On Friday morning, UW-Madison announced Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s appointment to a four-year term on the NCAA Board of Governors as a representative of the Big Ten athletic conference.
The NCAA is governed by legislative bodies and committees who set policies that affect a wide range of matters across collegiate athletics. Its Board of Governors — the highest governance body in the Association — is responsible for ensuring that each division operates consistently with their basic purposes, fundamental policies and general principles.
The Board of Governors is composed of institutional chief executive officers from member schools across the NCAA. As a Big Ten representative, Blank will be responsible for upholding the best interests of not only Wisconsin, but those of all 14 Big Ten schools.
"This is a time of great complexity and challenge for colleges and universities," Blank said. "I look forward to working with my colleagues to address the many important issues affecting our student athletes and our athletic programs."
Her appointment comes a week after she voted for the Big Ten to play football this fall — a decision she made while all undergraduate instruction was online and the two largest residence halls were on lockdown.
“Medical advisors to the Big Ten have produced clear protocols for testing, isolation, and return to play. They also have a protocol to check any athletes who become ill for heart-related problems,” Blank said in a statement. “With these protocols, the health concerns that I had in August have been allayed.”
Following her decision, Blank announced that in-person activity would slowly resume on campus, citing a lower number of COVID cases and a lower positivity rate as her reasoning. She added that the university has also increased the testing capacity on campus. This will allow housing residents to get tested weekly instead bi-weekly and create faster turnaround times for test results.
To date, UW-Madison has reported a total of 2,873 cases of COVID-19.
