At the UW System Board of Regents November meeting Thursday, Regents focused on Milwaukee's public health, how the university is helping the city meet those needs and difficulties the UW System is facing retaining faculty due to its inability to meet salary demands.
Regarding UW System salaries, Regent Charles Pruitt stressed the need for the university to remain competitive, adding the UW System has lost six chancellors to other universities offering higher salaries and replacement searches can cost as much as $100,000.
The Business, Finance and Audit Committee then unanimously voted to raise four UW System administrators' salaries, including UW-Platteville Chancellor David Markee and Provost Carol Sue Butts, UW-Stout Chancellor Chuck Sorensen and UW-Superior Chancellor Julius Erlenbach.
UW-Madison Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell said UW-Madison lags behind peer institutions in terms of salaries. Out of 116 faculty who received outside offers last year, UW-Madison administration retained only approximately half of those due to budget restrictions. Regents will consider a faculty and staff salary plan recommendation at their December meeting; if approved, the plan will then be sent to the state Legislature.
UW-Madison's School of Medicine and Public Health has partnered with several institutions recently to work toward providing every Milwaukee resident with equal access to affordable, quality health care, including Medical College of Wisconsin, the City of Milwaukee Health Department and UW-Milwaukee.
Furthermore, according to School of Medicine and Public Health Dean Robert Golden, the School has given $50,000 to support a feasibility study that will examine possible implementation of a UW-Milwaukee school of public health.
The Board reconvenes today.
