Chancellor's Office
Chancellor's Communiqués
September 29, 2006
To: All UW Colleges and UW-Extension Colleagues
Fr: Chancellor David Wilson
In this Message:
- Leadership Changes
- Travels and Conversations
- Board of Regents
- Commission on Enhancing the Mission of the UW Colleges
- Chancellor's Quarterly WisLine
- Use of the Chancellor's Title and Dual Institution Names
- Conclusion
Colleagues:
Communicating with faculty and staff members across our two institutions remains one of my top priorities. This new monthly electronic newsletter replaces UW-Extension's "FYI from the Chancellor" and UW Colleges' "Central Stuff." Distributed to more than 2,000 colleagues statewide, this bulletin will inform you of strategic developments, major events and issues affecting our two institutions.
For example, I will use this Communiqué to inform you of significant activity at the Board of Regents and the state legislature. I may also share personal views and ideas, and I hope you will feel free to reply with your own comments and suggestions.
- UW-Marathon County Dean and CEO Jim Veninga announced his plans to return to the faculty in fall 2007. In addition, UW-Richland Dean and CEO Deborah Cureton intends to retire at the end of this academic year. With these changes, we anticipate conducting a total of four search-and-screen processes for UW Colleges deans this year, to fill these vacancies and those at UW-Baraboo/Sauk County and UW-Sheboygan.
- Lee Zaborowski, Interim Dean and Director of Outreach and E-Learning Extension, recently announced his plans to retire in January 2007. UW-Extension Provost Marv Van Kekerix and I are working now to fill that key leadership role in a timely fashion, and I am happy to report that Dawn Drake, Executive Director of Alternative Delivery Systems at UW-Platteville, has agreed to chair the search-and-screen committee.
- UW Colleges/UW-Extension CIO Dick Cleek has announced the appointment of Bill Meyer as deputy CIO of our newly integrated Information Technology Services department. Bill will officially assume those duties on October 1, building upon his long and successful UW-Extension career.
Since May 1, I have been traveling throughout Wisconsin, visiting campuses and county Extension offices. I have taken time to meet with several news reporters and editorial boards. One result of that work has been a positive editorial from WISC-TV3 in Madison, which you might enjoy watching.
In addition to these local visits, I have also been meeting with local, state, and federal elected officials. I traveled to Washington last month for personal meetings with Sen. Herb Kohl, Sen. Russ Feingold, and Rep. David Obey. All were interested in our ongoing work across the state, and all were extremely supportive of the work we do across the two institutions. They wanted to stay abreast of our future plans, and wanted to know more about how they might continue to support these efforts. I look forward to meeting the rest of our Congressional delegation during future visits to Washington.
I attended the annual state conference of the Wisconsin Counties Association in La Crosse last week, where I met with the Wisconsin Associated County Extension Committees (WACEC) Board of Directors, and had the opportunity to address several hundred conference participants. A copy of my remarks to that group is available online.
Working with Teri Venker, David Giroux and other colleagues, we have been busy conducting "listening sessions" with external audiences. As recommended by the Transition Team, we are using these facilitated discussions to elicit candid feedback about the value of our work to students, clients, partners and stakeholders. By November 7th, I will have met with 15 groups of external stakeholders.
In addition to the formal listening sessions, we are now providing a means by which all Wisconsin residents can share their ideas and suggestions online, via a new electronic feedback form on the Chancellor's Web site.
I invite you to visit the "Engaging Wisconsin" section of the Web site to see a few photos from my visits around the state.
There was no September meeting of the UW System Board of Regents. At the August Board meeting, I joined UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Carlos Santiago and UW System Executive Senior VP Don Mash for a presentation to the Regents' Education Committee about our efforts to meet the changing educational needs of Waukesha County.
We expect to submit a report to UW System President Kevin Reilly by November 15, with additional discussion at the Board's December 2006 meeting. In my discussion with the committee, I stressed the importance of analyzing the financial implications of each option available to us, as well as an honest effort to gauge the needs of UW-Waukesha students and faculty members.
For a detailed report on this discussion and other topics from last month's Board of Regents meeting, see summaries of their Aug. 17 and Aug. 18 news reports online.
I should also report that David Walsh, president of the UW System Board of Regents, visited UW-Marshfield/Wood County and addressed the Marshfield Rotary Club this week, emphasizing the need for affordable public higher education in Wisconsin and highlighting the many benefits of having more four-year college degree holders in the state.
Regent Walsh's address is part of a broad effort by our UW System colleagues to increase public awareness and understanding of the UW System's "Growth Agenda" and the need for additional investment in higher education. Both UW Colleges and UW-Extension have a significant stake in this process, and a prominent role in the Growth Agenda, and we'll be doing our part to build statewide support for these proposals.
Commission on Enhancing the Mission of UW Colleges
The Commission on Enhancing the Mission of the University of Wisconsin Colleges began work in late August. Under the leadership of co-chairs John Torinus and Roger Axtel, the commission will meet eight times between August and December. During their first meeting, members received an overview of the UW Colleges and specifically focused on people served by the UW Colleges at the 13 campuses. At their most recent meeting, members examined numerous collaborative agreements between the UW Colleges and the UW System comprehensive/doctoral institutions, as well as collaborative agreements between the UW Colleges and the Wisconsin Technical Colleges.
Earlier this week, UW-Extension representatives joined with commission members to discuss ways that UW-Extension might enhance the mission of the UW Colleges. At that same meeting, the commission members approved a resolution requesting that the Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) Board postpone action on a proposal by Chippewa Valley Technical College to offer a new liberal arts college parallel program. Specifically, the group asked that action on that new program be delayed until December 2006.
In October, members from the WTCS will make a similar presentation. By December 15, the Commission will submit a report to me that will provide specific recommendations as to how the mission of the UW Colleges might be strengthened and enhanced.
For more information about the commission's work, please contact UW Colleges Associate Vice Chancellor Greg Lampe, who is staffing the commission.
Chancellor's Quarterly WisLine
I hope that all UW Colleges and UW-Extension colleagues - including faculty, academic staff and classified staff - will take time to participate in our next "brown bag" WisLine on Wednesday, October 18, from 12 to 1pm. I will use this time to review many of the processes now underway that will lead to the development of a "shared vision" for our two institutions. If you have not done so, please take a few minutes to review the summary of this process that I provided on August 11. Audio archives from previous WisLine conversations are available online.
Use of the Chancellor's Title and Dual Institution Names
Earlier this week, a headline in the Fond du Lac newspaper referred to me as the "Extension Chancellor," but the accompanying article correctly explained my dual role. Similarly, in July, my letter to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was published with an incorrect title, indicating that I was Chancellor of the UW Colleges, omitting the UW-Extension affiliation. People who work with the news media know that these kinds of simple errors are common.
You'll note that my business cards, correspondence, e-mails, Web pages and other communications consistently indicate that I am the "Chancellor of University of Wisconsin Colleges and University of Wisconsin-Extension." We must allow for the possibility that others may occasionally stumble over that admittedly cumbersome title.
Our communications experts are working on new resources to provide guidance on the use of our dual institutional names and logos. In the meantime, here are two quick tips: 1) We typically refer to the two institutions in alphabetical order; and 2) UW-Extension uses a hyphen in its name, while the UW Colleges does not. However, each of the two-year campus names (e.g., UW-Sheboygan) should include the hyphen.
Last month, I had the great pleasure of attending the UW Colleges Convocation at UW-Fox Valley in Menasha. Last week, I attended my first UW-Extension Annual Awards Banquet, at which we honored faculty, staff, classified staff and external partners who have made significant contributions to the UW-Extension mission.
Both events were inspiring and energizing, and both reinforced what I have observed in my travels - that our two institutions benefit from highly talented and dedicated individuals who translate the Wisconsin Idea into action!
Thank you all for your continued work on behalf of the UW Colleges and UW-Extension, and thank you once again for the collegial hospitality that you have shown during my first months as your chancellor.
As we work to share important, timely information with you, we will look for new ways to enhance the effectiveness of this and other communications tools, with a goal of keeping everyone across our two institutions thoroughly informed and engaged. Again, please share your honest feedback. I look forward to hearing from you.
Your colleague,
David Wilson
Chancellor, UW Colleges and UW-Extension