University of Wisconsin System President Kevin Reilly announced Tuesday he will step down from his position as president to advise the American Council on Education in January 2014 and to return to teaching.
Reilly has served as president since 2004. In his nine-year tenure as president, enrollments increased by 9 percent and transfer students increased by 13 percent, according to Reilly.
“I am proud of UW System’s national leadership in making the case for quality liberal arts and sciences as the essential foundation for career and citizenship in the 21st century,” Reilly said at a press conference Tuesday. “I am happy that we have positioned the university as a core economic growth engine for Wisconsin.”
Board of Regents Vice President Regina Millner, who was in attendance at the press conference, said the UW System flourished during Reilly’s tenure.
“Over the past nine years we have seen expanded enrollment, improved transfer opportunities, developed creative educational offerings, boosted economic outreach and grown research funding,” Millner said.
Millner also praised Reilly for the strong leaders and chancellors in place at all of the UW-Madison institutions.
“Those UW leaders are in place as a result of President Reilly’s efforts,” Millner said. “They represent an important and impressive legacy that will endure for many years.”
In a statement, Gov. Scott Walker acknowledged Reilly’s contributions to the UW System, such as focusing the university’s attention on economic and workforce development and providing leadership to the UW Flexible Option program, a way to increase accessibility to UW-Madison degree and certificate programs for adult and nontraditional students.
But Republicans such as state Senator Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, and Representative John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Reilly’s departure creates a new opportunity for the UW System.
“New leadership will go a long way to re-establishing trust that has eroded over the years,” Darling and Nygren said in the statement.
Both Reilly and Regent President Michael Falbo commented on the vast array of challenges the UW System has faced during Reilly’s tenure, such as the economic recession, political partisanship and an argument over whether the System should remain intact.
Reilly did not mention his recent controversy with the state Legislature and the UW System budget, in which an audit revealed the System had a surplus of nearly $650 million.
Despite the fact that multiple state legislators called for his resignation following the budget controversy, Reilly said he planned his transition back to teaching since the fall of 2012.
“I’ll be 64 by the time I leave this job,” Reilly said. “I’m not ready to retire, but I’d like to do some other things before I am ready to retire, so I would have made this same decision anyway.”
Falbo said he recognized the formidable challenges Reilly faced during his tenure, but he said he will remember how Reilly conquered the challenges.
“Kevin may be stepping down… but what I will most remember is someone who stepped up on so many occasions when it really counted,” Falbo said.
Falbo said in a statement the search for Reilly’s replacement has already begun with plans to name a Regent selection committee and an additional search-and-screen committee in the coming weeks, with the goal of naming a successor by spring of 2014.
“We will search the nation for the best possible candidate to fill this critical position, because it will take an extraordinary individual to follow in President Reilly’s footsteps,” Falbo said.
