University of Wisconsin-Madison Names Three Chancellor Finalists; Interim Leader Left Out, New Chancellor Expected in 2027
MADISON, Wisconsin — The Universities of Wisconsin announced three finalists for chancellor of its flagship Madison campus on Thursday, November 5: Radenka Maric of the University of Connecticut, and Rashid Bashir and John Coleman, both of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Interim Chancellor Eric Wilcots is not among the finalists.
The three finalists will appear at public forums next week at Tripp Commons in the UW-Madison union, all starting at 4:30 p.m.: Bashir on Monday, November 9; Coleman on Thursday, November 12; and Maric on Friday, November 13. A new chancellor is expected to start in 2027. Wilcots has served as interim chancellor since May 17, when outgoing Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin left to lead Columbia University.
A letter sent from a University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni advisory board to the president of the UW Board of Regents on November 4 expressed frustration that the interim leader was not selected; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel obtained the letter on November 5. The next chancellor will inherit the turbulence shaking universities across the country: as of February, the university had lost at least $27 million in federal research funding, and nearly 1,000 fewer international students enrolled at UW-Madison in 2026 than in 2025, which also means fewer tuition dollars.
Source: Universities of Wisconsin
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校巴斯科姆堂。Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0。 / Photo: Bascom Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
