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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 Universit...

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 freshma...

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...

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 fo...

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 ...

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...

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,...

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,...

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 ...

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 mig...

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-Madiso...