UWM Chancellor Finalist Mone Highlights Research Mission

It is clear that Mark Mone will push research as a primary agenda at UW-Milwaukee, if he continues on as UWM’s chancellor.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents opened the floor to faculty, staff, community members, and students on campus Monday when Interim UWM Chancellor Mone presented his views about challenges for research universities.  He cited places where UWM has succeeded and also missed in its quest to become a top tier research university, and he outlined how he wants to push UWM to the top.

Mone also stressed the need to increase “the quality of the educational experience… the classroom experience” for students.  He said the university needs to ensure “higher retention, higher graduation rates, giving students opportunities in whatever career they choose, additional graduate studies or other activities that they’ll pursue in university education, and then enrollment growth will come in doing those things.”

In a 45-minute presentation, Mone, one of three finalists to replace Chancellor Michael Lovell, outlined the challenges UWM faces, the necessary actions the university should take and what he sees as the next steps to enable success for the campus.

“How courageous are we?” Mone said. “How unified? How strong are our convictions?”

He says these are pivotal questions in what he calls one of the most trying times in UWM’s history.

Mone was named the interim chancellor at the UWM in late April after Lovell vacated the position for Marquette University. Prior to holding this position, Mone has been involved with the UWM campus community for 25 years: He has taught in the Lubar School of Business, served as an associate dean for Executive Education and Business Engagement, and worked as the Chancellor’s Designee for Strategic Planning and Campus Climate.

After Lovell left, a Search and Screen Committee was formed at UWM to select finalists to fill the post. Mark Schwartz, the chair of the University Committee, also headed up this project; three candidates were chosen from across the region. They are Mone, Gail Hackett and William “Mike” Sherman. Each candidate will participate in a public forum to share their vision for the university and answer questions from the campus community.  Mone’s forum was first.

The Wisconsin Room was filled to standing room only for Mone’s public forum, but with a packed room of faculty, staff and community members, there seemed to be no students in sight.

“I feel like I’ve seen some newsletters, but I honestly didn’t read them,” Olivia DeBaker, a fourth-year university student, said.

But those in the campus community who did attend had a unique opportunity to be part of the interview process for a new chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. A lengthy presentation by Mone was followed by questions he then answered from the campus community.

“I thought that he did a great job presenting what he’s been able to accomplish so far as interim chancellor,” Tim Danielson, the associate vice chancellor for human resources at UWM, said. “As well as his vision for (how) the future would be, how he would continue to affect initiatives that he’s launched already and what he might do to enhance things even more.”

Danielson added that UWM needs someone who will stick around.

“I think we want a leader who really cares about the institution,who’s prepared to make a strong commitment to UWM, and who really believes in UWM and its mission that it’s forwarded to this point in both being a top research institution and being an access institution,” Danielson said.

Others want a chancellor involved with students.

“I think one of the most important things for me is how the chancellor sees himself a part of student life, not just as someone who leads the university, someone who campaigns for the university,” Monique Liston, the interim assistant director at the Women’s Resource Center at UWM, said, “but someone who actually has an intention of engaging students and making sure their experience is worthwhile on campus.”

The final two candidates will be featured in public forums next week. Hackett, the provost and executive vice chancellor in academic affairs at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, will give her presentation on Dec. 1. Sherman, the senior vice president, provost and chief operating officer at the University of Akron, will give his on Dec. 3.