University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor finalist Dr. Rebecca Blank visited Madison Wednesday and stressed the need to expand funding sources and connect with students and faculty.
Blank has held various positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce since 2009, which she said has given her experience managing an organization with many different units and a large budget. She said she has held positions at universities in the past and is ready to return to higher education.
“I’ve spent a good part of my life under public universities … and just love the energy and the diversity that exists in those sorts of places,” Blank said.
She said she would make it a priority to balance budgetary needs with financial accessibility for students. She highlighted ways to expand funding sources such as launching a campaign to expand endowment gifts and working with faculty to make sure the university stays among the top recipients of federal research money.
Blank also said she would work with the shared governance system, calling it one of the university’s strengths. She said although the system should not prevent decisions from going through, the collaborative process is vital.
Blank also addressed questions surrounding online learning and investigating how Internet technologies can be incorporated into the university. She said this process is complex because there is not a concrete understanding of what new education models are and how they can be used.
“We need to be experimenting,” Blank said. “We need to be part of the conversation with the leading universities that are looking at this and make sure that Wisconsin … doesn’t get left behind.”
Freshman Ricardo Mora who spoke to Blank about aspects of diversity on campus, said he did not believe she was knowledgeable enough about the issue.
“She should learn a bit more about Wisconsin, the different types of diversity it has and what qualifies for diversity here on campus,” Mora said.
Emily Baer, a freshman and member of the Student Labor Action Coalition, talked to Blank about incidents in which Chancellor David Ward ignored the recommendations made by the shared governance Labor Licensing and Policy Committee to take action on alleged labor abuses by contracted companies, which Baer said was “a big slap in the face to the idea of shared governance.”
According to Baer, Blank did not have enough information to comment on the controversy, but said if chosen as chancellor she would look into these types of issues.
“If she does come to our campus, she encourages us to push her on these issues … the other candidates seemed more evasive,” Baer said.
