Public institution? Regents take UW-Madison chancellor pick behind closed doors

Interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots didn't make the cut. Here's what the record shows on the three finalists who did.

UW-Madison's next chancellor will come from outside the Universities of Wisconsin, and some of the school's most generous alumni aren't happy about it.

A 23-member search committee sent up three finalists, announced Nov. 5: Rashid Bashir, dean of engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; John Coleman, provost at the same school; and Radenka Maric, president of the University of Connecticut.

Missing from the list is Eric Wilcots, the man running the campus right now.

Then-Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced Jan. 25 that she would leave at the end of the academic year to become president of Columbia University. On Feb. 11, then-Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman named Wilcots, the Letters & Science dean, interim chancellor effective May 17. Mnookin took over at Columbia July 1. Wilcots has been on the UW-Madison faculty since 1996.

A special Regent committee met in closed session at the Fluno Center on Tuesday, Nov. 10, and meets there again Friday and Saturday, Nov. 13 and 14, "to conduct interviews and discuss finalists" and "to consider a recommendation to the Board of Regents," according to its meeting notice. The full board makes the hire. No date has been posted for that vote.

Alumni push back

Members of the College of Letters & Science Board of Visitors, an alumni advisory group, objected in writing before the names went public. Their Nov. 4 letter to Regents President Kyle Weatherly expressed "our disappointment, frustration and incredulity" that Wilcots was left off.

"While we disagree, we understand this decision is final," they wrote. They said his exclusion "does not serve the best interests of UW-Madison."

Then they talked money.

The university is starting "a multi-year, multi-billion dollar capital campaign," the letter notes, and "the current membership of the L&S Board of Visitors, for example, has committed over $37 million to the university."

The letter doesn't threaten to pull any of that funding.

Chair Robert Buono and Vice Chair Prashanth Jayachandran hand signed the document on behalf of the group. The Daily Cardinal first reported the letter on Nov. 5.

Weatherly wrote in his reply, he said "we followed the full committee's recommendations" and that confidentiality kept him from discussing "individual candidates or how any particular person was considered." He didn't say whether Wilcots applied.

Bashir and the Chicago building that never went up

Bashir has led the Illinois engineering college since November 2018, according to his CV. He is also vice chancellor for Chicago strategic partnerships, and his candidate profile says he now oversees the Discovery Partners Institute.

That institute was supposed to get a new Chicago headquarters. The University of Illinois System canceled it in 2024. An Aug. 18 state audit counted $37.9 million in state design and construction-related spending on the project through fiscal 2025.

Auditors found those payments properly supported and made no recommendations. They did say thin documentation left the decision to cancel "not overly clear." They also quoted a September 2024 proposal from the engineering dean, a job Bashir held then, warning about risks at the site, including the institute's lack of an intellectual focus. The university told auditors those comments were secondary. It named system President Timothy Killeen as the one who made the call.

Urbana-Champaign took the institute over. On Jan. 12, Bashir named Gene Robinson to run it, pending trustee approval. The university then bought a building at 250 S. Wacker Drive for $23.75 million, closing Feb. 27.

How he handled that reset is the obvious question for him.

He went first in the campus forums, on Monday, Nov. 9. His answers centered on artificial intelligence, free speech and campus safety. "AI needs what I would say a steering wheel, so we can guide it," he said, according to WKOW.

The Badger Herald paraphrased him as saying that because families entrust universities with students' safety, administrative overreach to prevent interpersonal violence is acceptable. Neither outlet reported a question about the Chicago institute.

Coleman knows the place

Coleman is the closest thing to a hometown candidate. He joined UW-Madison's political science faculty in 1992 and chaired the department from 2007 to 2014, his CV shows. He then ran the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts and became Illinois provost in July 2023.

At Minnesota, he got into a fight over a professor's emails.

In a March 1, 2023, letter, Coleman told music professor Karen Painter to communicate professionally, send fewer and shorter emails and limit who received them. He formally reprimanded her June 22 for not following those directions, according to a letter from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE called the restrictions vague, overbroad and unconstitutional.

Minnesota suspended the reprimand and then rescinded it in April 2026 under a new dean, telling Painter she had followed university rules and policies, FIRE says.

He has staked out ground on academic freedom since. Coleman told the Illinois Senate on Oct. 13, 2025, that the university would not take part in the federal "compact for academic excellence" if invited, citing academic freedom and institutional autonomy, according to approved minutes.

Faculty here may want to square those two. Coleman took his turn at Tripp Commons on Thursday.

Maric and the job she already has

Maric became UConn's interim president in February 2022 and got the permanent job that September, according to her CV.

A Connecticut state audit released June 16, 2025, covering fiscal 2022 and 2023, made seven recommendations. Six were repeats.

In a sample of 15 employees, auditors found UConn had not properly approved 1,049.5 of 1,148 hours of comp time. They also found 684 capital assets worth $4.3 million had gone more than a year without an inventory check. Fifty-three hadn't been checked in more than a decade. UConn says it has since resolved 51 of those 53.

Part of that predates her. The audit period started before she became president, and several of the control problems go back years.

The bigger story in Connecticut is whether she stays. Her contract runs through June 30, 2027. Trustees failed to agree on an extension in June, The Connecticut Mirror reported Oct. 29, citing unnamed sources. Board Chairman Dan Toscano said nothing "resembling a vote" on her contract took place, The Daily Campus reported.

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Connecticut House Speaker Matt Ritter, who had been weighing a stint as UConn's interim president, said he would stay speaker.

"My understanding is there won't be a vacancy, so there's nothing to consider," Ritter told the Mirror. A UConn spokesman would confirm only that Maric remains president.

No vacancy?

On Thursday, Kevin Rennie's Daily Ructions blog reported that Toscano had resigned as board chair. We could not independently confirm that by Thursday evening.

As of Thursday evening, Maric had not withdrawn from the Wisconsin search, and UW-Madison's search site still listed her for Friday.

Quiet in Wisconsin

Reaction here has been thin. As of Thursday evening, we found no statement on the finalists from Gov.-elect David Crowley, from lawmakers of either party, from incoming Universities of Wisconsin President Tonjanita Johnson or interim President Renée Wachter, or from the regents beyond the meeting notice.

The Faculty Senate last met Nov. 2, before the names came out, and had nothing on the search on its agenda. It meets again Dec. 7. By then the Regents may announce the new Chancellor.

Associated Students of Madison posted Nov. 7 urging students to "get involved" in the visits. It didn't back anyone.

Connecticut is louder. UConn's faculty union posted a statement Nov. 10 on "the potential for leadership change," saying a transition "provides an opportunity to adjust the direction of the University." It didn't name Maric.

What's next

Maric's forum is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 13, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tripp Commons in Memorial Union. It will not be livestreamed, so if you can't make it to the Madison campus at 4:30 on a Friday, you're out of luck.

The written feedback form on the chancellor search site closes at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, the last day of the Regent committee's closed sessions.