University of Wisconsin-Madison Provost Peter Spear says he will retire in December, and he and his wife plan to move to the West.
Spear, 60, has been provost since 2001. He was previously on the faculty at UW-Madison and spent five years as an administrator at the University of Colorado-Boulder. As provost, Spear was the object of speculation about whether he would some day succeed Chancellor John Wiley as the university’s leader. Both Wiley and his predecessor, David Ward, had served as provost before ascending to the chancellorship.