Rebecca Blank and today’s student forum

In the final of 4 student forums with the finalists for chancellor, Rebecca Blank stopped by the Red Gym to chat with students. She was definitely the most energetic and excited speaker of the final four.

She has a very unique resume that includes experience at Michigan as both a professor and administrator and in politics. She was a member of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and has spend the last year in Washington while on sabbatical as a visiting fellow a the Brookings Institute. Even though she was a senior official in a Democratic administration, she highlighted her experience maintaining a party neutral perspective while an administrator at Michigan. She referenced her experience of having to solicit money from all of Gerald Ford’s old Republican friends while dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Her experiences outside of the realm of academia in politics and public policy, really set her apart from the other candidates. None of them have any significant outside experiences that they would bring with them to the UW.

She also expressed her love of large public schools and the many similarities between Michigan and Wisconsin. Another thing she talked about was how much she enjoyed private fund raising. She highlighted a fund at Michigan that was used to match a portion of private donations and was expected to last 2 years. It was such a success that it lasted only 6 months.

Like Mulcahy, she felt that our comparatively low in state tuition would need to raised in order to maintain the educational quality. She also said it needed to be matched with an increase financial aid. Her answers to questions on professor salaries and other standard questions didn’t really deviate too much from other candidates. The impression I’m beginning to get is that proactive salary raises to keep professors from thinking of leaving is something that is practiced just about everywhere but here.

Link to the BH article and the Capital Times