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He had to install an air compressor to push water through the ancient pipes to the second floor so he could take a shower. And he was often kept awake at night by the clanking of steam radiators and sound of mice running inside the walls.
Now the house is in stellar shape thanks to a $2.4 million privately funded renovation that Wiley made possible by moving out for two years. His successor, Biddy Martin, is moving this month into a comfortable, energy-efficient home.
Just as Wiley fixed up Olin House, he transformed the UW-Madison campus by helping oversee its largest building boom in 40 years and elevate its status as an international research powerhouse.
Colleagues say Wiley will be remembered as a builder with a long-term vision for the campus and a fundraiser who traveled the globe meeting alumni.
“He will be viewed as a visionary builder, a person that made it his legacy to help rebuild the infrastructure of the university in addition to the academic mission of the university,” said Mark Bugher, director of the University Research Park. “When you look at the array of construction projects and those that are built or planned and yet to be built that have occurred under his watch, it’s pretty remarkable.”
The physical transformation of the campus is marked by new dormitories, new research labs and cranes so common Wiley calls them “the state bird.”
Among the projects he is championing in his last days in office is a makeover for the east side of campus to create an arts and humanities district that will cost up to $800 million in mostly private money when finished.
Plans call for expanding the Chazen Museum of Art, building a performance music hall, renovating the student union, tearing down the notoriously shoddy humanities building and creating two academic buildings in its place.
“Every time you turn around on campus, you see a building going up or a master plan that he executed on, which is tremendous,” said Regent David Walsh of Madison. “He was in it for the opportunity to make a difference and he did, and we’re a better place for him.”
Along with the new buildings, Wiley said other indicators show the state’s flagship university has made progress in academics and research in his tenure.
A record percentage of students are graduating and taking less time to do so, and UW-Madison is No. 2 in the nation in research spending for the second time in its history, with more than $900 million in 2006, the latest year available, Wiley said.
During his tenure, the university beat out other schools to land the nation’s first embryonic stem cell bank. Wiley also helped create the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, cutting-edge research labs being built for researchers expected to tackle some of the most difficult scientific questions.
The University Research Park in west Madison, which houses spin-off companies building on university research, is nearing its capacity and planning to build a second campus and open a new research incubator downtown.
While Wiley has successfully raised private money for construction and research, he said he regrets not being able to get more tax money to help students. A lack of money is threatening the quality of academic programs, especially those in the humanities, and leading to tuition hikes that hurt low- and middle-income students.
“A looming and hovering dark cloud is continued disinvestment by the state in higher education,” Wiley said in an interview in his office, where he was packing his books. “I think that’s a crisis for the state, not just a problem for us.”
He said it would be the biggest challenge facing his successor, Martin, the former Cornell University provost who starts Sept. 1 and is the first chancellor to come from outside the school in 20 years.
Wiley, 66, has been a top administrator that whole time, serving as dean of the graduate school, provost and then succeeding David Ward as chancellor. And his storied career at UW-Madison — which started as a graduate student in the 1960s and resumed when he joined the engineering faculty in 1975 — isn’t over.
He will return to the faculty, teaching graduate-level courses on higher education administration and policy. Having been removed from electrical engineering for 20 years, he’s too stale to return to the discipline where he was once a star researcher who helped create computer chip technology now widely used in Playstation 2 consoles and other consumer electronics.
Wiley also has agreed to serve as the interim executive director for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, which is expected to bring together top scientists in disciplines like information technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology. A university-wide competition later this year will determine what subjects are studied first.
Wiley said he was offered the job because he will be uniquely suited to sort through 100 or more proposals and choose five winners.
“Somebody has to piss off just about everybody,” he said with a laugh. “It had to be somebody with nothing left to lose.”
