Rebecca Blank, the new chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been on the job a little more than two months.
Before starting her new position, Blank had an extensive career in education, economics, and politics -- most recently as the acting secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department.
Editor's Note: Wisconsin Public Radio's Terry Bell spoke to Blank this week in her office in Bascom Hall, asking her about her background. And like any good public speaker, she led with a joke.
Rebecca Blank: Well, of course, I’d say economists think better about the world than other disciplines, but then I’d be in trouble! It’s very helpful to have managed a large, complex public institution in Washington, which is also in a very political environment. There’s no question there’s a lot of correlations between my jobs at (the U.S. Commerce Department) and my job here. But I think it’s equally important that I did spend quite a bit of time being both on the faculty and being a dean around a number of major universities. You have to understand a university and the faculty and the staff and how this sort of place operates. So here I am!
Terry Bell: A big part of your job right now is building relationships. And recently, we had the matter of the billion-dollar surplus, and some of the bad feelings that that created. Are you finding that that’s having a big impact on that relationship-building?
RB: I wasn’t here this past spring, and I think I have a bit of an advantage of being able to come in and say, “Look, I’m new.” I understand why we need to be transparent. Any big, public entity needs to be pretty clear about what it’s doing with its budget, and why it’s spending it the way it is. So I have some real sympathy for the request that we be more transparent. But it takes time to build that type of relationship. That’s not a matter of meeting someone, shaking their hand, and walking out of their office. It means I have to be on the other end of State Street, and my job is to communicate why what happens to UW-Madison is deeply important for the agendas they care about for their communities.
TB: On the practical side, what you’re dealing with now is a two-year tuition freeze because of that episode. How will the university function now with that very important part of its funding static for two years?
RB: We have a number of different funding streams; only one of them is tuition. So the way you have to think about this, when you do have multiple funding streams, is how do you use each funding stream effectively? There’s core funding, particularly for undergraduate education, that tuition dollars and state dollars more than anything else are about. They aren’t going to support the big research projects that we go to the federal government for. And in turn, neither the federal research dollars, nor the state and tuition dollars are probably best used to provide additional recognition and support for some of your very top faculty or staff. So things like a named faculty chair, which is very important for recruiting and retaining really top people, best comes from private donor funds.
TB: After you got to Wisconsin, you visited the other UW campuses. I thought that was an interesting choice. Why did you think that was important to do?
RB: Well, let me say that I’ve begun to visit the other campuses. I’m going out once a month … so give me several months, and I’ll get through all of them! I want to understand the system; I want to be a colleague with the other chancellors in the system. I want to see what their campuses look like and what they’re doing, and what the issues are that they’re facing. It also gives me a chance to get out into the state. And while I’ve spent time around Wisconsin, it’s been more than a decade since I’ve really lived very close to this area.
TB: It may be early to think about this, but what would you like your legacy to be?
RB: It’s way too early to think about that! My legacy is that I’ve left behind a university that’s a little bit better than it was when I came. That’s what I would strive for.
