Gov. Tony Evers announced the appointment of three regents — Jim Kreuser, Evan Brenkus and Joan Prince — to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents Tuesday afternoon.
The UW Board of Regents is responsible for establishing UW System rules and policies, making chancellor appointments and approving university budgets, among other duties.
Kreuser is a former Kenosha county executive and served as a Democratic representative for Kenosha in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1993 to 2008. He received a bachelor’s degree from UW-Parkside in 1983 and went on to complete a master’s degree in public administration at the school in 1986.
“There is no limit to what our communities and our state are capable of when the UW System is strong,” Kreuser said in a statement Tuesday. “This appointment is an opportunity for me to continue to give back to my community and my state in this volunteer position while adding value to the UW System to meet future needs.”
Brenkus is a First Nations studies and mathematics student at UW-Green Bay and a member of the Oneida Nation. He is involved in UW-Green Bay’s Student Government Association, Intertribal Student Council and mathematics club, according to the governor’s office.
State law reserves two Board of Regents seats for UW System undergraduates. Brenkus will serve as one of two undergraduate student regents alongside Jennifer Staton, an applied health sciences student at UW-Parkside.
“I have been working to make our campus and community better, and I look forward to working with my fellow regents and students across the state to do the same for the entire UW System,” Brenkus said in a statement Tuesday.
Prince was appointed in February to fill the vacancy of former Regent Tracey Klein. She served as vice chancellor of UW-Milwaukee from 2000 until 2021, when she retired. In her role, Prince led initiatives for anti-bias training and “advancing historically underrepresented students,” according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.
Evers’ appointments come after the Board of Regents approved a 4% tuition increase for UW-Madison in-state undergraduate students, the first tuition increase in over a decade.
Liam Beran is the former campus news editor for The Daily Cardinal and a third-year English major. He has written in-depth on higher-education issues and covered state news. He is a now a summer LGBTQ+ news fellow with The Nation. Follow him on Twitter at @liampberan.
