The UW System Board of Regents approved a plan to provide flexibilities similar to UW-Madison's proposed public authority status to all UW System universities without splitting the system Thursday.
The Regents voted to accept the new plan, the Wisconsin Idea Partnership, to grant flexibilities to the entire system under one managerial board.
The plan would provide UW-Madison and the other UW System schools with ""all of the flexibilities you need for the future…right away…under a model where the flagship is part of an integrated system with everybody else,"" UW System President Kevin Reilly said.
Reilly said if UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee split from the system, as proposed in Gov. Scott Walker's budget, it would lead to ""competition, duplication and replication.""
He also said the split would be wasteful and inefficient, costing UW-Madison its good reputation.
Other board members said if the Milwaukee and Madison campuses left the system it would negatively affect other UW System schools by introducing a competition for resources in which the smaller schools would be at a disadvantage.
In order to avoid such an outcome, Reilly said the universities must keep a shared governing system, which is the basis of the Wisconsin Idea Partnership.
With a unified system, Reilly said system-wide reporting could work to make the system more accountable, and an integrated budget process could help to avoid ""destructive academic competition"" between the UW System schools.
UW-Milwaukee Interim Chancellor Michael Lovell opposed the plan.
""We do not want to do what you propose. It would be fundamentally changing our mission. It may make sense at some level, but at UW [Milwaukee] it makes no sense at all,"" said Lovell.
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin said she believes it is essential to provide more flexibility to all UW-System schools, but was not in support of dismissing her proposed plan for public authority status, the New Badger Partnership.
""It astonishes me that you would ask Madison…to have an opportunity forgone that can save the quality of this extraordinary research university,"" Martin said.
The Regents said they can still add the Wisconsin Idea Partnership to the budget bill before it reaches the Joint Finance Committee.
