Next up: Timothy Mulcahy

The third edition of my mini-series on the 4 finalists for chancellor is on Timothy Mulcahy, the current vice president of research at Minnesota. I thought he was an decent speaker to listen to though he got long winded and repetitive in some of his answers. He was pretty outgoing during the discussion and compared our ability to afford professors to that of the Brewers as opposed to the Yankees.

As for his chancellorship style, he stressed goals and accountability. He had an interesting approach to dealing with the state legislature. He would ask for support of certain initiatives that the university wanted, and at the same time bring to the table certain concessions the university was willing to make in order to get state support. In what he described as a quid pro quo, we would be able to demonstrate to the legislators exactly how much their support meant to us and thus hopefully be more successful in garnering their support. Thus far, this is the only approach to dealing with the state legislature that I think would have a chance of being able to convince those legislators who don’t want to support the university to vote to help the UW. Relationship building might help, but it can only go so far. He also stressed setting goals and telling both the state legislature and the public exactly what we planned to do with their support and place some accountability on the university.

Like Biddy Martin, he stressed the need to be proactive in keeping faculty from leaving, giving them incentives to stay before they had received offers from other schools. He was able to discuss that UW problem from an interesting perspective, having been involving in the poaching of our faculty during his recent time at Minnesota. If anyone didn’t that it was a major issue, they should now. It was insider proof that this article knew what it was talking about.

He also presented a unique idea to solicit money from private sources. He proposed raising tuition up to a level comparable to what it is at Minnesota and then soliciting private money to offset that increase for low income students with increased financial aid. That way only students who can afford to pay a higher tuition end up paying more. According to him, private donors are much more likely to give money for financial aid for students than faculty salaries. As he pointed out, we are offering one of the best educations in the Big 10 at the 2nd lowest price. While I think the idea of raising tuition, while at the same time offsetting part of it with more financial aid, is one that needs to be discussed, he talked about raising tuition way to casually for my liking. We need someone who is willing to do it if it needs to be done, but it seemed like more of a plan than a last resort for him.

When asked about research, his area of specialty, he demonstrated a vast array of knowledge of the changing climate in research and how to best bring in dwindling federal dollars. Considering we spend the 2nd most money of any school in the country on research, I would say that someone with a background in one of our weaknesses would be a better choice.

I’ll be back with thoughts on the final finalist, Rebecca Blank, tomorrow and an official endorsement for the next chancellor.

As usual, links to the BH and Capital Times stories

[Edit] Smathers on the BH blog

[Edit] The DC article

Dear State Legislature, cutting funding for UW research is not a good idea

echoing arguments heard previously on this blog

David Ward, president of economic consulting firm NorthStar Economics, based in Madison, said he agrees that the state needs to improve job growth to keep graduates in Wisconsin. And he points to the public university system as the key to stemming brain drain and boosting the state’s economy.

University research has led to hundreds of commercial licenses. Partnerships offering commercial outlets for university talent have been lucrative, Ward said, and the University Research Park in Madison hosts more than 100 companies with a several thousand jobs.

“That’s the way we need to go — transfer that intellectual property from the research and lab bench into commercial products, businesses and jobs,” Ward said. “And if we’re doing that, we need to scale it up more.”

Wisconsin could benefit from modeling itself after Dane County, which is one of the top 20 most-educated counties in the nation, thanks to the presence of UW-Madison and other educational and research institutions, Ward said. “It’s one of the parts of the state that really has attracted people from outside,” Ward said. “And it’s a good idea to play to the strengths.”

Sig Ep hazing story on Fox News

Its not the only recent Sig Ep mention from a national outlet. Nor is it the only one with a headline that entirely mischaracterizes the story it contains. But way to go Fox News.

Report: University of Wisconsin Frat Boys Face Expulsion for Alleged Hazing Event

is a headline that really fits a story in which the only lines mentioning expulsion are

UW Associate Dean of Students Kevin Helmkamp said the dean’s office hopes to conclude its investigation within the week, telling UWire, “We’ll be determining if there was any misconduct on an individual or organizational level.”

Possible punishments range from monetary fines to suspension and even expulsion, according to the Web site.

On a slightly different note. Congrats to the BH for literally being the only source for the story used by Fox News. They got everything from this UWire article that they link to, which is literally just the reprinting of the BH article. It’s interesting to think that this one sentence from a BH article can inspire a national news headline.

Jeff Benson, Greek program adviser, said they are also conducting an investigation that could result in a wide variety of sanctioning, ranging from monetary fines to educational programming up to suspension and expulsion.