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

With 20 years of experience in the Wisconsin Legislature, Regent Peggy Rosenzweig serves an important role on the Board of Regents. She brings the background of someone who intimately understands and recognizes the relationship between the UW and state lawmakers.

Again highlighted over the past week by a series of antagonistic letters between three state representatives and Regent President David Walsh, Rosenzweig's unique resume is arguably more important than ever, as Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said last week relations between the two institutions are at an all-time low.

"It is certainly a low point at this particular moment in time, but I want to make it clear from a historical perspective over the last 25 years … there always is a dynamic tension between the legislature and the university," Rosenzweig said. "They're two very large institutions that sometimes have competing goals."

Rosenzweig said she spends a lot of time at the Capitol talking to legislators — not just the leadership — and listening to how they feel and think about the university.

In a public letter Nov. 3, three state representatives named her as one of two regents in whom they "see glimmers of hope."

"[She seems] to realize that the UW administration has a serious problem on its hands with regard to the Barrows matter," Suder, one of the letter's writers, said in an interview.

Although Suder expressed his hope that Rosenzweig would use her position on the board to request a second internal audit of the Paul Barrows scandal, Rosenzweig said that because the first investigation may eventually come before the board she does not feel comfortable requesting a second one.

"Ultimately we'll have to judge on it perhaps, so you see that there is a potential conflict," she said. "I don't know that that makes Suder happy, but clearly there are other avenues for the Legislature."

Rosenzweig said other avenues include requesting a second audit from the Legislative Audit Bureau, a means Suder said his group may consider if not appeased by the regents.

Although Suder and other state legislators occasionally express their displeasure or concern with the university, Rosenzweig stressed they also have a great affection for UW.

"Most legislators have a great affection for it," she said. "They, like me, either have children who have gone to the university or are there currently, they have family members [or] they've gone to the university themselves at one campus or another."

Rosenzweig said the university is particularly close to her heart, as she finished her degree at UW-Milwaukee as a nontraditional student, and additionally said each of her five sons received their undergraduate degrees from UW-Madison.

Although she sympathizes with the difficult jobs the legislators have more than most regents can, Rosenzweig said she hopes the state will allot more of a financial investment to the system.

But first, she said, the regents and the university as a whole need to address the legislators' and the public's concerns about the troubling scandals at UW over the past few months.

"We have to work at some of these things, once that's out of the way then I think a public investment in higher education is really worth its weight in gold," Rosenzweig said.