“This (vice chancellor) is the one position in the administration that allows students to communicate on that high a level.”
– Committee member Ben Butz

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Association recently appointed four members to the Search and Screen Committee to find a permanent vice chancellor of the Division of Student Affairs.

The SA formed the committee to aid in the fulfillment of Chancellor Carlos Santiago’s request to fill the position by the start of the fall semester.

The four student board members, who were chosen by the Student Association’s Chair Governing Process, are Neal Michals, Russ Rueden, Samantha Prahl and Ben Butz.

The Student Association considers the vice chancellor of student affairs to be an important position because the Student Affairs Office is where the student body gets to voice its opinions.

“We want someone who will be an advocate for students,” Michals said. “It is important that (the candidate) has the students’ best interest in mind.”

The SA was initially granted two members to the board by the university, but after extensive lobbying, it was granted two additional members in order to ensure its opinion on the best candidate for the job is heard.

The Search and Screen Committee, which is made up of the four Student Association-appointed members and a yet undecided number of faculty members, will start holding meetings in the next couple of weeks in order to start the hiring process.

The university cannot start recruiting candidates for the position until the committee holds its first meeting.

The committee will decide on accepting a set number of applicants, which remains unknown at this time, and then it will start to review the applicants and first judge them on credentials and the timeliness of the candidates.

Once the board verifies the candidates’ credentials, it then begins the interview process. These interviews take place both by telephone and in person.

Once the interviews are completed, the committee will narrow its choices of candidates and finally chose the new vice chancellor by a simple majority vote. The process can take anywhere from a week to six months to complete, Michals said, but the committee hopes to have completed the selection process by this summer.

This is the first time since 2002 that the university has had the ability to hire someone permanently to the position, because former Interim Chancellor Bob Greenstreet was unable to appoint anyone to the job as vice chancellor positions cannot be filled on a permanent basis by an interim chancellor.

While there is an expectation by committee members to have a variety of applicants for the position, there is no preference by any of the student members on whether the position is filled from within the ranks of UWM or from someone outside the campus.

“I really don’t care where they’re from,” Prahl said. “I have an open mind about the whole process.”

Interim Vice Chancellor James Hill has been filling the position since November 2005, when former Interim Vice Chancellor Mary Roggeman resigned after three years of filling the position. Roggeman followed Stanley Battle, the last permanent vice chancellor, after he retired.

Hill, who has been at the university since 1987, held the position of dean of Student Life before being appointed as the interim vice chancellor by Santiago and has been doing a “good job” in the opinion of the student committee members.

It is unknown whether or not Hill will apply for the job on a permanent basis, but it is expected by both committee members and sources from within the Student Affairs Office that he will return to his former position, which is being held on an interim basis by Tom McGinnity. Hill was out of town and unavailable for comment.

The Division of Student Affairs is responsible for recruitment of the student body. It also provides an array of programs and services to orient students to campus life, including recreational and athletic activities for students.

The appointment of a permanent vice chancellor is welcomed relief for the SA, because the university was planning to eliminate the position as little as a year ago, in hopes of making the Division of Student Affairs run more efficiently.

Santiago felt that the division was efficient enough, and therefore decided to spare the position from elimination, SA officials said.

“This (vice chancellor) is the one position in the administration that allows students to communicate on that high a level,” Butz said.

While there are currently no pressing issues in the Division of Student Affairs, some SA members feel that it is of extreme importance that they plan ahead in regards to the new vice chancellor, because with the continued growth of the student body, there are bound to be a lot of new problems.

“It is important that no matter what, the new vice chancellor will keep the best interests of the students in mind,” Michals said.

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