University of Wisconsin System president Katharine Lyall addressed several issues that have been dominating university affairs within the state in a teleconference Wednesday. Student journalists throughout the system participated in the question-and-answer session that mainly focused on budget concerns, the governing problems of the Board of Regents and the current condition of higher education.

Lyall initiated the session by addressing the current economic status of the state, an issue that the statewide economic summit dealt with before Halloween.

She sees the “Return to Wisconsin” initiative, a program the Board of Regents recently approved, as a “brain-gain” strategy that will connect future economics to the state. Under the pilot, non-resident students who are children or grandchildren of UW System alumni will receive a 25 percent discount in tuition. In addition, the plan will aim to retain college graduates within the state.

“A number of interesting ideas will come out of that. The more we can succeed with the Return to Wisconsin program, the better we will be to hold the lid on resident tuition,” she said, adding that higher out-of-state enrollments will allow for more faculty hiring.

As Linda Weimer, vice president of University Relations pointed out, newer UW System universities, such as UW-Eau Claire and UW-La Crosse with smaller legacy pools, will probably look to this initiative as a way to retain students for quality, not necessarily for quantity.

With the UW System taking severe budget cuts over the past year, Lyall said financial aid will play an important role in upcoming months.

“How do we make sure that [students have] the same, or hopefully even a better, level of financial aid?” she said, noting that bringing the matter to the legislature can ensure this. “I certainly hope there won’t be anymore budget cuts this biennial. I just think we have to be vigilant about this and make clear that students have paid a price in these cuts.”

With the economy taking a slow, but positive, upswing, Lyall hopes a budget-repair bill will not make more cuts a necessity. If the bill fails to take stage in January, Lyall is confident the UW System can begin to stabilize economic issues for the next year.

“Services have been reduced by budget cuts. It’s time to start building back some of those services,” she said. “The next six months scare me more than tomorrow does.”

Weimer echoed Lyall’s concern, but noted that tuition increases nationwide have been unfairly presented in the public eye.

“Congress and the public and the media tend to talk about tuition increases in terms of percent and not dollars. It’s a tremendous disparity in how this is being represented to the public,” she said. “We need to get on some more pragmatic course.”

Despite these evident financial constraints Lyall nonetheless believes the Board of Regents needs to eventually revisit the issue of salary adjustments for top system executives, a notion that has sparked legislative and student outcries for the past several months.

“As an economist, the market works. And so, the question of salary increases can’t be avoided forever,” she said. “The regents are going to have to have watch and see.”

Although Lyall thinks the “timing is never good” to address salary concerns, she hopes the issue will surface again after the UW System hires two new chancellors, both of whom recently left their positions for higher paying, out-of-state positions.

Weimer noted that despite the controversy concerning the board’s recent behavior on the issue, the UW System has been striving to clue in the public about UW System concerns via the Internet.

“The irony of it all is that we are probably the most open agency in Wisconsin. [There is] enough [available information] to make your eyes glaze over,” she said.

Lyall attributes the relative newness of some of the Regents to the inconsistencies in the Board’s behavior, noting that when Gov. Jim Doyle took office, he appointed about 75 percent of the Regents. However, she believes the Board is beginning to mesh together.

Lyall lastly touched upon matters that have been facing both the state and nation as a whole, such as concealed weapons and NCAA fan behavior.