The University of Wisconsin's own Susan Fischer trumped two out-of-state candidates to become the new director of the Office of Student Financial Services, officials announced Tuesday.
Spending more than half of her 20 years of experience in the office serving as associate director and second in command to former director Steve Van Ess, Fischer proved to be the best candidate for the position. She demonstrated, among other attributes, her shared vision with her predecessor and an unparalleled knowledge of UW's various financial situations, officials said.
Vying for the position, Fischer was a finalist with financial specialists from the University of Nebraska and the University of Michigan, but she refuses to take credit from her former competition, whom she considers "long-time colleagues and friends."
"This campus would have done well by any one of us," she said. "I'm just glad it's me."
And while the move may seem as a sort of natural progression for Fischer, she said accomplishing her goals for the office — the first of which is to bring in more need-based grant funding for undergraduates — is going to take a lot of hard work from everyone involved.
"We'll continue [to] maximize our federal and state funds," she said. "But there's just not enough of them."
To bring in more aid for undergraduates, Fischer said the university must seek out other and possibly unconventional means of raising money.
"The goal is to provide students with relief so they can stop worrying about money all the time and start worrying about studying," she said. "[And] I think it's going to involve fundraising and getting up and looking for private money."
Yet the goal is to make a UW education affordable and accessible for students, she said, not necessarily cheap.
"We'll continue to see students taking out a modest amount of debt," she said, "but not crushing debt."
Given the considerable amount of effort and know-how needed to complete that task, Van Ess said Fischer is the right woman for the job.
"She certainly knows financial aid, and it's a complicated business with lots of laws and regulations and rules," he said. "It's very important to have somebody who is aware of compliance and how to stay within the rules and still get the maximum of money to the maximum number of students who are most deserving of it … and I think Susan is strong with that."
Making Fischer even stronger in her new position, she said, is the "dynamite" team of experts she has been working with for years.
"They're excellent people," she said. "It's a fabulous team and I'm just really proud to be a part of it and continue to be part of it."
While the university begins to search for a new assistant director for the office, Fischer will temporarily serve both positions.
Fortunately for her, Van Ess left things in great shape.
"Steve really left a great legacy," she said, explaining that he spearheaded the incorporation of a computer network into the office, allowing financial services to efficiently handle students' affairs with unprecedented ease. "I thank him for that. … I think he did a great job and it takes a while to have a change of that magnitude."
