The Legislative Task Force on UW Restructuring and Operational Flexibilities will meet for the first time on Wednesday, December 7. The meeting will be held from 9 am to 12:30 pm in Room 412 East of the State Capitol.
The meeting will feature a presentation from Dr. Aims McGuiness, a senior associate with the National Center on Higher Education Management Systems. McGuiness specializes in state governance and coordination of higher education systems and has experience in strategic planning and restructuring of higher education systems. McGuiness will focus on three topics:
- the regulation of public higher education;
- how individual states develop goals for their publicly-funded colleges and universities; and
- trends in partnerships between states and their colleges and universities and in the governance and structure of those colleges and universities
The task force was created as part of the 2011-13 state budget (Wisconsin 2011 Act 32). The governor’s original budget proposal would have transformed UW-Madison into a public authority separate from UW System. While the Legislature did not approve the governor’s plan, it did provide certain operational flexibilities to UW-Madison and UW System. Those flexibilities are outlined here. Act 32 also specified that the task force address the following issues:
- whether there is a need to restructure the UW System and, if so, make recommendations as to a new governance structure;
- how UW-Madison employees and all other UW System employees would transition from the state personnel system to the new personnel systems;
- whether tuition flexibility can be extended to UW System while ensuring access and affordability and what role the Legislature should have in establishing tuition rates;
- how compensation plans for UW System employees should be determined in future biennia;
- additional operational flexibilities that could be provided to UW System institutions; and
- how articulation and the transfer of credits between UW institutions could be improved.