As the University of Wisconsin football team begins preparation for the Capitol One Bowl against Auburn University next month, the UW System may have wrestled away one of the Tigers' top administrators in the mean time.
A special regent committee announced Monday the recommendation of David Wilson, currently Auburn's vice president for university outreach and associate provost, to take over as the first chancellor of UW Colleges and UW-Extension.
"I've been at Auburn for 10 years or so, and had numerous opportunities to leave," Wilson said. "This was the perfect fit. I'm coming because of the goodness of the fit."
Wilson's nomination marks the next development in a merger begun by UW System President Kevin Reilly last year. With state support falling, UW has been striving to cut costs at the administrative rather than instructive level.
"[Reilly's] combination of knowing at least one institution intimately and the fact that there were two interim chancellors [led to him recommending] a single chancellor for both institutions," UW System spokesperson Doug Bradley said last month when Wilson was announced as a candidate. "That's one top-paid official that we're eliminating."
Still, both Bradley and Wilson say they are excited about the merger, and remain optimistic the new direction will actually increase efficiency.
"Quite frankly, I was very excited when I was contacted by the search firm and they indicated that under President Reilly's leadership they had proposed to weld the UW-Extension with UW Colleges," Wilson said. "That was the part that really excited me."
UW Colleges comprise the system's 13 two-year institutions, while UW-Extension provides system resources and programs to Wisconsin citizens not directly affiliated with one of the 26 campuses.
"We had good choices, especially given the challenge of having one chancellor doing what two used to," committee chair Regent Danae Davis said. "[Wilson's] background just made him imminently qualified with a fresh approach to take on this challenge."
The Board of Regents is expected to validate the committee's nomination in a vote Friday. Neither Bradley nor Davis could recall any recent precedent of the full board overriding a committee recommendation.
"We're real hopeful that the entire Board of Regents would agree," Davis said. "I would be shocked and amazed if they didn't."
Regent Vice President Mark Bradley, who also served on the ad hoc committee, praised Wilson's expertise in managing complicated budgets, and also cited his experience with filling newly created positions.
"Just about every job that he has had in higher education has been a job that did not exist before," he said. "He feels right at home because he's been through this process several times in his career."
Asked about any reservations about making the move from Alabama to Wisconsin, Wilson downplayed any cultural discrepancies.
"Wisconsin in a lot of ways is like the state of Alabama in that it has three or four urban centers and then the rest of the state is rural," Wilson said. "From that standpoint this will not be a cultural shock at all."
If approved by the regents, Wilson will take office May 1. The other candidates for the position were Irving Pressley McPhail, former chancellor of the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland; Jack Payne, vice president for university extension at Utah State University; and UW-Extension Interim Chancellor Marv Van Kekerix.
Payne, however, removed his name from contention after accepting a higher-paying but lower-ranking position with Iowa State University last week.
"He took a position at Iowa State just last week and [is] making more money and it's not a chancellor position," Doug Bradley said. "This is the environment that we're in."
