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From enrollment declines, to student access, to trust issues, Rothman faces array of challenges as new head of UW System

Within hours of Milwaukee attorney Jay Rothman being named the 8th president of the University of Wisconsin System, the first online petition was making the rounds.

To be fair, it was milder than the furious petitions of a year and a half ago, when thousands of faculty, staff, students and alumni called on the system’s Board of Regents to withdraw the single — and in their eyes, deeply flawed — finalist for the job and restart the search from scratch.