06 May UW’s Rebecca Blank on adjusting to COVID-19 realities
UW Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank
These are strange days indeed for all of us, ones that has accelerated trends such as telemedicine and online learning. Nobody knows that more than today’s college administrators, professors, and students, who have made some relatively fast adjustments to social-distancing realities. In this Take Five — actually, Take Four — interview, UW–Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank discusses how her student body is adjusting, and how much she’s worried about the financial damage being done to university departments.
According to the Chancellor: “We’ve already seen impacts across the national higher education landscape, as virtually all campuses have shut down and budgets are crunched from lost revenue. The larger economic pain felt by many families with lost jobs and income may also affect how many students can afford to attend college in the next few years. Eventually, these financial pressures will mean reduced investment in both education and research, which can have a very negative affect on the innovation and entrepreneurship that happens at universities and is a major driver of economies.”