Meet Chancellor Blank
UW–Madison’s new chancellor, Rebecca Blank, has spent the past semester building relationships on and off campus. Most importantly, Blank has met with the students of UW–Madison. She has been excited to see how students themselves have created the incredible sense of community we have here on campus: mentoring, tutoring, serving as allies and more. Your students are a part of that, too.
View a video message to learn more about her background in her own words.
In taking campus’s top leadership position, Blank spoke of two distinct agendas for UW–Madison: providing the next generation with the skills necessary to succeed in the world’s changing economy, and maintaining this university’s position as a leader in innovation and research. She has already focused time and attention on ensuring that the university can attract and retain top faculty with competitive salaries.
A renowned economist — she came to Madison from her position as acting U.S. secretary of commerce — Blank tackles these challenges with a rigorous examination of how to do more with less. Students and staff across campus have already recognized Blank’s drive to enhance what the university already does well. Many parents saw this firsthand when they met the chancellor during Parents’ Weekend, held this past September.
As a parent herself, Blank is seeing the college admissions process from a different perspective this year, as her daughter narrows down her options for study. (Like many teenagers, Blank’s daughter would prefer to attend a school where her mother isn’t the boss.)
During one of her first days in Madison, Blank and her family took a campus tour. Recalling other tours she’d taken as a parent, she was proud of how her new university measured up.
“Here at UW–Madison, I thought they did a better job saying something about what it means to be one of the top public universities in the country,” she wrote in her blog.
You can read more about what the chancellor is up to in her blog, Blank’s Slate, updated with news of her travel and priorities.