University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Thursday, October 21, 2021
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Departures of leaders leave uncertainty By Lekha Kachoria STAFF WRITER
Last week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison community was informed of the departure of Chancellor Rebecca Blank to Northwestern University this summer after nine years serving as their leader. Blank will be the first female to serve as Northwestern University’s president. Blank was tenured within Northwestern’s economics department and was director of the Joint Center of Poverty Research before joining UW-Madison as chancellor. “I have many connections with Northwestern and am excited about this new opportunity,” Blank said in an Oct. 11 university news release. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel speculates that her leave likely comes with a large increase in salary. They report that Blank was paid just above $606,000 in 2020, the highest paid chancellor in the entire UW System. Last summer, the search to replace UW System interim president Tommy Thompson began. Former governor of Wisconsin, Thompson took on this role in July 2020 after the search to find a permanent replacement for his predecessor, Ray Cross, failed. Thompson was chosen by Board of Regents President Andrew Petersen because of “his legacy of bringing people together and
finding common ground.” Both positions will become vacant at the beginning of summer 2022, leaving room for uncertainty for the future of UW and its flagship school in terms of leadership. Apart from Blank and Thompson, there are also five recently vacant leadership positions from the other 12 UW schools. UW Spokesperson Meredith McGlone ensures that these departures are not at all correlated. “Fortunately, Chancellor Blank and her team have placed the university on very stable footing,” McGlone said. University of Wisconsin-Madison is at its highest graduation rate, has 4,000 students under Bucky’s Tuition Promise program as well as the highest variety in diversity in all of Madison history. “It was always my goal to leave this university stronger than when I came and I believe that together we have achieved that,” Blank stated. The search for both positions will be overseen by the UW System and Board of Regents with more details to follow as they become available. “In the event that [Blank’s] successor has not yet been chosen by that point, an interim chancellor may be named to ensure continuity until the successor arrives,” McGlone said. In an interview conducted by the Wisconsin State Journal with consultant Anne Coyle from the search firm
COURTESY OF BRYCE RICHTER/UW-MADISON
UW-Madison's Chancellor and the UW System President are leaving this year, causing many to doubt the University's future. Russell Reynolds Associates, Coyle said that “candidates may view the jobs together as a real opportunity to bring new ideas to the table.” Coyle acknowledges that the search must comply with a long list of rules and regulations since they are working with the state government and have a much smaller budget covered than a typical search for a private institution. Concerns are shared by some, including previous UW System president Katharine Lyall. With six
years of experience, she said to the Wisconsin State Journal that the departure of both figures “complicates the choreography a little bit.” “It just adds another dimension to the search for the UW System president to find someone who can attract good candidates for the Madison position,” Lyall said. Retired UW-La Crosse professor Joe Heim expressed concern over how a potential candidate’s perspective may change based on UW System’s recent history of budget battles, polit-
ical challenges and tenure changes that drew national attention. “I wonder what kind of message it sends to applicants that both positions are vacant,” Heim said. “It might spark a little hesitancy on the part of top candidates.” “Regardless of who the next chancellor is, we hope they will share our goals of promoting student voices and making campus an equitable and inclusive environment,” the Associated Students of Madison said in an Oct. 11 statement.
COVID-19 positive students housed at Eagle Heights By Anthony Trombi STAFF WRITER
COVID-19 positive students are being temporarily housed in vacant apartments at the Eagle Heights complex, which houses many graduate students and faculty. UW-Madison communications, health and housing staff held an online town hall Aug. 19 to address resident’s concerns. If residents wear masks and avoid interacting with COVID-19 positive students, “there’s really no real increase of risk of having people in these spaces,” Collin Pitts, associate director of campus health, said at the meeting. Residents disagree about the lack of risk of COVID-19 positive students will bring to Eagle Heights. “We asked University Housing to take steps so that the community feels safer, but again and again, the Director of University Housing Jeff Novak told us that they don’t see any risk from the decision,” said Kerem Morgul, an Eagle Heights resident. “We have been angered by the disrespectful attitude that the university housing has displayed in the town halls.”
According to Eagle Heights residents, they were informed about this decision without consultation or input through an email sent by UW-Madison. “I know that people felt like they wanted to be consulted,” Novak said
at the meeting. “I’m sorry if you feel that way. We made the best decision for our complete resident population and students here at the University of Wisconsin.” UW-Madison did not identify which units will be used as isolation
COURTESY OF JEFF MILLER/ UW-MADISON
Covid positive students housed in Eagle Heights where grad-students, teachers live.
and quarantine space. Residents say that this is problematic for those navigating the apartment complex, especially residents with children. “The lack of transparency, lack of consultation with the community was one main source of frustration and the second main source of frustration is, I think, the lack of seriousness on part of university housing,” said Morgul. “If you are making a decision like this, then you know residents expect you to take it seriously and take risk mitigation strategies.” The Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA), the labor union for graduate employees at UW-Madison, shared concerns over Eagle Heights COVID-19 exposure in a series of tweets. “Eagle Heights apartments are old, with some units adjacent to each other per floor,” TAA said on Twitter. “The units share ventilation to the extent that residents can smell their neighbors’ cooking, or see cigarette smoke from the vent in their windowless bathroom.” UW-Madison currently has quarantine and isolation space for up to
200 students, about a fifth of the 1,000 spaces available last fall. Alternative spaces, such as dorms, that were used last year for COVID-19 positive students are now full of the new freshman class and a high number of sophomores who were unable to live on campus last year. Many hotels, including Union South’s hotel which was previously used as isolation housing, do not have availability due to football games and other weekend events. Enforcement mechanisms at Eagle Heights have been established to assure residents safety. Students are allowed to go outdoors with a mask for a brief break or to get a COVID-19 test. A university security guard will oversee Eagle Heights every night, Novak said. They will check in with residents during the evening and monitor students’ compliance with university regulations. “They are not really monitoring students,” said Morgul. “There has been a lot of misleading communication on the part of the university housing throughout the process.”
“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”