UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter was named as the interim president of the UW system on Friday. (Photo courtesy of UW system)
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents president appointed UW-Superior Chancellor Renée Wachter as the interim president of the UW system on Friday, about a month after firing the previous president.
Wachter has served as the 10th chancellor of UW-Superior since 2011, making her the longest-serving chancellor in the system. Effective May 18 she will serve as the UW system interim president.
Board President Amy Bogost said in a statement that Wachter “knows our universities, our communities and the challenges and opportunities facing public higher education in Wisconsin.”
“She has earned the trust and respect of colleagues across the system through steady leadership and a collaborative approach. At a time when continuity, focus, and forward momentum are essential, the Board is confident she understands what must be done to support our universities during this transition,” Bogost said.
Prior to her tenure at UW-Superior, Wachter served as the Dean of the School of Business at Truman State University in Missouri.
The Board of Regents decision to fire Jay Rothman, who had served as president since 2022, on April 7 came as a surprise and led to criticism from Rothman, who said he wasn’t given a reason for the termination, and from Republican lawmakers. Regents said, however, that they were dissatisfied with Rothman’s leadership, especially as he moved too slowly to act on issues including artificial intelligence, and had communicated their concerns with him during his review process.
Bogost said that the next president must “bring the courage, discipline, and forward-looking leadership needed to guide the Universities of Wisconsin through one of the most consequential periods in higher education.”
The Board also announced the 25-member Presidential Search Committee that will conduct a nationwide search for the next permanent president. The last time there was a retirement from the position the search for a UW system president lasted for nearly three years.
The committee will be led by Regent Ashok Rai, and it is expected that a president will be selected later this year.
A group of former University of Wisconsin officials and one lawmaker said better communication is key to building trust among Wisconsinites. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
A group of former University of Wisconsin officials and one lawmaker said better communication is key to building trust among Wisconsinites and overcoming disinvestment in the university as federal and state funding declines.
“The challenges [the higher education system] faces are on multiple fronts: ideological, financial, social professional,” said Michael Bernard-Donals, president of Public Representation Organization of the Faculty Senate (PROFS) and a professor of English and Jewish Studies at UW-Madison. “Much of the public doesn’t trust higher ed anymore or at least doesn’t think it’s worth the price. Costs have increased. The economy is changing, and the job market is shifting and colleges are a useful political punching bag for populists. The compact between the federal government and the universities… has broken down, maybe irreparably, and all of this has made navigating the internal politics of the institution that much harder.”
A 2025 Gallup poll found that confidence in U.S. two- and four-year higher education institutions was up slightly to 42% from a record low of 36% in the previous two years.
During a Wednesday panel discussion featuring a Democratic state representative as well as two former UW employees, much of the conversation centered around how universities and colleges need to improve their communication with Wisconsinites and their political leaders in order to build investment.
Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland), who serves on the Assembly Colleges and Universities committee and formerly taught at Northland College, said that it has been “stunning” to her to see the politicization of universities, but it is important that they figure out how to “change the discourse on what higher ed means to the state.”
Stroud said she sees some lawmakers grappling with knowing the importance of higher education when it comes to jobs and economic development, while also making “politically useful” attacks on higher education.
“Those two things don’t go together very well,” Stroud said.
In recent years, the relationship between the Republican-led Legislature and the UW system has been marked by disagreements over cutting the system’s budget versus investing in it, debates over DEI and the First Amendment and most recently, the firing of the UW System President Jay Rothman.
Raymond Taffora, emeritus vice chancellor for legal affairs at UW-Madison and former chief legal counsel for Gov. Tommy Thompson, listed the issues that he views as most affecting higher education including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the cuts to federal funding that institutions are facing, changes to student visas due to the Trump administration, concerns about freedom of speech and academic freedom and uncertainty over changes in leadership.
Addressing the recent tumult over the Rothman firing, Taffora questioned “how could the Board of Regents… decide to remove the president of the university and not designate an interim president of the system?” After the firing, the regents announced that Chris Patton, UW’s vice president for university relations, would serve as acting executive-in-charge prior to the appointment of interim president.
“It’s not the way to lead a university,” Taffora said.
Greg Summers, an employee of the Milwaukee-based marketing agency BVK and emeritus provost at UW-Stevens Point, said part of the challenge for colleges is that while colleges do well communicating internally, communication with the general public could be better.
“Lots of colleges do a really good job communicating with their stakeholders, but that communication is very narrow. It tends to be very transactional in nature,” Summers said. “Institutions like to talk about themselves. They like to talk about recruitment — getting students to enroll at those institutions, because that’s incredibly financially important. They also talk a lot about getting donors to donate to their campuses, but there’s not a lot of conversation as an industry about the public common good that higher ed brings to American life.”
Summers said the field of higher education needs to come up with a strategy to speak to the American public with one voice. He said that is the goal of his ad agency’s campaign called “Why College Matters.” It is a free public service campaign, he said, that any college and university can use.
“The campaign that we have created we think resonates with exactly the stakeholders that we need to reach: rural Americans, people without college degrees and political conservatives,” Summer said, adding that those groups have been among the most skeptical of higher education in the last 10 or 15 years.
Summers said the campaign gets at the idea of communicating better with Americans about why faculty research matters to them.
“Higher ed cannot solve its problems and its trust issues with communication alone. That’s absolutely true, but higher ed has a real communication problem and has to get outside of its usual bubble and usual audience and to talk to people in different ways about the value that they bring to American life,” Summers said.
Stroud, noting her prior research on concealed carry and her job as a Democratic lawmaker, said she understands how difficult it is to have conversations that don’t become partisan and divisive.
“I’m just a partisan hack now in many people’s minds. They’re just completely dismissive of the evidence on gun violence… It’s going to be challenging to figure out how to enter into these conversations without being seen as being reduced to just partisan hackery,” Stroud said, adding that walking that line is essential for these conversations.
Taffora said UW faculty and staff could improve on putting their expertise to use out in the state and living out the “Wisconsin Idea.” He brought up Walter Dickey, a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin Law School who also served as the Wisconsin Department of Corrections secretary under former Gov. Tony Earl, as an example.
“There was a time when the University of Wisconsin faculty were not only noted for their expertise, but their expertise was deployed,” Taffora said. “The best way to showcase expertise is… to get busy and to lend your expertise.”
Taffora said the showcasing needs to extend to lawmakers and decision makers and it could be beneficial for the UW system to further expand its lobbying efforts.
“If that was a private company, you’d have batteries of lobbyists that would descend on the Legislature to tell stories. Interacting with decision-makers is key” Taffora said. “The story is a good one to tell, but it has to be told with facts and it has to be told with a degree of humility, not condescension.”
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the name of the college that Rep. Angela Stroud taught at.
Evers signed a bill that legalizes online sports betting in Wisconsin. Evers delivers his 2026 State of the State address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers signed bills into law this week that will legalize sports betting, provide funding to the University of Wisconsin system to help student athletes get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness as well as measures that address internet crimes against children.
AB 601, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 247, will legalize online sports betting in the state. This will be an expansion of access to sports betting, which has been legal in Wisconsin since 2021, but only in person at tribal casinos.
Following a legal framework first used in Florida, the law will allow for the servers that manage the bets to be housed on tribal land. The law was designed this way because the Wisconsin constitution requires that any legal gambling be managed by the state’s federally recognized Native American tribes.
The bill faced a complicated path through the state Legislature. At first it sped through the hearing process, only to be pulled from the Assembly floor calendar. It finally received a vote about three months after it passed committee. When it passed the Senate in a 21-12 vote, with some opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, one Republican senator said the bill would be the reason Republicans lose their majority in this year’s midterm elections. The bill also faced opposition from lobbying groups representing the country’s largest online sportsbooks.
Evers said he signed the bill because it is his obligation to “always to respect the sovereignty of Tribal Nations in Wisconsin,” and because it will provide an opportunity to put revenue paid into the state into mental health programs and efforts to combat the opioid crisis. However, he said, he also had “reservations” about signing the bill.
“This legislation is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one,” Evers said in a statement. “The real work begins today.”
Online sports betting will not become immediately available since the tribes and the state will need to renegotiate their gaming compacts. The governor is tasked with the responsibility of negotiating compacts with the tribes under the Wisconsin Constitution. A new agreement would then need approval from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Before the bill passed the Legislature, Evers had expressed concerns about getting support from all of the tribes.
All 11 tribes then signed a letter saying that each was on board with the legislation, according to WisPolitics.
“Each of the 11 Tribes must now work diligently — and together — to shape the future of sports betting in Wisconsin,” Evers said. “What I will not accept is a plan that fractures this opportunity into unequal pieces, allowing some Tribes to reap great benefits while leaving only crumbs for others. An approach that exacerbates long-standing inequalities among Tribal Nations is not good for Wisconsinites or Wisconsin.”
Wisconsin is the 33rd state to legalize online or mobile sports betting since a 2018 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1992 federal law that had barred betting on football, basketball, baseball and other sports in most states.
“A joint venture — with each Tribe contributing, and each Tribe benefiting in equal shares — is gaining traction in these discussions, and I strongly support pursuing this or a similar model,” Evers said in his statement. “This is an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of past compact amendments that left some Tribes and their members in poverty while only lifting up a few.”
Student athlete name, image and likeness
Evers also signed a bill this week to help University of Wisconsin student athletes in getting paid for the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) and to provide the UW system with funds so it can help provide NIL opportunities to those athletes.
AB 1034, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 203, provides $14.6 million annually in state funds to go towards debt service for the costs of UW-Madison’s athletic facilities, $200,000 for the UW–Milwaukee Klotsche Center and $200,000 for the UW-Green Bay soccer complex. Providing the state funds is meant to free up other funds so the UW can provide students with opportunities for NIL agreements. The bill passed with nearly unanimous support in the Assembly with a 95-1 vote, but in the Senate the margin was much closer with a 17-16 vote.
Evers partially vetoed the bill to remove language related to the funds going to “maintenance costs” saying he wanted to allow greater flexibility in how the UW system can use the funds.
“I object to the potential confusion created by referring to ‘maintenance,’ and my partial veto will better reflect the intent that the funding alleviate existing debt service. I also object to how this bill unnecessarily restricts the use of funds appropriated for athletic facilities within the University of Wisconsin System,” Evers wrote in his veto message. “I believe that greater flexibility is necessary to ensure this funding can be used effectively and allow the system to maximize the state’s investment.”
The law codifies some policies that UW-Madison and other campuses already have in state law, including prohibiting NIL contracts that conflict with school policies and providing money in exchange for athletic performance, as well as those that require student athletes to endorse alcoholic beverages, gambling, banned athletic substances or illegal activities or substances. It also includes a requirement that student athletes disclose third-party NIL deals they enter.
UW schools are also going to be able to contract with organizations that can help student athletes find NIL opportunities.
The law also includes language exempting records related to the “generation, deployment, or allocation of revenue generated by an intercollegiate athletic program” from the state’s open records law in an effort to “protect competitive interests and student privacy.” Open records advocates expressed concerns about the provision as the bill was debated. UW representatives said the provision would only be used to clarify what is already the UW’s existing practice of denying access to student athlete NIL agreements and certain university records that are related to NIL strategy, allocation, revenue generation.
Addressing internet crimes against children
Evers signed four bills into law to help combat internet crimes against children.
The laws build on previous efforts to address online crimes affecting children. Last year Wisconsin passed a law that defined “sextortion” as a crime. Lawmakers started working on that legislation after 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn from Kronenwetter, a village outside of Wausau, died by suicide after being targeted online by a perpetrator who convinced him to share nude photos of himself and told him that he needed to send money or face major consequences. He suffered through hours of threats and was coerced into sending money before his death.
AB 923, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 215, will allow for victims of a sexual extortion to sue their perpetrator for damages including for emotional distress, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and investigation costs. In the case that someone died by suicide due to sexual extortion, a victim’s family would be able to file a wrongful death suit.
Sexual extortion has become a growing threat in the U.S. in recent years. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors that included at least 12,600 victims, mostly boys, and led to at least 20 suicides.
The other bills give the DOJ additional resources and tools to address internet crimes against children.
AB 957, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 216, provides $400,000 in each year of the 2025-27 state budget to the state Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce laws against internet crimes against children and AB 958, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 217, provides four new DOJ positions that will focus on internet crimes against children.
AB 964, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 21, gives the attorney general administrative subpoena authority in the case of a sextortion crime if the victim was a child at the time of the violation.
AB 966, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 219, will require the DOJ to conduct a children’s online digital safety awareness campaign and provide materials on digital safety awareness to schools for free.
Other bills Evers took action on
AB 1027 was vetoed. It would have instructed the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to turn over data related to SNAP to the Department of Health Services to provide to the U.S. Department of Agriculture information. Evers said in his veto message that he objected “to sharing Wisconsinites’ most sensitive personal data, including their Social Security numbers, without the federal government having to meaningfully demonstrate how Wisconsinites’ personal data will be appropriately secured, will not be able to be accessed by broad swaths of federal employees, and will not be shared inappropriately both within and outside of the federal government.”
AB 759, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 240, was signed into law. It will make Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status holders in Wisconsin eligible to apply for occupational licenses.
AB 373, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 241, was signed into law. It creates a $2,000 nonrefundable income tax credit for parents of a stillborn child. The credit is meant to provide financial relief to help parents with expenses associated with the stillbirth.
AB 918, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 202, makes adoption a required topic to be covered for school districts that choose to offer human growth and development instruction, also known as sex education. Wisconsin school districts are not required to offer human growth and development instruction.
SB 782, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 245, extends a penalty for falsely texting 911 to report an emergency. Violators could face fines between $100 and $600 and/or up to 90 days in jail for a first offense. A subsequent offense committed within four years of the first would be a Class H felony.
Regent President Amy Bogost and Regent Timothy Nixon said that Rothman had been told about the changes the regents wanted to see. Their decision to let him go, they said, was not made lightly and came after he failed to make those changes. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
A state Senate committee put off taking action despite threats from lawmakers to fire unconfirmed members of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents after two regents shared more details Thursday about the decision to fire former UW President Jay Rothman.
While the regents were legally prevented from sharing specific details about the firing, they said, they described their sense that Rothman moved too slowly to act on pressing issues including developing a UW policy on artificial intelligence.
The UW Board of Regents voted unanimously in a virtual meeting Tuesday to fire Rothman, who had refused to leave his position voluntarily. The decision took effect immediately and the the search for the next leader has already begun. Rothman, who will get six months of severance pay, told the Associated Press after the vote that he was “blindsided” by the ousting but wasn’t going to challenge it.
Republican lawmakers had come to the defense of Rothman after the news broke about the effort to oust him. Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) said lawmakers should reject the regents’ nomination if they fired Rothman without cause. The Senate Technical Colleges and Universities committee quickly scheduled Thursday’s public hearing and executive session on the consideration of the nominations of the ten unconfirmed Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees, including Bogost and Nixon.
Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield) said at the start of Thursday’s meeting that the decision required an explanation.
“Transparency is the foundation of public trust, and when decisions are made without explained justification, it further erodes confidence, not just to the Board of Regents, but in the institution itself,” Hutton said, adding that lawmakers could provide oversight of state entities. “We are faced with a sudden leadership shake-up at risk, creating instability at a time when the chancellor turnover is high and our flagship university is losing its CEO.”
Regent President Amy Bogost and Regent Timothy Nixon said that Rothman had been told about the changes the regents wanted to see. Their decision to let him go, they said, was not made lightly and came after he failed to make those changes. They also said that his decision to take his complaints public was harmful to the UW system.
Bogost has served on the Board for the last six years, including as president since 2024. Nixon has served as a regent for the last two years. Neither has received a confirmation hearing, which has become standard procedure for the Republican-led Senate, which has left most Evers appointees unconfirmed.
Until the meeting, the regents hadn’t given any additional details about the decision to fire Rothman, other than that the decision came after an annual review was conducted by Bogost and that Rothman was “not without notice” and the process was not “sudden.”
Evers stood behind the regents’ decision in a statement released during the meeting, saying the choice was their and that they decided to make a leadership change, “nothing more, nothing less.”
“Republican lawmakers should resist their temptation to turn this into a political conversation, because it isn’t one,” Evers said. “The UW Board of Regents is not supposed to be an extension of any politician or political party. The Regents are responsible for doing what’s best for our UW System, and they should be able to do their jobs without political interference from elected officials.”
Evers also warned it would be a “mistake” if the lawmakers used it as an opportunity to fire people and that that would “jeopardize our continued bipartisan work this session.”
“It’s pretty simple: I trust that the Regents are doing what is best for students, faculty, staff, and our UW System — lawmakers should, too.”
At the start of the hearing, Bogost told lawmakers that she would be as transparent with them as she legally could.
“President Rothman knows exactly what he is doing. He is a sophisticated professional who understands that personnel matters are confidential,” Bogost said. “The confidentiality surrounding his evaluation was not arbitrary… It is what law requires and is what our obligation is to these universities, and yet, President Rothman, who understands all of this, has chosen to use that constraint as a shield — making public statements, he knows I cannot deny, and framing a narrative he knows I cannot correct.”
Rothman was a Milwaukee lawyer and CEO of the law firm Foley and Lardner before being chosen to serve as the UW president in 2022.
Bogost told lawmakers that she would also be willing to walk the committee through the details of the conversations held in closed session with Rothman and the decision to fire Rothman if he waived his confidentiality.
Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) asked why Bogost thought he hadn’t waived his confidentiality.
“I believe that his objective is to be able to get his narrative out and be one-sided…He knows the truth, and he understands what this is all about, and we were hoping that he would move on,” Bogost said. “To do the media circuit that he’s on denigrates our wonderful universities, and that makes me really sad, because I know that he worked tirelessly for the universities, and I really was hoping to celebrate his past accomplishments… it’s unfortunate that he’s taking that path.”
Before firing Rothman, the regents had offered him the opportunity to resign. Rothman refused, saying he hadn’t been given clear reasoning for his firing and that he thought he had accomplished a lot during his tenure as president.
Nixon also said offering at-will employees the option to leave voluntarily is standard procedure within the UW system and in private businesses. As an example, he noted former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who served as interim president of the system between 2020 and 2022 and voluntarily stepped down from the position. He also noted James Langdon, who, according to WisPolitics, wrote in an email that Rothman fired him in a similar way from his position as vice president of administration.
Nixon added that the same practice applies to corporate CEOs, who are routinely let go by companies that don’t want to harm their brands. “You try not to have these public blow-ups, alright, and so nothing here in my mind [is] unusual, and not only that, it follows UW practice.”
In a statement, Rothman said his recent evaluation from Bogost was “overwhelmingly positive.” However, during the hearing, Bogost said that when giving reviews it is typical to “give at least four positives to every negative,” which is what happened with Rothman.
“He was very disheartened by those… I was surprised. These were things that we tried to work on. It was not sudden,” Bogost said. “Mr. Rothman knows that it was ongoing situations that we had many discussions with him about.”
Bogost said there is not an evaluation document, but that she took notes and delivered the evaluation in person to Rothman.
Bogost said Rothman was the right person to lead the UW system as it sought to deal with a tough financial and operational situation. During his time as president, Rothman oversaw the “right-sizing” of campus budgets and the closure of campuses. Nixon said when it comes to other accomplishments Rothman has touted, he is “a bit like the rooster crowing and then taking credit for the sunrise after.”
As the UW system is addressing other pressing issues, the regents said Rothman was too slow to act.
Nixon noted that U.S. News and World Report ranked the 50 most innovative universities in the U.S., and the only Wisconsin school on the list was Marquette University.
“Thank God, one higher education institution in the state has made the list,” Nixon said. “Change is not Mr. Rothman’s strong suit, yet change is what we desperately need.”
Nixon said there was a “lack of urgency” coming from Rothman, adding that coming from a law background he tends to move deliberately to ensure that every i is dotted and every t is crossed.
As an example, Nixon said the regents started asking for a system-wide policy on artificial intelligence in November, but they still had not received one.
“We can’t take a year and six months to decide and think about every single issue. This is no different than moving on to a new quarterback — no matter what you thought of the previous quarterback or what they did,” Nixon said.
Nixon said he had also spoken with Rothman about reassigning some of the over 500 employees who work for the UW system administration to campuses, but there had not been changes.
Sen. Rachael Cabral Guevara (R-Fox Crossing) thanked Nixon for giving the committee some concrete reasons for its decision rather than staying in the “gray zone.”
The regents said that the timing of the decision was partly the result of state budget negotiations and the implementation of the state budget. In the most recent state budget, the UW system received a boost in state funding, which came as a result of negotiations between Evers, Democratic and Republican lawmakers and advocacy efforts from UW stakeholders. Republican lawmakers had initially sought a cut to the UW budget.
At the end of Thursday’s hearing, the committee delayed its vote on whether to recommend confirming the nominees.
Hutton told reporters afterwards that there was more information the senators needed to consider and it would have been “premature” to vote. He said that he wants to see more documents related to Rothman’s evaluation and hear from more of the regents.
“Based on some of the information we requested from the board president, really thought that was beneficial to receive that information, let the committee go through that a little bit more, maybe ask some additional questions before we go to exec[utive session],” Hutton said, adding that Bogost was “very willing” and “cooperative” when it came to providing information.
Hutton said that there would need to be a conversation with the Republican caucus leadership on whether the full Senate, which has adjourned for regular session work, will come back to take a long-delayed vote on the regents’ nominations.
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