After outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley leaves his position at Bascom Hall Sept. 1, he will assume a new position at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the public half of a research center to promote public-private scientific collaboration.

Wiley will officially become interim director of WID Nov. 1, taking over for Marsha Mailick Seltzer who will instead focus on her role as UW-Madison’s Waisman Center director.

“[John Wiley] is a very good leader for WID because he brings expertise in the area of science we conduct at WID,” she said.

UW-Madison Graduate School Dean Martin Cadwallader said one of the reasons Wiley is right for the job is because he has strong national and international contacts in academia.

“We are very pleased that John Wiley has agreed to continue to serve the university by accepting this critical position,” Cadwallader said.

WID and the private, non-profit Morgridge Institute for Research will move to a new facility currently under construction on University Avenue, which is expected to open in 2010.

“I think these institutes are going to be very important to the future of this university. They will be transformational for the campus in terms of the kind of research they stimulate,” Wiley said.

Wiley leaves criticism in Madison Magazine Early in his term as UW-Madison chancellor, Wiley published an article in Madison Magazine about the appropriate split between tax and tuition money needed for university funding.

“The point I was making in that article was this: It is a fair question for the public and taxpayers to ask how they should pay for public higher education,” Wiley told The Daily Cardinal.

Five years later, Wiley has published a second article—this time with criticism for state lawmakers, residents and those in the business sector.

According to Wiley, the Wisconsin public previously thought the state should pay two-thirds and students one-third for university funding, but the standards are different today.

“Tuition has increased so much in recent years compared to the amount the state has cut that the percentage is now different,” he said. “We need to talk about this in an honest discussion and decide as a state what that split should be, and then do it and stick with it.”

In his outgoing comments for UW-Madison students, Wiley discussed the partisan nature of state politics today.

“The politicians insist that the answer to every problem is cutting taxes over and over. They are basically cutting off the source of revenue for the whole public sector,” he said. “We need people who can talk to each other and make reasonable compromise in trying to raise middle ground.”