week. We thank her for her contributions and wish her luck
on her next endeavors. Also in campus news, the Dean of the
UW-Madison School of Engineering has announced he is stepping
down after 11 years in the role. The school has been at the
center of a political storm over the last year, as Republican
legislators held up approval of the new engineering building in
a fight over diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the
University. See "Here& Now" Senior political reporter Zac
Schultz sat down with Ian Robertson to talk about why he's
stepping down now and what the new building means for students
and the state. >> I thought this was a good
time because things are the moment are very positive in the
college. The trajectories are all in the right direction. So
this is a good time. >> Your school is obviously been
in the news a lot in the last year, having to do with the new
building and some of the talk about the building itself
first and what it will mean for the ability to evolve into the
future. What what the education and the research does.
>> Yes. So the new building did take a little bit longer than we
were expecting to get approved. But the good thing is that did
get approved. What's it going to do for the state of Wisconsin?
We're going to be able to take more students, right? There is a
high demand at the moment from students to get an engineering
degree from UW-Madison. We currently have 4800
undergraduates. We're going to grow to at least 5500. That's
going to meet some of the student demand. It's also going
to help us meet demand from industries in the state of
Wisconsin for more engineers. As I talked to the companies,
they're saying, when will you produce more engineers? Because
we want to hire them and they have jobs for them. So the new
building will enable that part. It's also going to allow us to
actually expand our research. Right. We will attract new
faculty with the building. They will bring in new areas and
environmental sustainability. I machine learning, autonomous
that are important to Wisconsin based industries and to the
nation. So change our research portfolio. It's going to allow
actually needed. So I think us to do the growth that's
happening. It'll be good for the these are good things for
>> On the political side, were state.
you surprised when the building became kind of a political
football in the budget? >> Yes. I mean, it took it did
take longer. Right. And so it was a surprise. But if we look
at what really happened during that whole period, the support
we got from companies in Wisconsin, from the people of
Wisconsin, was actually just amazing, right? These weren't
all engineering companies. They weren't all our engineering
alum, it was people. Companies said, we need more engineers.
UW-Madison is a plan to attract more engineering students that
will meet demand. And they actually voiced their support
for the building. So I'd like to just take this opportunity to
thank all of them because I can't thank them all in person.
So this is a great opportunity for me to say thank you for all
of the support that you gave us to get this new building. We
won't disappoint. We will live up to our end of the bargain. We
will produce more engineers and we'll develop great research.
>> Some of the things that the UW was asked to give up or to
change had to do with DEI. You have a vice chancellor for DEI.
You have a very diverse student body within the engineering
school. How do those all factor in together in terms of what the
students felt about some of those sacrifices, our
commitment, the campus commitment to providing an
environment that's inclusive and welcoming for all continues.
>> That's not going to change, right? All of us want to work in
an environment that's that we enjoy working in, that we enjoy
learning in, and it's absolutely essential that we do that here
in the College of Engineering. When I talked to industries,
they tell me that it's important that they hire a diverse
workforce, right. They say that the products that they get at
the end are better if they bring in different perspectives. And
so we need to do the same. The other part, I think that's
important is that engineering is facing a challenge in attracting
more people. We currently have shortages in the number of
engineers that we produce. If I think what's coming with the
chips or semiconductors coming back in, the manufacturing, come
back to the US, the advances in clean energy sustainability,
we're going to need more and more engineers than we can
produce, not only here in Wisconsin, but nationwide. So
one of the challenges I see, and why the hopes, is that we can
get more people excited about being in engineering and saying,
this is a great career path, because I can have an impact on