UW To Make Major Hiring Changes

The University of Wisconsin is about to make some big changes in the ways it hires top leaders. At a meeting in Menomonie Thursday, the Board of Regents ratified a Republican state budget requirement to consider non academic personnel for the system’s president and campus chancellors and vice chancellors when those posts open up. State public school Superintendent Tony Evers was the only Regent to vote against the change, calling it a “solution in search of a problem.” The hiring changes will also recruit more candidates from the private sector, reduce the numbers of search committee members from 17 to 10, and release the names only two to three finalists for top U-W positions instead of the current five. Regent Drew Petersen says those candidates might put their current jobs in jeopardy if their names were publicized — and there’s no sense releasing five names since they only have a 20-percent chance of being hired.