Experts to debate future of public universities

The UW System will weather another significant budget cut over the next two years. Similar reductions in state support for higher education across the country have prompted universities to critically examine their ability to fulfill core missions of teaching, research, and service.

Within this context, the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education (WISCAPE) will sponsor a forum on Sept. 13 entitled, “The Future of the Public University.” State legislators, university administrators, and fiscal analysts and scholars from across the country will gather at the UW–Madison campus to discuss the capacity of state universities to operate as public institutions under current financial constraints and offer possible responses to this ongoing fiscal crisis.

Aims McGuiness, a senior associate at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) and expert on the relationships between states and public universities, will focus on the experiences of other states and nations in re-establishing the link between public universities and the public interest in a time of flagging state support and increasing emphasis on decentralization.

Katharine Lyall, president emeritus of the UW System, and Kathleen Sell, former UW System associate vice president and senior lecturer in the UW–Madison department of integrated liberal studies, will examine the “de facto privatization” of public universities and alternative structural models for higher education in a presentation based on research and findings from their forthcoming book.

Panelists and commentators include: Darrell Bazzell, UW–Madison vice chancellor for administration; Todd A. Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance; Liam Goldrick, education policy advisor to the governor of Wisconsin; Andrew Reschovsky, professor of applied economics and public affairs; and UW–Madison Chancellor John Wiley.

WISCAPE is a UW–Madison center that seeks to engage key stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, in an ongoing dialogue about postsecondary education in order to improve decision-making and leadership practices.