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John Wiley is ready to step down.

“126 days,” he said off the tip of his tongue.

Not that he’s counting.

Wiley, 66, will end his seven-year tenure as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at the end of the summer to rejoin the faculty.

In his last interview with The Badger Herald as chancellor, Wiley reflected on the work he accomplished and struggled with over the course of his reign.

But he will be the first to admit that the university’s successes were not achieved by him singlehandedly.

“Here’s something students have a hard time believing or understanding, and that is chancellors really aren’t czars,” Wiley said. “There are very few decisions where I have the final say. … One of the things I get final say on is the appointment of deans and vice chancellors, and I’m very proud of the people who were picked for those roles.”

Wiley was recruited by former chancellor Donna Shalala to serve as dean of the Graduate School in 1989. The team of Shalala, then-provost David Ward and Wiley have led the university in succession for over 20 years.

In 1989, Shalala, Ward and Wiley developed a strategic plan for the university, a plan that serves as one of Wiley’s top accomplishments and one that helped the university “survive” in the 1990s.

“We didn’t have a good way to set priorities, make decisions — and by a good way I mean a scientifically justifiable, rigorous, data-driven process the way businesses had done it,” Wiley said. “Without that, there’s no way we’d be No. 2 in the country today in research and have an improved graduation rate, improved time-to-degree over what we had 20 years ago.”

Throughout his more-than-30 years at UW, Wiley has continually emphasized the importance of research, particularly in today’s era.

Decades ago, some of the nation’s top corporations had strong research divisions. Today, many of those have since disintegrated.

“To the extent that the economy today was born in those industrial research labs, the economy of tomorrow, the one you’re going to live in, is being born in university research labs,” Wiley said. “That part of our mission is very important to an extent that the public at large and elected officials haven’t grasped.”

Wiley will also keep an eye on the East Campus renovation project after he steps down, a project he is particularly proud of and is credited for helping make a reality.

Balancing the books

At the top of the list of challenges the next chancellor faces: dealing with the state’s “fiscal crisis,” Wiley said.

And part of that involves communicating with state lawmakers.

“There were three really problematic legislators that I did have a lot of difficulties, and one or two that sometimes joined with them,” Wiley said. “But the rest of the Legislature, through good times and bad, I had very good relations with all the rest of them.”

Those three “problematic legislators” were Republicans Stephen Nass, Scott Suder and Robin Kreibich.

“I would say that he was a political chancellor,” Suder said of Wiley. “He was unabashed at criticizing the Legislature, and I certainly didn’t agree with a lot of his comments.”

However, when Wiley started as chancellor in 2001, UW-Madison’s in-state tuition sat at just over $4,000. In six years, that figure increased to $6,330.

Wiley says the figure is high but not unacceptable. Through internal calculations — taking into account the average job college graduates obtain and other benefits of obtaining a university diploma — Wiley determined the average value of a UW degree is around $500,000.

“Is $7,000 per year too much to pay for something that’s worth about half a million to you and half a million to the state? Well, probably not,” he said.

Still, Wiley said the state needs to do its part as well.

“I do think we should constantly be thinking about that balance and trying to make sure the state’s paying its fair share, the students and their families paying their fair share and that we have enough financial aid to make sure families who simply cannot pay that get help with need-based scholarships,” he said.

Wiley said the state is not pulling its weight with funding right now, a point to which Suder disagreed.

“The last budget was, I would argue, very generous to UW,” he said. “They received more money than they ever have before, and they continue to authorize more money for salaries for their top officials. I don’t understand how some UW officials continue to argue it’s never enough.”

Regent David Walsh, who previously served as president of the board of regents, said the next chancellor will face the ongoing challenge of wisely spending the university’s valuable resources.

Weathering the storm

Wiley has faced criticism over the years from the state Legislature — the three aforementioned Republicans in particular — regarding wasteful spending.

While Wiley admitted that upon completing an audit, someone would find areas of waste, most of them are “spits in the ocean.”

“Would you find areas where we’re wasting money? Yes, absolutely,” Wiley said. “Would you find areas where you think we’re not spending enough, where we should be spending more? Yes, absolutely. There’d be lots of both, and most of them are judgment calls.”

Suder criticized UW for paying administrators too much and has commonly called for UW to live within their means.

“Sure, they’re always right when they say we have to live within our means, and we try to,” Wiley said. “And they’re right when they say there’s waste and inefficiency. Yes, there is. But it’s very, very tiny, and it’s nowhere near the magnitude that would cope with $10 and $20 and $30 million budget cuts.”

Wiley also offered his two cents on the Associated Students of Madison’s performance this year, urging students to be sympathetic.

“I think student government on this campus needs some serious support from students,” Wiley said. “I think they need to be cut a little slack; it’s a hard job they do. They work hard at it; they take it seriously; they get yelled at.”

With turnout below 10 percent for student elections, Wiley said student ignorance and lack of publicity are both contributing factors to the serious lack of interest.

Overall, though, Wiley said ASM is essential because many important financial decisions on campus need to come from a student voice. Wiley said he always approved all ASM recommendations unless they were illegal.

“They do, for better or worse, represent all students in important ways,” he said. “And I wish more students voted; I wish more students took it seriously. I think we’d be better off if they did.”

But one of the biggest controversies under Wiley came when the university was brought under fire for accusing former vice chancellor Paul Barrows of harassing two female UW employees.

A university committee eventually found no convincing evidence of the harassment.

After beginning legal efforts to clear his name, Barrows settled with the university in June 2007 for $135,000.

Barrows, who is black, charged Wiley with accusations of racism during the ordeal. He told The Badger Herald last year he plans on writing a book detailing his life story, including his take on the ordeal with UW.

Wiley, though, does not think Barrows will actually write it.

“It’s behind all of us, including Paul, and I’d be very surprised if he wrote a book,” Wiley said. “But it would not be on my top 10 list.”

Praise him

As Wiley steps down, officials within the UW System said he leaves a mark that spreads beyond just the Madison campus.

“Not only has he been a very successful leader on the Madison campus, he’s been a leader among all the chancellors,” UW Board of Regents President Mark Bradley said. “He’s been very generous in thinking about how the Madison campus can support the two-year colleges, for example.”

Under Wiley’s watch, UW-Madison has expanded its Connections program, allowing students to attend a two-year UW College, maintain a 2.0 GPA, obtain necessary credits and be automatically enrolled at UW-Madison for their junior year.

“He’s a scientist who, as a leader of all disciplines as chancellor, has had a very healthy appreciation for what that total undergraduate experience is supposed to be about,” Bradley added.

Fundraising has also played a big role in Wiley’s tenure, as the chancellor says he must raise about $1 million each day to keep up.

Bradley said he values Wiley’s appreciation of private funding’s impact on the university.

Walsh said Wiley “had a vision and executed on it.”

“He’s been a great leader: dedicated, understanding and sensitive to significant issues and responding to students,” Walsh said.

Even Suder, who exchanged disagreements with Wiley over the years, called the outgoing chancellor a “tenacious” leader.

“He was formidable in terms of the role he took on for the UW,” Suder said. “I don’t think he had a particularly good relationship with the Legislature as a result.”

The future

Wiley’s departure from Bascom represents the end of the Shalala-Ward-Wiley era. While some may welcome the change, the university has grown considerably in the last two decades.

In the next year, the university will be up for reaccreditation, charging the campus with developing its next 10-year plan.

While Wiley said he will not comment on the chancellor search process itself, he would like to see the next chancellor keep the university on the general track it has been on.

“I don’t believe this is the time in the institution’s history where we need a right angle turn or a U-turn, a dramatic change in direction,” he said. “I think most things are going very, very well.”