Tom Loftus? six-year run as a member of the University of Wisconsin System?s Board of Regents came to an end on Friday. Loftus, 66, was regarded as one of the most politically savvy regents and earlier this year emerged as an outspoken critic of the plan contained in Gov. Scott Walker?s 2011-13 budget proposal that would have granted UW-Madison public authority status and split it away from the rest of the UW System.
“A proposal to remove UW-Madison from the UW System in the budget bill is a guarantee that we will return to the tribalism of the past, when each campus and their legislators fought for their turf and decried any perceived advantage one campus might get that they did not,” Loftus said after news of the plan broke in February.