The next University of Wisconsin System president could be named as soon as Friday. Meanwhile, organizations representing campus employees are criticizing the UW Board of Regents for not holding public interviews with the two finalists.
The full board will meet in a closed session Friday to pick Milwaukee attorney and CEO of Foley & Lardner, Jay Rothman, or UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Jim Schmidt to succeed interim System President Tommy Thompson and former UW System president Ray Cross.
The UW System has been without a permanent president since Cross retired from the position in 2020.
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The current search has been underway since July 2021, when Regent President Edmund Manydeeds named a 19-member search and screen committee, which included UW faculty, staff and students charged with selecting candidates. Regents also held listening sessions at every UW System campus to get input on what considerations regents should consider during the search.
Schmidt and Rothman were named as finalists on Jan. 14. UW Regent Vice President Karen Walsh said in a UW System press release “that because of the extraordinary public input in the process so far, there will be no public session with the finalists.”
On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Conference of the American Association of University Professors issued a statement criticizing regents for not holding public forums with Rothman and Schmidt.
UW-Milwaukee professor Nick Fleisher is the AAUP conference president. He told Wisconsin Public Radio he participated in the listening session on his campus and is glad regents held them around the state.
“But having done that at that early stage of the process is kind of neither here nor there,” said Fleisher. “When we’re talking about the final stage, where we know the identities of the finalists, and we want to learn something about them, right?”
The latest UW president search has been very different from a prior search that failed in June 2020 after the sole finalist, former University of Alaska System President Jim Johnsen, withdrew days after he was criticized for his performance during an online public interview.
Fleischer said there was a concern that regents might not hold a forum with finalists this time because of the “embarrassing spectacle” in 2020.
The Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of Teachers also released a statement critical about the lack of public interviews with Rothman and Schmidt before regents make their final decision.
Kim Kohlhaas is the president of the American Federation of Teachers. She said there is skepticism about the decision to conduct interviews behind closed doors for a position that will have to lead the state’s universities. She said employees would be better served by getting a chance to learn where the candidates stand on current issues and what their vision is for the UW System moving forward.
“We want this to be a successful search,” said Kohlhaas. “We want this to be a working relationship that we can support moving forward and having those conversations and knowing exactly where these two candidates stand is really important in that process.”
Mike Bernard-Donals is a professor at UW-Madison and president of the campus faculty advocacy group PROFS. He said it’s “deeply disappointing” that the two finalists won’t have a chance to speak with members of the university community. He said he can’t remember another high-profile search during his 23 years at the university that didn’t include a public forum.
“What members of the university community have right now is what they’ve seen in the newspapers,” said Bernard-Donals. “They’ve seen the qualifications of the two candidates. They’ve seen some quotes from the two candidates, but they don’t have any information beyond that.”
On Jan. 14, just before Rothman and Schmidt were identified as candidates, media outlets including WPR were offered interviews with the candidates on the condition that each reporter submitted two written questions before the candidates’ identities were known.
An emailed statement from Regent Vice President Walsh sent Thursday cited the reporter interviews along with listening sessions and the expanded search and screen committee as examples of “extraordinary access to help shape the decision of who will serve as the next UW System president.”
“Also, shared governance chose a slate of representatives to interview the finalists,” said Walsh. “Those interviews happened Tuesday, followed by a debrief with the Special Regent Committee. The fact of the matter is that we have added at least three new, meaningful ways to introduce the candidates to the public while affording the university community more seats at the table to help shape the decision.”
Editor’s note: Wisconsin Public Radio is a service of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.
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