More than 75 people attended a reception to honor outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank hosted by legislators at the Wisconsin State Capitol Tuesday afternoon.
Outgoing University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank cited lagging state support, a lack of administrative autonomy and increasing political divisions as major challenges facing Wisconsin’s flagship university during a fiery speech to the UW Board of Regents Thursday.
The University of Wisconsin System Board on Thursday approved 2% raises for the system president and all chancellors, adding a total of $87,250 to the base salaries of the group of 14 college leaders this year.
The UW Board of Regents approved 2% raises for chancellors and the University of Wisconsin System president in a closed-door meeting on Thursday. The $87,250 in leadership raises range from $12,123 for UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank to $4,669 for UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. Raises for chancellors do not require legislative approval.
In her farewell address to the UW Board of Regents Thursday, Rebecca Blank also took aim at state involvement in campus building projects, criticized some “one-size-fits-all” University of Wisconsin System policies and again called for raising in-state undergraduate tuition.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s outgoing chancellor is warning regents that the state’s bitter political polarization is the greatest threat to the school’s existence.
Jerome Chazen, a UW-Madison graduate who went on to co-found Liz Claiborne Inc., and donated $25 million to fund the expansion of the campus art museum named after him and his wife, died Sunday at age 94. “Jerry was deeply devoted to the arts and to education,” UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in a press release, adding that Chazen was someone who found great joy in introducing new audiences to the art world.
Emails obtained by The Washington Post reveal that Schlissel may not have understood the full extent of public records laws. In an email conversation with Rebecca Blank, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Schlissel suggested that Blank could delete emails to avoid potential FOIA disclosures.
“Mark and others—please note that anything that arrives in or is sent from my email can be requested as a public record. I know I’m not the only one for whom this is true,” Blank wrote in an email, according to the Post report. She was alluding to the fact that each state has different sunshine laws that dictate which records can be made publicly available.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank told a faculty committee during a Monday meeting that she didn’t know what percentage of the campus community is boosted beyond those who received it at University Health Services. The university will be encouraging students and staff to report if they have been boosted off-campus to get a better picture of booster status across UW-Madison.
Staff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison want a chancellor with a diverse background who understands the importance of all those who work on campus, rather than one who values only faculty and students.
The university announced on Thursday upcoming dates for a series of listening sessions that will take place throughout January, hosted by a 21-person search committee of Regent members, community representatives, administrators, students and faculty.
The committee leading the search for the new University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor is holding listening sessions for the UW-Madison community this month.
University of Wisconsin System officials have dramatically increased salary ranges for top leaders, giving them more leverage as they search for the next system president and UW-Madison chancellor.
The tentative timeline, laid out for the first time by search committee chair Karen Walsh, includes an application deadline in mid-March, semifinalist interviews in mid-April, campus finalist visits during the first week of May and a recommendation to the full UW Board of Regents by mid-May.
Interim University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and UW Board of Regents President Ed Manydeeds on Thursday identified 21 people across the UW-Madison campus and broader Madison community to serve on a committee searching for Rebecca Blank’s successor. Blank departs next summer to become president of Northwestern University.
In introducing him at a June 2 event at the Kohl Center, Blank said she was convinced that McIntosh was the person to lead the athletic department for the next 10 to 20 years through changes to the college athletics landscape.
By all accounts, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank brought much-needed administrative skills to an organization that had taken its share of hits.
But now that she’s headed to the top job at Northwestern University the future of the state’s flagship university — and in some sense, of the state itself — hangs on one key question:
Will the Board of Regents bring in another administrative guru or will it seek out a leader who can finally unlock the potential we all know is there? Someone who can oversee the translation of UW-Madison’s world-class technology into world-class applications for the global marketplace.
Rebecca M. Blank, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, has been named president of Northwestern University. She will be the first woman to serve as president of the university, and will succeed Morton O. Schapiro after he steps down next summer.
The top two jobs in the University of Wisconsin System are turning over within months of each other next year, a major leadership shake-up that comes on the heels of new chancellors installed during the pandemic at nearly half of the regional campuses and amid a variety of other challenges.
Next summer, Blank will take on a new role as president of Northwestern University, and a new leader will eventually take the reins at UW-Madison. While students on campus had mixed reactions to this week’s announcement, ranging from excitement to disinterest, some shared personal memories of Blank. Many also felt hopeful about the change.
With significant financial support from Marv and Jeff Levy, two brothers and alumni at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the George L. Mosse Humanities building will soon be called Irving and Dorothy Levy Hall.
UW-Madison announced on Wednesday a $20 million donation for a new academic building that will help clear the way for the demolition of the Humanities Building.
When outgoing UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank leaves for Northwestern University this summer, the UW System and its most high profile leaders are likely to be new to the job as they continue to work against the prevailing trends of declining state support and demographic changes in Wisconsin.
“Northwestern is a school that I have known and admired for years. Its reputation as a top-rated educational and research institution has grown each decade,” Blank wrote. “It will be my mission to make sure the institution’s reputation and quality continues to accelerate.”
“Leading UW–Madison and serving the people of Wisconsin has been an honor and a privilege,” Blank said. “Now it’s time to let someone else step into leadership. I have many connections with Northwestern and am excited about this new opportunity.”
Blank highlighted UW-Madison’s designation as a “Green Ribbon School,” the first of the Big Ten to earn such an award. Reducing environmental impacts and costs, improving the health and wellness of faculty and staff and providing effective environmental and sustainability education are components considered in the selection of Green Ribbon schools.
Blank has been with UW-Madison since 2013. Prior to her tenure at UW-Madison, Blank worked in three different presidential administrations, was dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan and was a member of Northwestern University’s faculty as the director of the Joint Center for Poverty Research.
The second-longest serving chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will step down in May next year to become the first female president of Illinois’ Northwestern University.
Northwestern announced Blank’s selection Monday, where she will succeed Northwestern’s 17th president Morton Schapiro. Blank will become the first female president in Northwestern University history.
The university announced Monday morning that Blank will become the next president of Northwestern University starting in summer 2022, where she will make history as the institution’s first woman president. She will replace long-time president Morton Schapiro, who assumed leadership in 2009 and announced his departure from Northwestern in March.
Blank, who announced Monday she is leaving to become president of Northwestern University in 2022, was named chancellor here in February 2013 when she was acting secretary of commerce under President Obama. Now she is leaving, and the consensus among insiders I spoke with Monday was that (a) she’s done an excellent job of navigating UW through exceptionally challenging times and (b) finding a replacement of her stature may prove profoundly difficult.
Northwestern University announced today that Rebecca M. Blank will become its next president, beginning in the summer of 2022. Blank is currently the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a post she has held for eight years.
Chancellor Rebecca Blank is leaving the University of Wisconsin-Madison to become the first female president of Northwestern University, the suburban Chicago school announced Monday.
Rebecca Blank, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, will step down this summer to take up the presidency at Northwestern University, the private research institution announced Monday.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank will leave the university at the end of the school year to become the first female president of Northwestern University.
Blank became chancellor of UW-Madison in 2013. She has deep ties to Northwestern and the Chicago area, serving as a faculty member from 1989 to 1999 and directing the Joint Center for Poverty Research. She was married in Chicago and her daughter attended Northwestern as a student.
After months of grim financial forecasts, University of Wisconsin System leaders presented a much rosier financial outlook this week as campuses settle into another school year shadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recent coverage of the University of Wisconsin-Madison asserts that students and administrators are overly sensitive and reactionary, falsely pursuing small, insignificant symbols, rather than supporting significant goals of racial equity and not maligning an alumnus.
Cardona will double down on Wisconsin today. First, he’s scheduled to visit Eau Claire for an elementary school tour and pep rally alongside local Superintendent Michael Johnson. He’ll then travel south for a stop at the flagship University of Wisconsin-Madison with school Chancellor Rebecca Blank.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona visited the UW-Madison campus Monday as part of his “Return to School Road Trip” across the Midwest to talk up the Biden administration’s efforts to get students back into classrooms safely.
UW-Madison reported on Thursday that nine out of every 10 members of the campus community are fully vaccinated — even without mandating students and employees to get the shot. “I’m proud of our students and employees for taking this important step to protect themselves and others,” Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in an announcement. “And I’m grateful to our staff, who worked tirelessly to achieve these results.”
Video: UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank details the university’s plans to combat a likely increase in COVID cases on campus due to the highly-contagious delta variant with in-person classes starting September.
UW-Madison isn’t expecting Foxconn Technology Group to honor a $100 million pledge made to the university nearly three years ago, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said this month.
A top university official in Wisconsin is butting heads with state Republican legislators over who has the authority to impose COVID-19 restrictions on campus.
Just hours after a Wisconsin state legislature committee on Tuesday required all University of Wisconsin schools to receive permission before issuing new coronavirus guidance, University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank reinstated her campus’s indoor mask mandate.
University of Wisconsin officials who want to ward off a rising COVID-19 caseload now must get permission from the Legislature to implement masking, testing or vaccination requirements, according to a plan Republicans adopted Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced it would require students, employees and visitors wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status starting Thursday, as COVID-19 cases surge and political pressure mounts.
“This is an overlap which we should have identified when schedules were being set,” Blank said in the campuswide email. “Our process didn’t work in this instance and for that I’m deeply sorry. The first day of classes is a significant occasion and especially so this year as we return to in-person instruction — after last year, many students want the excitement and sense of belonging that comes with the first day of classes.”
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank is apologizing for a university decision to start the school year on the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashana.
University of Wisconsin chancellor Rebecca Blank was selected as the chair of the Big Ten Conference’s Council of Presidents and Chancellors on Wednesday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison said this week it will not require COVID-19 vaccinations this fall, as a growing minority of campuses across the country, including in the Big Ten, are doing so.
UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank solicited feedback from a select number of voices on what qualities and characteristics in the next Badgers athletic director mattered to them. School officials have declined to reveal who was invited to offer input, but it has emerged that Blank held listening sessions with Badgers coaches, some UW players and a group dedicated to equity and diversity in the athletic department.
The UW System Board of Regents on Wednesday morning approved a contract with McIntosh, 44, a former Badgers football player who will be only the third UW athletic director in 32 years.
The University of Wisconsin plans to name its new athletic director Wednesday, with Chancellor Rebecca Blank revealing her pick to replace the retiring Barry Alvarez.
UW is more than six weeks into its search for Barry Alvarez’s successor to lead the athletic department, an enterprise with an annual budget of more than $130 million. The school has been silent on whether any lessons from the failed presidential search were learned, but it is operating with a similar degree of secrecy.
In March, The Washington Post reported that University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank sought to move a conversation around the COVID-19 pandemic and students returning to campus in the fall to a private portal used by presidents and chancellors of the 14 Big Ten universities.
It was a comment to that effect by Rebecca Blank, the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, that helped ignite the debate in her state over faculty course loads. Blank started a political firestorm by saying that, when top faculty got job offers from other institutions, she sometimes reduced the number of courses they had to teach as a way to get them to stay.
With the appointments of Whitten and Wilson, five Big Ten universities will now be headed by women. Joan Gabel is president of the University of Minnesota; Kristina Johnson is president of The Ohio State University; and Rebecca Blank is the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin. Three other Big Ten campus heads are Black: Johnathan Holloway, appointed in 2020 at Rutgers: Darryll Pines named president of the University of Maryland also in 2020; and Robert Jones who became Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016.
The American Economic Association named UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank a distinguished fellow, an honor that just four economists in the country received this year.
Crumbling concrete, rusted rebar and falling facades were among the selling points on a campus tour Monday designed to shore up support for the University of Wisconsin System’s more than $1 billion request to repair or replace aging facilities.
Gov. Tony Evers ordered emergency repair work to Van Hise Hall after concrete slabs broke off the UW-Madison building earlier this week and an engineering company found the building’s remaining panels “pose an immediate threat to public health, welfare and safety.”
