University of Washington's Phyllis Wise welcomes challenges, responsibilities in new interim president role
The Seattle Times
October 3, 2010
One of the university’s deans was on the phone.
A rising star in her department was being heavily recruited by another school. Could she count on Phyllis Wise to do whatever it took to get this faculty member to remain at the University of Washington – a bump in salary, better equipment, more funding for graduate-student assistance?
“Absolutely,” Wise recounted later. “We cannot lose our best people.”
Wise became interim president of the UW on Friday, a time when the school, and higher education in general, faces tectonic shifts in the way it is funded and mounting pressure to change.
The UW has seen its core state funding cut by $115 million in the last 15 months, and another round of cuts is in the works. Tuition has gone up by 28 percent in two years and is likely to go higher. Faculty salaries are frozen. Other universities are trying to raid the school’s best professors.
In another era, the interim-president post might have been a seat-warmer until a new president was appointed. But not this time.
“There are some things that can’t wait for a new president,” Wise said. “I really think of myself as president for an interim period of time, and not the interim president – and I think there’s a difference.”
