provide input on what people on campus said about all of the candidates.  At no point in the Blank search did the search and screen committee have the opportunity to tell the Regent committee whom the campus "unanimously" chose. Moreover, the search and screen committee did not have a clear selection of a candidate-- there was widespread disagreement.

This should be changed to allow the shared governance search and screen the chance to officially vote on a candidate after campus visits, just as they do when hiring a faculty member.  At the very least, that official vote could be conveyed to the Regents.

2. Why is the campus asked to write in with their comments about candidates if there is no official process through which that information is compiled and shared?

Comments were received through 5 pm Thursday evening. The shared governance committee met with the Regents Friday morning, and the decision was made that same day.  What was done with all of those submitted emails in the meantime? Were they counted?  Did they reflect "unanimous" support from campus groups?

This has the potential to greatly reduce campus involvement in the process.  There should be a transparent process through which feedback is collected and the information systematically made available to decision-makers well before the decision is made.

3. Which campus groups are prioritized in the selection of a chancellor?

Fanlund's article says that Blank was unanimously supported "by the various campus constituencies that include campus deans, the University Committee, which is the executive committee of the Faculty Senate, as well as affiliated entities such as the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) and the Wisconsin Alumni Association."

What about the Associated Students of Madison?  Academic Staff? These are two of the three shared governance bodies and yet are not mentioned, while WARF and WAA, not part of shared governance, are.  Who are Fanlund's "not for attribution sources" and what does this set of priorities reflect?

The shared governance bodies should have clear priority in this effort.

4.  Is it appropriate for the shared governance Search and Screen Committee to be forbidden by the search firm from exploring the candidate's background (aka conducting "due diligence") other than through their written materials?  Why does that committee's last vote come without full information?

Again, this is a recipe for disaster. It should not be allowed in future searches. Frankly, the search firm should not be allowed to do anything more than recruit candidates.  Members should not attend interviews or create rules for a shared governance committee.

Finally, as someone who appreciates empirical evidence, I have just two last remarks.  I am struck by the fact that Fanlund opens his article by noting that Blank met with the Regents "without seeming to survey eyes around the room to gauge what interviewers wanted to hear" and finished 20 minutes early, and yet was judged to be an "effective listener.""Her ability to communicate" was judged of key importance.  How is this possible?  Not only do these observations stand at odds with the characteristics of good listeners, but many people, including Professor Chad Goldberg, student committees, and I all observed a pattern of not listening and not answering questions in a straightforward manner.  Since we all entered the process very excited to have a liberal social scientist become chancellor, it seems unlikely that we ignored strong communication skills. How can we make sense of this?

In a similar vein, what information did the Regents use to conclude that Blank was comfortable with shared governance?  The only available statements from shared governance members indicate significant concerns with her interactions with those members.  What assessment protocol did they use to determine this was incorrect?

Given that, as Fanlund notes, "there seemed to be much focus during this process on not repeating what was now regarded as a mistake in having hired Martin in 2008" and given that the known mistake was in the Regents' selection of Biddy Martin over Rebecca Blank (the campus pick)-- and that fast forward several years it seems we may be here yet again, with Rebecca Blank chosen over Michael Schill (whom I'm told by my 'sources' was the pick of many, many people on the search & screen, and the students), well...this is all quite odd.  What's also amazing is the amount of attention the media has devoted to covering the outcome of the search, rather than doing the kind of investigative reporting needed to ensure that major social institutions are accountable and responsive to their publics.  I imagine that when you know no one will ask questions, it's awfully easy to act as if you'll never have to provide answers.

What's the Story? All Women Out of the Eau-Claire Search

This is an important week for UW System and not only because of the UW-Madison chancellor search but also because the search for a new chancellor of Eau-Claire has also been wrapped up. The media indicates an announcement naming that new leader will come Monday.

With sincerest apologies to our sister school, I've been focusing on Madison while apparently fires are burning over at Eau-Claire.  Contrary to the media account just referenced,  5 candidates were not under consideration this week-- instead, there were just 2.  All three female candidates for chancellor of UW-Eau Claire pulled out of the search. 

Where there's smoke like that, there's usual fire.  Why in the world did these three women withdraw their applications?


1. Pam Benoit, executive vice president and provost at Ohio University
2. Kathryn Cruz-Uribe, provost and vice president for academic affairs at California State University, Monterey Bay
3. Anne E. Huot, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the College at Brockport, State University of New York

Cruz-Uribe withdrew February 23, Huot on March 10, and Benoit on March 11.  The Regents met to pick the finalist on March 13.  They had to choose between:

4. Kent Neely, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Western Oregon University
5. James C. Schmidt, vice president for university advancement and executive director of the WSU Foundation Board of Trustees at Winona State University.

The media reports offer little explanation for the withdrawals. All I can find is that Cruz-Uribe went on to be named chancellor at the Indiana University East campus.

Benoit interviewed at Eau Claire on March 3-5.  She told the media that women are “significantly underrepresented” in the ranks of public university presidents, which is one of the reasons why she is exploring the possibility of becoming chancellor.  A few days later, she withdrew her name from consideration.

What else do you know? Do share.

On What Matters: Blank vs. Schill

My email inbox has been filled today with notes from upset colleagues who seem to feel I've misjudged Rebecca Blank's capacity for leading UW-Madison.  They don't understand, I'm told, how I can overlook her clear talents, deep commitments to social justice, and great scholarship.

I don't think I am.  I don't doubt any of those things.  This isn't about whether I like her or think she can do the job. The question is for which candidate -- Michael Schill or Rebecca Blank-- do we have the best evidence of success at UW-Madison.

I'd like to lay out more data for your consideration.  These are the types of things that led to my assessment, and so I encourage you to look for yourself, and then provide your input by tonight! (The committee will vote in the morning). Write to: Chancellor-search@secfac.wisc.edu

The Badger Herald posed direct questions to the candidates. Here is how they responded.

How would you balance UW’s status as an elite institution while maintaining its socioeconomic accessibility?

Michael Schill:  "There is nothing inconsistent with being a great educational institution and socioeconomic diversity. One of the things I was most proud of from my days at UCLA was that I was part of a great public university that led the nation in the percentage of students with Pell grants. Accessibility need not come at the cost of either student or faculty quality or of diversity. Low tuition and generous financial aid are two strategies to maintain accessibility. Excellence in education and research can be funded through increased state support, aggressive corporate and government grantsmanship, tech transfer, and a turbo-charged effort to promote philanthropic contributions."

Rebecca Blank:  "Public universities in the United States have long provided both accessibility and excellence.   That said, the reduced state support for these institutions in recent decades has resulted in greater pressure for tuition increases.  UW faces these financial issues, as do almost all other big public universities.  Dealing with these issues and continuing to provide both excellence and access is one of the major challenges in front of a new chancellor.  There are several ways to deal with this, although none of these responses will fully alleviate the budget pressures that UW is currently facing.  First, UW needs to work hard at expanding its funding sources other than tuition and state funding.  While UW has been very successful in raising research dollars, I believe that it can do more in soliciting private donations to endowment.   The Chancellor has to be the leader in this effort.  Second, UW has to continue to make sure that children from low-income families in Wisconsin who are admitted to UW can afford to attend.   This means providing financial aid to these students, so that higher tuition doesn’t make UW unaffordable.   Third, the deans of UW’s different schools and colleges need to have the flexibility to attract an appropriate share of higher-tuition out-of-state students into their graduate, professional and undergraduate programs…and the ‘appropriate share’ should differ by school and by degree level."   

Commentary: Blank talks about equity and excellence as distinct, while Schill frames them as one and the same.  Blank talks about higher tuition and holding students harmless via financial aid (Biddy Martin's strategy), while Schill talks about "low tuition and generous financial aid."  Blank says we need to work on things "other than tuition and state funding" while Schill begins with a focus on "increased state support."  

The university has been immersed in a debate for the last several years about the merits of administrative flexibilities and its role in the University of Wisconsin System. What are your thoughts on this issue? Have you encountered a similar debate at another institution?

Michael Schill:  "The University of Wisconsin, as well as students throughout the state, can derive important benefits from being part of a great system. Shared resources, economies of scale, and seamless transfer practices are just a few of the ways that a close relationship with the UW system can achieve a win-win situation for all. Some level of flexibility for the campuses in certain areas is important, particularly when there is a need for speed of action or when the circumstances, market situations, and/or issues facing a particular campus are idiosyncratic. On the whole, I think many of the flexibilities included in the recent biennial budget as well as the recommendations of the recent Special Task Force on UW Restructuring and Operational Flexibilities make a great deal of sense and will benefit all of the schools in the University. Based upon my experience at UCLA, I believe that the best way to make the relationship between the Legislature, the central university system, and the individual campuses productive is to develop relationships of trust and good will. UW-Madison has a particular advantage in this vein since the system is headquartered in Van Hise Hall, just a few hundred yards from Bascom Hall. I anticipate that if I ever had a problem that required central assistance I would just get myself out of my chair and take a walk over to the President’s office and work things out."

Rebecca Blank:  "Universities have certain unique organizational characteristics and I believe that it would be beneficial for the UW System to have greater flexibility in some key management decisions.   For instance, faculty and many staff compete in a national academic marketplace, and retaining them often requires salary flexibility that government pay systems are not designed to provide.  So I’m pleased that this discussion about administrative flexibility is ongoing within the state.  The University of Michigan, where I served as dean, has much greater autonomy and UM staff and faculty are not state employees, so these issues did not arise in the same way at that institution."

Commentary : It is not clear that Blank knows that Biddy Martin's efforts to gain "administrative flexibility" ended her tenure. Schill is evidently aware of it, and emphasizing the benefits of a close relationship with system.  Blank mentions that Michigan, where she has experience, is unlike Madison in important ways-- and she's right.

In Support of Michael Schill, Candidate for Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

I am not a nervous person, but I was sweating a bit as I waited more than an hour in line today to meet Michael Schill, candidate for chancellor of UW-Madison.  Next year will be my 10th at this university, and I have come to love it deeply, and feel strongly about the important role the chancellor plays in the direction it takes.  And thus, it was with some trepidation that I shook hands with Michael, because my instinct is that he's an excellent pick for Chancellor, and thus an important person in our future.

As readers know, I profiled two other chancellor candidates shortly after they were announced and declined to endorse them.  It didn't take long to figure out they weren't a match.  I haven't yet weighed in on Rebecca Blank, and feel I can't do so until I meet her next week-- she made several comments during her last visit that make me hesitate, and I want to see what she thinks after her Washington experiences.

But reading Schill's work and talking with colleagues about him convinced me that he was very promising, and having now met and chatted with him, that sense is much stronger.  Here are the main reasons why:

1. Schill understands UW-Madison's greatest assets and biggest weaknesses.  As his very well-written personal statement demonstrates, we stand out for our commitment to service and social justice, and the way we make our decisions--thoughtfully, through shared governance proceses.  At the same time, we are substantially hindered by insufficient diversity, declining accessibility, and frequent misuse and misunderstandings around transparency and accountability.  To excel at the things we want to do, including conducting pathbreaking research and improving our teaching, we must address those problems.  As they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step, and Schill can take us down that road.

2. Schill genuinely likes to talk, and seems to really enjoy listening too. Body language conveys a lot, and Schill's speaks of openness, assertiveness and sincerity.  After more than hour of close observation from only a dozen feet away, I can assess this quite well.  His reception line went very slowly because he refused to brush anyone off or move them along, despite the efforts of his hosts.  He made excellent eye contact, leaned forward when speaking, was evidently comfortable with physical contact (I witnessed several hugs, real handshakes, and he even challenged me to a race), doesn't wear his ego on his sleeve, and displayed a range of emotions.  Let's just say,  I've seen chancellors smile before but their eyes usually wandered over my shoulder.  Schill has a background in activism, and this talent displays it.  Of course, I suspect he is shrewd as well-- he knows that people like to be listened to, and he does so to maximum advantage.

3. Voicing strong concern for affordability, Schill told me that we must "keep tuition low, and aid high," restraining ourselves to increases solely to keep up with inflation. He did not speak of competitive pricing, and or peer comparisons.  Now, perhaps this is just because he's speaking to me, and he's read the blog. But I checked on this, and what colleagues of his told me is that "He's too smart to think pricing high is smart, and far too smart to believe in 'disruptive' innovation." I asked him for his thoughts on test-optional admissions and he was able to discuss that literature with me, bringing up his teaching on higher education at UCLA in a manner that was quite impressive. In his view, the Supreme Court will rule against Texas in a narrowly tailored decision.

4. Schill is a candidate for chancellor with a very serious and impressive set of publications and books that merit tenure (so is Blank, by the way). He's written on low-income housing, immigration and race, and co-authored with smart people I like and trust, such as Amy Ellen Schwartz of NYU and Colin Chellman of CUNY.  I especially liked what I read in Housing and Community Development in New York City: Facing the Future regarding the reasons why efforts to improve low-income housing have failed; he attends to politics and structure in insightful ways.

Of course, no one's perfect and I do have a few qualms about Schill's background. For example, he's had a lot of funding from big banks, such as JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup.  He's spent most of his time as an adult in very elite settings-- UCLA may be public but it's no exception. And while he's a first generation student, as we saw with Biddy Martin, being one doesn't mean you fully understand what's required to serve them.

But overall, I am supportive of Michael Schill's candidacy for chancellor. He's bright, calm, thoughtful, and exceedingly well-liked by those who work with him. I'd enjoy getting to know him better.


ps. A final note, for the students-- a bit of street cred-- Michael's done the Daily Show!

Nick Jones: Candidate for UW-Madison Chancellor

This post is the second in a series of four.

It's hard to say much about Nick Jones, candidate for chancellor of UW-Madison, because hardly anyone seems to know who he is.  He's spent most of the last 30 years at a single, very elite private institution-- Johns Hopkins University-- where he's currently the dean of the Whiting School of Engineering.  About 10 years ago, Jones left Hopkins about about two years to work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but quickly returned. Apart from engaging in various engineering-related activities, he doesn't seem to have done much in higher education leadership.

That said, Jones is well-liked by those in the Hopkins community, and appears to be good at fundraising. Very nice.

But this is a case where having been a dean and the product of one institution may simply not be enough. He talks in terms of sports metaphors when describing his current job, noting that  "I’m an offensive lineman. Basically, I run interference for my faculty. At the end of the day, it’s the faculty who are on the field, trying to get stuff done and put together creative ideas. My job is to facilitate and make that happen. I have to get out in front and clear the path so that they can do what they do. I help get any impediments out of the way, such as administrative ones, and bring resources to the table to help make their aspirations come true."  Well frankly, being chancellor at Madison is going to require dealing with many more types of impediments and resources will be hard to come by-- and the job is first and foremost to help students, not faculty.

Johns Hopkins University is, to be quite frank, not a training ground for leading UW-Madison at all. It's small, very privileged, and well-known for being incredibly siloed. Jones seems quite nice, but frankly unprepared for this work.

Kim Wilcox: Candidate for UW-Madison Chancellor

PREFACE:

There are four candidates for UW-Madison Chancellor. This week I will profile each of them, contributing information gleaned from "off list" discussions and sleuthing. As I noted in my last couple of blogs, unfortunately that sort of due diligence was not undertaken by the search firm.

I'm doing this in the spirit of sifting and winnowing, with an eye towards helping us identify the candidate who best suits UW-Madison with its many strong traditions-- foremost among them our tradition of shared governance. I hope you will join me in that spirit, refraining from engaging in name-calling or sheer speculation, while sharing any useful information you may have, using the comments function on this blog.

Until December 2012, Kim Wilcox was the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Michigan State University, where he also served as a professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, a member of the MSU Foundation board of directors, and on the board of directors of the Spectrum Health – MSU Alliance Corporation. 

Earlier in his career, Wilcox was dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and vice provost for general education coordination at the University of Kansas. He was born in Michigan, and received his bachelor’s degree in audiology and speech sciences from Michigan State University, and his master’s and doctorate from Purdue University, both in speech and hearing science.

This is not Wilcox's first attempt at a chancellor position. Last year, he was up for the position at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, and according to some sources earlier he was considered for a similar job in Minnesota, in a search he pulled out from. It seems he's been looking to leave his current job for awhile.

While also a public university, Michigan State is a very different academic environment from UW-Madison, most critically with regard to its top-down style of governing. The president and provost hold a great deal of power, and make nearly all campus decisions with the deans--and without consultation with the faculty. This sort of background is not an asset when it comes to preparing for the chancellorship of UW-Madison. 

Some colleagues find Wilcox to be the ultimate technocrat, citing his love of metrics and accountability, and noting that under his leadership faculty governance is an "empty enterprise." Others who are more fond of him seem to generally be students and faculty who've known no other approach to decision-making, and are pretty happy to be "allowed a voice" in decisions.

One of the key issues on which people speak most vehemently about Wilcox is in regards to his efforts to restructure academic departments. Here is a video of Wilcox -- around the 6 minute mark, he announces his suggestion for consolidation of some departments within a college, “reducing the number from 13 to 6.”  These efforts mainly focused on the liberal arts, the Classics in particular-- which he apparently proposed eliminating--but I'm also told he would have eliminated Geology if a big donor hasn't intervened.  Commentary on discussion boards tend to center on these issues-- for example see this message board and this reaction to the Classics decision.

When it comes to student enrollment, it has been said that “under Wilcox's direction, MSU has grown its enrollment to more than 49,000 students while raising the academic credentials of the entering class, increasing the percentage of students from underrepresented groups, decreasing the average time to degree, increasing the graduation rate for undergraduates and decreasing the percentage of students graduating with any accumulated debt” However, while an examination of MSU's data digest (h/t to that helpful grad student, you know who are you!) supports most of these claims, it's also worth noting that during Wilcox's tenure, the racial/ethnic gap in graduation rates widened by 40%. The reliance on adjuncts at the university also increased, as did the concentration of racial/ethnic minorities in that group of faculty. Overall, I find little evidence that Wilcox has systematically worked to address issues of achievement gaps at MSU, a major issue on that campus and ours.

To conclude: while I have little doubt that the search and screen committee found much value in Wilcox's portfolio of materials, I have serious concerns about his ability to adapt and thrive in our campus governance system. I am also quite unsure that he will treat the issues of diversity that we face on this campus with the seriousness of purpose that they deserve. For this reason, at this point he is not my choice for chancellor.

Postscript: Wilcox was up for the position of chancellor at the University of Wyoming and did not get it.

Postscript:

Just received this email about Wilcox from MSU colleagues-- seems important enough to share:

There are quite a few serious "negatives" here that anyone who might be in a position to have influence should know about. One point, for example, is the statement Wilcox made to the NYT Education Life section that appeared on Dec. 29, 2009: "Kim Wilcox, the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Michigan State, notes that universities, his included, used to offer majors in elocution and animal husbandry. In a major re-examination of its curriculum, Michigan State has added a dozen or so new programs, including degrees in global studies and, in response to a growing industry in the state, film studies. At the same time, it is abandoning underperformers like classical studies: in the last four years, only 13 students have declared it their major." As if his condescension weren't bad enough, the statement he made here was simply false. We graduated five to six majors per year with an average of 25-26 majors on the books each of the four years he cites. This, with three regular faculty members. The stated reason for cutting programs, especially in our case, was the budget, but, again, the numbers simply weren't there. There were also serious violations of governance and procedures when Classics was eliminated.

         

Due Diligence: When it Comes to Madison's Next Chancellor Now Is the Time

There's hardly ever been a more difficult and auspicious time to lead a public flagship university. Yet at the same time, I believe it's among the greatest opportunities, and anyone would be beyond lucky to have the job.

The last chancellor of UW-Madison nearly undid our relationship with our state. In my opinion, then and now, she was nothing short of disastrous.  And, we have learned since her departure that her employment could have been avoided if only the search had involved a genuine due diligence process before she was brought in for interviews. For example, had due diligence occurred, we would have known-- before she came to woo the campus with her charisma-- that as long as Biddy's around, no one needs to have good ideas, for she has them all. In a setting like ours, where shared governance prevails, and we know that good ideas come from all sorts of places, she clearly wouldn't have fit.

Due diligence is a must when hiring any leader. And it's incredibly important that it happen before people come for in-person interviews on campuses and in communities-- since at that point there's no going back. In fact, in processes like ours, the naming of candidates for interviews is really the end of the "search and screen" process- the faculty, staff, and students have done their jobs.  In this case, the search and screen was asked to proffer 5 candidates-- and it offered 4.  Clearly, its members have been working hard. But now their jobs are essentially done, and the decision is up to UW System President Kevin Reilly and a team of Regents: Charles Pruitt, Regina Millner, Brent Smith, David Walsh, and Student Regent Katherine Pointer.

Since I was curious, I asked Search Chair David McDonald about the process for vetting candidates, and learned that until this point the four candidates have only been vetted using print and online sources, and their "on-list" references (e.g. the people they said to call).  Apparently, no additional investigation into their backgrounds has occurred. This is very disappointing.  We just saw the effects of similar mistakes with the search for a new superintendent of Madison public schools-- and here we are again.

So given this state of affairs, I urge people across Wisconsin, and our alumni, to go out and help us learn all we can about the candidates order to help ensure we get a chancellor that will lead this great institution forward in ways that respect our history, our context, our mission, and all of the families of Wisconsin.

Of course, I've been doing my homework as well, and in the coming days I will begin to blog about my assessments of each candidate. I am doing this publicly, and independently, as a concerned citizen and long-time employee of this university. My opinions are just that-- mine.  I will not pretend that sharing them matters at all, especially to the Regents. But this time around, I think it's best that all cards are on the table-- even if we don't get the chancellor we want, we need to know whom we're really dealing with.

The comment box is open, and my email is srab@education.wisc.edu .  Tell us, what do you know about Michael Schill of the University of Chicago, Kim Wilcox of Michigan State University, Nick Jones of Johns Hopkins, and Rebecca Blank of Commerce?

Questions for the UW-Madison Chancellor Search

The search for another chancellor of UW-Madison is well underway. According to news reports, the search committee is vetting 60 candidates, sifting and winnowing these to a shorter list of people who will be interviewed off-campus, before a small group of about four comes to campus for interviews.

This is a critical point in Madison's history, as we face key decisions about how we are funded, who we enroll, and how we teach.  Formulating the questions we want to ask the candidates as they go through the process is one way to think through these hard issues.  With this post, I'm hoping to spur thinking on this -- providing a few ideas to get started, and encouraging you to write in with more questions.  With any luck, the people who get to actually ask the questions will find some good ideas here.

A starting point:


1. There has recently been much discussion about the polarization of the academy and concerns expressed about the impacts that a lack of political diversity might have on the welfare of public universities in particular.  How do you conceive of the term "political diversity" and how would you address the need to build it on the UW-Madison campus?

2. What do the terms "innovation" and "disruption" mean to you, and how are they best produced on a campus like Madison's where shared governance is a central value?

3. Many universities, including Madison, are feeling pressure to increase "productivity."  How do you define productivity when it comes to teaching? Research?  What are ways in which you think the productivity of administrators should be measured? What about productivity among faculty?

Help us find the right person-- what questions should be added to this list?

The Next UW-Madison Chancellor... Tommy Thompson?

The search for a new chancellor of UW-Madison is now underway.  This is a critical search for our community, as changes on multiple fronts threaten to destroy the aspects of Madison that makes it such a wonderful place to teach and learn.

It's absolutely imperative that YOU get involved.  Start by attending one of the upcoming sessions on campus, hosted by the search and screen committee.  Think about nontraditional candidates-- consider those who've worked hard to take leadership roles as faculty in public higher education, for example, but not yet worked as a high-level administrator.  Think outside the typical research university model.  Think outside of the usual corporate models.

Sift and winnow.  Others already are.  Word reached me late last week that some people are thinking "nontraditional" indeed, and seeking to follow the lead of Indiana by bringing this guy into the mix.  Does Tommy meet your definition of a top-notch UW-Madison chancellor? If not, what do you plan to do about it?

Think. Act. Get involved. Don't sit still and wait for it to simply "happen" to us. Please.