As she departs, UW-Madison’s Blank reflects on wins, unfinished business
“We’ve done a lot, but we haven’t moved the needle as far as I wished we would have.”
On the cusp of leaving the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chancellor Rebecca Blank used a final news conference Wednesday to take somewhat of a victory lap, saying she is leaving the university on strong financial footing and in a much better place.
But she also took the opportunity to highlight “unfinished agenda” items, such as increasing diversity and students’ sense of belonging on campus.
“We’ve done a lot, but we haven’t moved the needle as far as I wished we would have,” said Blank, whose last day is May 27.
A campus climate survey this school year found about three-fourths of students feel like they belong, but students of color, those with disabilities and LGBTQ individuals responded less positively, according to preliminary results released this week.
The findings are similar to when UWMadison last surveyed students about the campus climate in 2016. Blank said she considered that somewhat of a success amid the backdrop of a socially isolating pandemic and national protests against police brutality.
She said her successor, who has not been named, will need to come in with new ideas.
Blank also lamented UW-Madison’s highly regulated environment. When concrete panels fell off a building last year, for example, the process to fix the problem spanned months. The bureaucratic hoops UW-Madison has to jump through are something Blank won’t miss when she becomes president of Northwestern University this summer.
UW administrators have long said that other comparable institutions, both public and private, have more flexibility.
“As the competitive environment for top research universities becomes even more intense, it becomes more and more important that we have some of the freedoms to act in ways that our peers act,” she said. “I will not miss some of those constraints, the need to go through three sets of committees and five votes and the governor’s office in order to get approval to get something done.”
One of the longest-serving chancellors in recent UW-Madison history,
Blank brought stability to an institution that has sometimes been used as a political punching bag and viewed as an ivory tower of elitism. Blank worked to counteract that image, showing how the university drives economic development across the state and solves problems through research.
She started a scholarship program that helps low-income Wisconsin students enroll, spearheaded a fundraising campaign that netted more than $4 billion and launched construction for a new school focused on computer and data science.
The UW Board of Regents is expected to pick the next chancellor among five finalists in the coming days or weeks. Blank’s advice to whomever succeeds her: Play the long game.
“Persistence and stubbornness helps a lot,” she told reporters Wednesday during her final news conference. “These problems (facing UW-Madison) are not problems that are going away. They’re not issues that are going to be resolved by something you do next month.”
Initially passed over for the UWMadison chancellor job in 2008, Blank was hired in 2013. Donning one of her signature red jackets in Bascom Hall, Blank conceded that her loyalty will soon shift. Northwestern’s homecoming game, scheduled for the first weekend of October, is against Wisconsin.
Rebecca Blank Outgoing chancellor, University of Wisconsin-Madison