Chancellor Biddy Martin and Vice Chancellor Darrell Bazzell answered questions about how a proposed public authority model and major budget cuts would affect UW-Madison faculty and students at a forum Wednesday.
Bazzell said UW-Madison administrators would manage a 13 percent reduction in state aid through a balance of cuts, and by increasing efficiencies and tuition.
Gov. Scott Walker's proposed budget restructures UW-Madison as a public authority institution, splitting the university from the UW System and giving it a 21-member governing Board of Trustees.
Walker will appoint 11 of the board's members, seven of whom will be UW-Madison alumni. The university would appoint the remaining 10 members from faculty, non-faculty employees and students.
Martin said establishing the public authority model would allow UW-Madison to be more competitive nationally.
""For this university to deteriorate in quality because we can't compete … would be a crying shame,"" she said. ""Not only for the university, but for the state and for the nation and I think even beyond.""
Martin said Walker must appoint the majority of the board for the university to retain sovereign immunity and liability coverage, provisions that protect the university from lawsuits.
However, some UW System members have expressed concern that the public authority model will negatively affect collaboration, and increase competition between Wisconsin campuses.
The proposed budget would also allot $250,000 to UW-Milwaukee to move toward public authority status as well. Some UW-Milwaukee community members worry they may not have sufficient infrastructure necessary to be independent or be able to compete with UW-Madison for resources.
Although there is concern about UW-Milwaukee splitting from the UW System, if it stayed the Milwaukee campus would be the only research university in the system. Such a result would leave UW-Milwaukee grouped with universities with which it has few similarities.
""Milwaukee's situation in a sense is the most complicated because they're making a transition toward being more research intensive,"" Martin said. ""They're in a difficult position.""
Martin said if UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee share one governing board independent of the Board of Regents, it may not fare as well as Madison since it is smaller and receives less funding.
Martin, Bazzell and other administration members also held a live web chat Wednesday with more than 700 participants.
