UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone will step down at the end of the 2024-25 school year, ending an 11-year tenure in the university’s top post, he announced in a statement on Wednesday.
The final five years of his tenure have been some of the most eventful in the university’s 68-year history.
Just two months ago, Mone negotiated a controversial deal with pro-Palestinian protesters after a two-week encampment outside Mitchell Hall. The encampment violated state rules by camping on campus property.
Mone’s response to the protests drew criticism from Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman.
“I am disappointed by the course taken by UW-Milwaukee,” began Rothman in a post on X, “And I am continuing to assess the decision-making process that led to this result.”
The UW-Milwaukee chancellor later reassessed his approach and issued an apology.
Enrollment at the university dropped 19% during his tenure — significantly higher than the nationwide enrollment drop of 6.3% during that time, per EducationData.org.
The drop in enrollment coincided with the closing of UW-Milwaukee’s two satellite campuses. UW-Milwaukee at Washington County closed at the end of last school year, while UW-Milwaukee at Waukesha will close its doors next spring.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann said that the satellite campuses were unsustainable in a statement released on Wednesday.
“The chancellor was faced with an impossible situation,” said Schoemann. “Declining enrollment demographics and a fiscally unsustainable model for the branch campuses converged, yet he continually listened and earnestly examined options to provide higher education opportunities.”
The 65-year-old Mone signed agreements with Moraine Park Technical College and Waukesha County Technical College to give students the option to seamlessly transfer into UW-Milwaukee from the two-year institutions.
Early in his tenure, the university was elevated to R1 status in 2015, the top level of research university in the United States. UW-Milwaukee is one of just two R1 universities in Wisconsin.
Mone served the second-longest tenure in university history, trailing only J. Martin Klotsche, who served as UWM’s first-ever chancellor from 1956-73.
He originally joined faculty in 1989 as a professor of management and will return to teaching in the Lubar College of Business for the 2025-26 school year.