Mark Mone took the reins at UW-Milwaukee when Barack Obama was president and Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy” was topping the charts in 2014.
A lot has changed since then.
Over Mone’s decade in leadership, he’s addressed a pandemic and faced declining enrollment. He’s guided UWM to achieve top status as a research university, and drawn criticism over his handling of campus protests.
After 11 years, Mone will step down this summer. He’ll be succeeded by Dr. Thomas Gibson, who most recently led UW-Stevens Point.
Mone spoke with WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Katherine Kokal: You've been the Chancellor at UWM since 2014. Something that stands out to me, as an education reporter, is just how much higher education has changed since you took the job. What changes have you seen and how have you approached them?
Mark Mone: Well, I think one is how much more focus today students have on careers. They continue to be very full of grit and persistence. They've had some headwinds that have changed because of COVID and what that's done to a lot of the academic preparedness. So students today, I think, are more stressed. There's more financial uncertainty. And so we've really tried to respond by raising more dollars for scholarships, providing more support on our campus, and being as empathetic as possible. This is a changed world, and the students are different. The employment situation, frankly, a lot of the things in the world, are different.
I think folks are a little more transactional, not all. They're wonderful, a lot of incredible energy, optimism. They're going to change the world. But at the same time, they're very much looking for careers. Very much looking for, whether it's in healthcare, manufacturing, in the arts, you name it, you know a lot of our students are thinking ahead in a better way. I think, all the way around, challenges, yes. But a lot of reasons for optimism. This truly is our future in terms of these incredible students that graduate.
Now against that backdrop, let me say that during my time as chancellor, in part because of increased graduation rates, we have kept steady 5,300 graduates per year going into the labor market. And most of those students stay in Wisconsin. It's a really powerful thing. I can tell you this last year it actually edged up close to 5,500. We really had a banner year. One of our biggest. So we're continuing to graduate highly qualified talent and majority of that talent, north of 95%, has a job or goes onto graduate school within three or six months of graduation. It's very powerful, and so we're really proud of that in terms of that stickiness, having our students stay in this area.
I'm glad you mentioned the workforce because UWM is closing some of its programs, right? Atmospheric sciences, material sciences. How do you see those decisions affecting the college and our workforce long term?
We'll continue to do two things. One is we'll look at projected demand in areas, along with the enrollment side. We're going to continue to look at the programs where there's demand, where there's growth opportunities.
The second piece of this ,to me, what is the right thing to do in terms of stewarding resources that are state, student tuition dollars, and our campus dollars? It only makes sense for us to, in a world of contraction where we have to adjust our footprint, to recognize the realities of fewer students and tighter budgets. What is the right thing to do? It simply makes no sense when we can allocate or reallocate resources into more growth-oriented areas where there is student and employer demand.
How do you hope your successor, Dr. Thomas Gibson, handles those issues?
Mark Mone: I think that Thomas Gibson is going to be very strategic. I think he's going to look similar to how we've looked at things in terms of, what are current and projected demands both from the student enrollment side as well as what are employer needs? How do we have alignment and continue to go down that path?
And then Tom brings something that I think is going to be very beneficial. He has a background in education. That's where his degree is, and he's very focused on student success. So I think we're going to see a tremendous focus on that with his chancellorship and a closeness and nearness to students that will be wonderful.
I want to pivot a little bit to some of the issues of the last year of your tenure. I covered the revocation of visas from international students and recent UWM grads this spring. Those revocations were ultimately reversed. But your administration was criticized for not standing up enough for those students and grads, according to some of the student advocates. Do you think you should have done more in those situations? How were you involved?
One of the things students may not be aware of, but we've certainly tried to get the word out, is how we have worked with our congressional delegation. We've worked with our (UW) system administration and have worked very closely hand-in-hand in a coordinated manner to try to protect our students.
I don't know of many universities in this country that have stood up and tried to change federal policy or law around those issues. Our work has been working directly with Congress, the representatives that we have, building cases for advocacy through different letters and correspondence with individuals who can speak on behalf of that.
We also have had our Center for International Education that has done an awful lot of work in support of students and communicating with them exactly where things are at. So I think that that in this role, you can always be criticized. But sometimes it's simply folks not being as aware of the types of things that we're doing and making sure that we're really working closely with where there's even more power. Which is with our (UW) system administration to be able to work directly with Congress and other governmental bodies.
There was so little information coming from the federal government to students, to universities, and so certainly a confusing time and one that is going to continue to impact enrollment. Both in Wisconsin and outside.
Even with the revocation being reversed, you have questions in folks’ minds. International students, understandably. If you were a parent, would you feel comfortable sending your your family member, your son, daughter or friend (of) the family to places where there may be that type of change in the offering?
So we're seeing our projected international enrollment(s) are down, and we don't know how far down they will go. It will really be a matter of what happens this summer. That's also one of the reasons why, when you talk about being really a firebrand, and going out and saying ‘this has to happen’ or ‘this shouldn't happen,’ it’s too early to tell on some of these actions. We simply don't know at this point. So, we're really trying to keep our responses appropriate to the situation that we do know about versus those that we can only speculate. That doesn't seem to help matters.
Speaking of coming out and making a statement, I also wanted to ask about your how your administration handled the Pro-Palestine encampments and the protests against Israel's war in Gaza. It sounded like you were being pulled in many different directions at the time, but now, with a little bit of retrospective, would you have done anything?
A lot of folks don't understand what you just said about all the different pressures that were there. What we knew at the time, and having the advice of law enforcement at every turn, both at the local, at the state, and federal levels. The guidance that we had was what we were following. And with the peaceful protests and then seeing what was happening in terms of the injuries and the violence that was being perpetrated, we were advised and we followed the perspective of finding a peaceful way to end the encampment. So that's the path that we went down.
It's incredibly divisive. It’s incredibly polarizing. The issues that come to me, and frankly leadership in higher education, and you know whether you're in Madison or Milwaukee or Portland or Denver, you know, urban environments are going to have more community engagement around these issues. So you've got an array of significant issues. How did we handle COVID? There are criticisms of that. There are fans of that. How have we handled the biggest budget cuts in the history of the state of Wisconsin? Again, critics, fans. The enrollment challenges. The geopolitical, you know, there are so many issues. And this was a significant one, just like some of the decisions around programmatic closures or when we've had to shutter some campus operations. These are incredibly difficult situations and there's no right answer. And certainly, you have different views, different perspectives. So that's how I view that situation.
You're returning to your teaching role at the school of business. How will your approach to teaching be different after so long as chancellor?
I think my perspectives are going to be enriched and really magnified because of the experiences that I've had in this role. I came into higher education with a decade of experience in industry and I think that gave me a great way to be able to bring actual experiences in. And then for 17 years., I’ve created a lot of executive education and got involved with a lot of corporate, a lot of healthcare, a lot of nonprofit work. So I'll look forward to sharpening my tools and really being able to go back in, and make a great difference in the lives (of students), and hopefully in the community, as we continue to find ways to make a meaningful impact.
I firmly believe education is the great equalizer. It's a tool and resource that changes not only individuals’ lives, but their families and neighborhoods, and ultimately communities and well beyond. So I'm really excited about it, and I look forward to finding ways to continue to strengthen UW-Milwaukee and, frankly, all of K-12 and higher education across the region.
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WUWM is a service of UW-Milwaukee.
Katherine Kokal is the education reporter at 89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee's NPR. Have a question about schools or an education story idea? You can reach her at kokal@uwm.edu
