[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST / Herald Photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]This is the third part of a series profiling members of the Board of Regents, the governing board for the University of Wisconsin System.

David Walsh has accomplished quite a bit since graduating from UW-Madison in 1965. He served in Vietnam, graduated from Harvard Law School, received a partnership in the Foley & Lardner law firm and was even part of the ownership group that turned down a lucrative offer from North Carolina to keep the Brewers in Milwaukee.

As if that weren't enough, Gov. Jim Doyle named Walsh to the Board of Regents in January 2003, and in June of this year his peers on the board unanimously elected him regent president.

"My roots are here," Walsh said. "My father was a coach here — he was the boxing coach, a legendary coach. In fact he's going in the Hall of Fame [Oct. 27] down in Milwaukee."

After stints in the military and in law school, Walsh said he returned to his native Wisconsin and immediately got involved with the university, serving on some of the alumni committees and eventually serving as chairman of the business school advisory board.

"When Gov. Doyle asked if I was interested, I said I'd be glad to do it," Walsh said. "I didn't come onboard to revolutionize the place but I do think that the one thing I quickly became aware of [is] it's a tremendously complex job responsibility."

The first responsibility of his tenure, Walsh said, is to improve the university's relationship with the legislative leadership and credibility with its stakeholders, the people of Wisconsin.

"The second thing is to persuade [the legislature] to invest in higher education and I don't mean just give us more money," he said. "What we need to do is show that we're part of the solution, the economic solution to this state, and I think everyone agrees that the future of our economy is going to be knowledge-based and that means we need to graduate more baccalaureates."

According to Walsh, most commentators say it is "simply undisputed" that the states with the highest percentage of baccalaureates to the total population have the highest income.

"Highest average income means more tax dollars, means a healthier state and we need to persuade the legislature that we need to spend money to do that," he said.

After hiking in-state tuition 6.9 percent this summer and not proportionately raising financial aid, Walsh said UW is starting to privatize itself and therefore is excluding lower income families from an education.

"The creative mind does not know class riches and we're losing those people and those are the people that traditionally stay in Wisconsin," Walsh said. "First generation college families tend to stay."

Given the economic strains the state has been under the past few years, Walsh said the legislature and UW should be in the process of coming to a consensus on tough decisions, such as whether the state wants to continue supporting research or deciding whether to limit enrollments to save money or increase enrollments to graduate more baccalaureates.

"Those are the decisions we need to make and we're not making them when we spend all our time talking about gay marriages and concealed weapons and tax freezes," he said. "With great irony, we were named the national stem cell center and the Washington Monthly named us the top [overall] research university, and the same week the legislature criminalizes certain stem cell research conduct. Those aren't good messages."

UW System President Kevin Reilly, who works closely with the regents and testified alongside Walsh before the Joint Legislative Audit Committee last week, said he is pleased with the work Walsh has done during a trying time for the UW System.

"He's the kind of board chair I think that you enjoy working with," Reilly said. "He gets to know the issues in detail [and] works with the other board members in a way that keeps them informed on the issues so that the discussions they have before they make decisions are substantive."