Wisconsin regents table vote on expanding president’s hiring power

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted Tuesday to table a vote to change system policy so the president could unilaterally appoint other top leaders across the 13-institution system, The Wisconsin State Journal reported.

Currently, the policy holds that the president must appoint a “search and screen committee” to fill vacancies in senior leadership posts, such as vice president of finance or student affairs. But in an effort to “reduce unnecessary administrative processes,” the regents proposed a vote to eliminate that mandate and give the president more flexibility in making key executive appointments.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the regents who spoke agreed that the current process is inefficient but also seemed wary of granting the system president too much power, according to the State Journal.

So they proposed a middle ground: They asked current system president Jay Rothman to revise the policy so he would be able to appoint senior leaders while still following a formal hiring process.

They indicated broad trust in Rothman but acknowledged the need for a policy that would outlive his—and their—tenure.

“What this does allow [the UW system and regent presidents] to do is just the two of them go off and do something. Now, with my current [UW system] president and my current [regent] president, I’m kind of OK with that, but I don’t know who the president’s going to be in the future of the board, and I don’t know who the president is going to be at the system,” Regent Timothy Nixon said. “I have concerns about delegating it out, because I don’t know who’s coming next, and there’s nothing in here that requires them to tell the board, ‘This is what we did,’ or ‘This is the process we chose,’ or anything like that. I find that troubling, given who we are, and I think that does become a transparency issue.”