Gov. Jim Doyle appointed three new members to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents Tuesday.
Pending approval by the Wisconsin State Legislature, the new regents will assume their positions in the midst of a dire fiscal situation for the UW System.
UW System schools will likely have to raise tuition $250 to $350 each of the four semesters contained in the 2003-’05 state budget cycle in order to cope with $250 million in funding cuts. Republican legislators have said they will not let cuts expand to such heights but admit that severe cuts will be necessary to help fill a $3.2 billion budget chasm.
Eileen Connolly-Keesler and Charles Pruitt will become new regents, along with Beth Ann Richlen, who will become the new student member of the board.
Connolly-Keesler lives in Neenah. She works as the executive director of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation and helps to advise the chancellor of UW-Oshkosh. Connolly-Keesler will start her work as a regent May 15, and her term will last until 2010.
“As a member of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee at UW-Oshkosh, Eileen has developed an understanding and knowledge of the issues facing the UW System,” Doyle said in a statement Tuesday. “Her work as the executive director of the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation has given her a unique perspective on the need for private dollars and scholarships.”
Pruitt is a partner in the AB Data Group, a direct marketing and data processing group, and lives in Shorewood. He had worked on Doyle’s transition staff, advising the governor in the months before he took office.
“Chuck Pruitt has a lifelong commitment to higher education,” Doyle said. “He began his professional career as a college professor and in the last 20 years has helped build a successful Wisconsin business that has employed scores of UW System graduates.”
As the new student regent, Richlen will replace Tommie Jones Jr., who will finish his two-year term May 1. Richlen will graduate from UW-Stevens Point in May as a French and political science major and plans to enroll in the UW Law School in the fall.
“I believe that the voice of the students should be clearly represented on the Board of Regents,” Doyle said. “Students deserve a seat at the table, and I am confident that Beth Ann will make an outstanding contribution.”
Richlen served as president of the UW-Stevens Point Student Government Association in her time at the university.
Doyle had replaced five regents whose terms had not been confirmed by the Legislature shortly after taking office in January, shaping much of what the board would look like going into careful budget deliberations, during which regents say experience is particularly important.
“We try to assimilate new appointees,” Regent President Guy Gottschalk said in January. “The only way to get experience is to get going.”
The regents will adjourn at UW-Stevens Point May 8 and 9, touring the campus before they begin budget deliberations.
