Wiley looks forward to new role as chancellor

He chuckles, thinks for a moment, then answers, “What have I gotten myself into?”

So says Provost John Wiley when asked about his first reaction to being offered the unique and prestigious opportunity to become the next UW–Madison chancellor.

Those who work regularly with Wiley are keenly aware of his sharp wit and ability to toss out quick one-liners. Yet they also know he is serious, intense and passionate – especially when it comes to UW–Madison.

In a wide-ranging interview this month with Wisconsin Week, Wiley discussed the important influences on his life, his leadership style, his view of shared governance and the key issues he anticipates for faculty, academic staff, classified staff and the university during his tenure as chancellor.

The current provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs points to his father as the first key influence in the career directions of his life. A pharmacist who raised his family in Evansville, Ind., Wiley’s father had a zest for learning. He taught himself five languages, read constantly and continually nurtured his interest in astronomy.

“He used to take me to the local museum and planetarium frequently when I was very small,” Wiley says of his father. “He taught me all the constellations we could see from Evansville. He also helped me set up a very elaborate chemistry laboratory in the basement.”

As a child, Wiley took a great interest in explosives and things that spontaneously combust – “the whiz-bang part of it,” he explains. “I also was always curious about how things worked and was taking things apart long before I learned how to put them back together.”

In high school, Wiley benefited from outstanding math and science teachers. Wiley’s high school math and science curriculum was vigorous. He took two years each of chemistry and biology, a year and a half of physics, half a year of electronics and more than four years of math, including advanced geometry, trigonometry and analytic geometry.

“Very few high schools today have that curriculum,” he says. “And although I might not have known exactly what kind of science I was going to major in, I knew it would be some science.”

That major ended up being physics, at the undergraduate level at Indiana University and in graduate school at UW–Madison, where he earned his master’s and Ph.D. And while his goal was to immediately become a university faculty member, his graduate school adviser, professor Richard N. Dexter, thought otherwise.

“He insisted that I get some industrial experience first, because of the nature of my field, semiconductor physics and material science,” Wiley says. “He argued and insisted that there were all kinds of nitty-gritty aspects and details of that field that you could only learn in industry, and that I should do that first, and then later consider going into an academic position.”

So Wiley went to New Jersey and Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1968, where he stayed six years. He was then awarded a yearlong fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, before joining the UW–Madison’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Leadership style
He taught and conducted research for several years before moving into a number of progressively responsible departmental and campus administrative roles. Because of that, many people on campus are already familiar with his informal, consultative style of leadership.

As chancellor, his approach “won’t be that different in style from the way I operated as dean of the graduate school and provost,” he says. “I may be around a little less frequently, because we are going to launch a major fund-raising campaign, and that’s going to take a lot of my time.”

Wiley says one of the key roles of chancellor is to make sure that all of the shared governance stakeholders – faculty, staff and students – are involved in helping run the university at all levels.

“All three of those groups have important roles and must be meaningfully involved in the governance of the institution,” he says.

Top priorities
Wiley’s priority list when he takes over as chancellor on Jan. 1 is defined more by overall direction than specific items. Right away, he plans to start turning “Targeting Tomorrow,” the university document that outlines future directions for the 21st century, into a “real strategic plan.”

“I don’t want to waste any time before getting a campuswide strategic plan in place with a series of action items, or “to-do’ items, to focus on in the first year, in particular,” Wiley says.

Nevertheless, he says he will concentrate on several important issues: hiring and retaining the very best faculty and staff; improving campus diversity and climate; updating – and in some cases – replacing aging campus buildings; obtaining additional flexibility in the state personnel system; and re-engaging the humanities with the rest of the university.

“The creative arts and the humanities have always been the heart, soul and intellectual core of the university,” Wiley says. “In recent years, though, the humanities have been neglected and disengaged. We will make a terrible mistake if we don’t take positive steps to reconnect the humanities with the rest of the university.

“The problems that are going to be facing us as a result of developments in science and technology, for example, can’t possibly be solved by the scientists alone,” he adds.

Issues for faculty, staff
In terms of the university’s work force, Wiley wants the institution to do a better job of providing continuing education and professional development opportunities for employees, especially classified and academic staff.

For faculty, he will press to develop something he believes is missing: a better sense of connectedness to the university as a whole. He describes it this way: “A little bit of de-emphasis on the overriding importance of their particular unit, whether it’s a department, a center or a college. And a little more awareness of the fact that it doesn’t exist in isolation, that it’s part of something bigger. And that it shares all the elements of our mission with the rest of the campus.”

Wiley says he has been “touched and overwhelmed” by the volume of cards, letters, flowers, books and e-mail he received before and after his selection as chancellor. He thanks all of his well-wishers, and says he has a message for everyone who has written him.

“I will try to get around to responding to all of them – but it may take awhile,” he says with a smile.