It’s been said those outside the Badger state know Wisconsin for two things: the Packers and its university system. And beyond the United States’ borders, it’s just the 26-campus network that garners the cheese-head region some attention.

On a late-August morning, Katharine C. Lyall relays this legend with her trademark jovial air. She sits comfortably in the Van Hise office that was once her home for 13 years.

“We are what gives the state of Wisconsin national and international visibility,” said the former University of Wisconsin System president.

After sitting in the system’s top spot for more than a decade, Lyall bid adieu Tuesday to a career that saw the explosion of the computer to the attacks of Sept. 11.

She described her tenure, which far exceeded the position’s average of five years, as “a great ride.” Leaving it, she said, was met with nostalgia and excitement for the future.

“This is a 24/7 job, so you don’t do that kind of a job for 13 years without feeling a real attachment to it.”

Lyall departs at a time when the biennium is absorbing the biggest budget cut ever — $250 million — putting the system “at a real fork in the road.”

Where the 13 four-year and 13 two-year colleges go from there is largely dependent on the state, Lyall said. Without their support, she feels the UW System will head in a different, but not necessarily better, direction.

“We’ve got to see our partners on the other side of the state kick in … The budget is shrinking fast. We need to come to grips with that.”

Although the bruised financial situation will fall in the lap of Lyall’s successor — Kevin Reilly — that’s not to say she hasn’t faced her share of budgetary concerns.

In fact, Lyall — the system’s first female president — has struggled for years with a spiraling budget that’s sliced into the system’s quality.

Resources have not been able to meet demands, she said. She tags that as the main challenge she encountered as the system’s executive.

More than 600 faculty have been lost due to budget cuts, she noted, and salaries fall behind those of other university systems.

“… The resource erosion has been a continuing frustration, and I know it will also be a worry for Kevin Reilly as he takes over. We’re trying to maintain access for as many students as possible at a time when the state investment for college students is declining,” she said. “We have some stresses and strains that have to be dealt with.”

Like the budget, Lyall said the system will shrink if funding continues to decline. She also feels it could become privatized, something Lyall said she and many other officials oppose.

But privatization is already visible, she said, and could box out low and moderate-income families.

“Just like [a] private business does, you serve those that are willing to be your paying customers.”

And although funding problems have been coupled with rising tuition, financial aid has not met the increased costs. The state of Wisconsin currently invests about $1,000 in aid per student, Lyall said. But the average for the Midwest is more than double that, she added.

“Certainly I think Wisconsin has moved from being a low-tuition state to being an average-tuition state.”

At the same time, the state has increased student enrollment. And its university network — one many others envy, Lyall said — has become “much more of a system.”

It produced more than 300,000 graduates during her tenure, a feat she considers one of her greatest. She also noted its role in state economic developments has grown.

Lyall offered some words of advice to Reilly, reflections of the lessons — both good and bad — she’s learned since taking post in 1992.

“He’ll need to have a tough skin at some times and just push ahead with his agenda, because there are always critics of what you want to do. [He’ll] have to decide what the direction will be and move steadily in that course.

“And he will do that.”