MADISON, Wis. (Dec. 15, 2009) – On
Monday, Gov. Jim Doyle vetoed a bill that would have required some members of
the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents to be from certain geographic
areas of the state.
The Board of Regents is an 18-member
body that appoints top officials, sets admission standards, approves university
budgets and determines UW System policies. Fourteen of the board’s members are
appointed by the Governor to seven-year positions. Currently, 10 of these 14
live in Milwaukee or Dane County. Senate Bill 223 would have divided the state
into seven districts and required that at least one member of the board be from
each district.
The original version of this bill was
first introduced in 2003. Over the last two months, many UW System students
across the state rallied around this legislation, holding press conferences to
bring attention to this bill and urging their legislators to vote in favor of
it.
Scott Asbach, University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point student government president, echoes the disappointment shared by many
other students over Doyle’s decision to veto the bill.
“The Student Government Association of
the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, on behalf of the more than 9,000
UWSP students, rejects Governor Jim Doyle’s decision to veto Senate Bill 223,”
Asbach said in a written statement.
“The bill would have brought proper
geographical diversity to the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin
and ensured equal representation for the entire UW System,” he said.
Some schools, like the University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay, passed resolutions to support the bill. According to
student government vice-president Nicholas Vlies, the bill was a critically important
piece of legislation to UWGB and other schools.
“The Green Bay area and northeast
Wisconsin have historically been underrepresented on the Board of Regents and
it seems that this situation is not likely to change now with the vetoing of
the bill,” he said.
United Council, Wisconsin’s statewide student
association, has supported this bill since it was first introduced. United
Council believes passage of this bill is especially important to creating better administrative representation of
the entire UW System. UC is now working with student leaders across the state
to contact the governor’s office to tell him of their disappointment in the
vetoing of the bill.
