>> Federal investigations over DEI programs and antisemitism.

International students having their visas revoked.

Funding cuts and threats of more.

Higher education is coming under scrutiny by the Trump administration.

Wisconsin's flagship campus, UW-Madison, has big federal dollars at stake.

With that in mind, we wanted to check in with Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin.

We offer this disclaimer.

PBS Wisconsin is part of UW-Madison.

And Chancellor, thanks very much for being here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> So the university is facing many headwinds right now.

What stands out as your biggest concern at UW-Madison?

>> Well, you're right, it's a challenging time in higher education across the entire sector right now, including for us.

I think the biggest challenge is around questions around federal funding, especially for research and also more generally, federal funding.

Is our single largest component of our budget.

And we're really proud to be an extraordinary research flagship.

We're doing research on so many different kinds of topics from from cancer research to incredible studies about Alzheimer's to public policy engagements and so much else.

And right now, there are a lot of questions about what that funding is going to look like in the time ahead.

So that's probably my single biggest concern.

cuts to research overhead costs and funding losses?

>> Well, there have been a number of executive orders, but several of them are have been paused through legal processes right now.

So there have been efforts to bring down the facilities and administrative administration rates for NIH, as well as the Department of Energy.

And in both of those cases, those are now on hold.

Courts have imposed a hold in both of those instances.

>> Now UW-Madison is under investigation by the Trump administration over DEI and antisemitism.

What kind of sanctions for funding and program cuts has that resulted in?

>> So at this point, you're right that we are one of a great many, many dozens of institutions all across the country that do have title VI complaints connected to antisemitism.

One investigation was opened back in January 2024.

It actually is about a protest incident back in October, 23rd October 2023.

So nothing recent.

And we certainly condemn anti-Semitism in all of its forms and we are cooperating fully with that investigation.

But we have not heard anything recently about it.

And it's about an incident that happened quite a long, a long time ago.

>> Now, we saw that Harvard University's president rejected the administration's demands and saw an immediate federal funding cut of more than $2 billion.

Would you or could you reject whatever the demands are.

>> You know, that's a very speculative and hypothetical question at this point.

We're all watching Harvard and a number of other institutions very carefully to see to see how they are behaving.

And proceeding.

We are we're just not in that situation right now.

I mean, we are again, there are many dozens, probably more than 100 schools that do have title VI complaints.

And we are among those schools, but we haven't faced anything like what you're describing.

There.

>> We know that international students have had their visas terminated throughout the UW system, but more than two dozen of them at UW-Madison.

What is your response to those actions?

>> It's been very concerning.

Frankly.

We've had.

You're exactly right.

We've had more than two dozen students, both both current students and some recent graduates who are lawfully working in the country this year face removal from the system.

And in many of these cases, we really we and they don't know why or it's because of something literally as minor as a traffic ticket.

And some of these students were are literally weeks away from graduation.

Our in our community international students are an incredibly important part of everything we do here.

You know, our very first international student was actually part of our first class at UW-Madison back in 1849.

And we're proud that we've had global students and staff and faculty throughout our history.

And many of them go on to do incredible things.

Some of them stay right here in Wisconsin.

It's been interesting for me to learn that a number of entrepreneurs here in the state got their start when they came as international students or staff here to UW-Madison, and then they've gone on to build companies right here in Wisconsin.

And so we absolutely want to support our students.

I do also recognize that those who come to our country have the responsibility to follow the law.

And that the administration has the right to structure visa processes.

But what's been very, very concerning is that it doesn't it seems like some of these students are being caught up in a dragnet when they really haven't done anything wrong.

>> Meanwhile, what are you girding for at the state level around funding for the UW?

In in the midst of a legislative DEI audit which found millions of dollars in DEI spending across the system was not tracked.

>> Yeah, thanks for that question.

We're obviously also in the middle of a state budget process, and we really appreciate that the governor has prioritized the universities of Wisconsin, including UW-Madison, in his in his ask.

And we are very hopeful that the state legislature will decide that that we do need to make an investment in our system of higher education, where an economic driver, we are preparing students for the jobs of tomorrow, and we think that we do offer a lot of benefit to our wonderful state.

I also do understand that there's people who have questions and concerns about some of the things we do, and some of the choices that we make, and we're happy to have those those conversations.

And I think we need to be open to asking, what do we need to do better?

What do we need to do differently?

And we should be open to change, but we should also recognize that we are providing a transformative education to, you know, 52,000 plus students here in our great state of Wisconsin that our graduation rates are at their all time high, that our applicant application numbers are also at their all time high, and that two thirds of our students are graduating.

Two thirds of our undergraduates are graduating with absolutely no debt.

And the average time to graduation is under four years.

So there's all of these amazing things happening in our student community.

And all of these successes.

And so we need to keep reminding people of all of the really great things, even as we also take seriously whatever concerns or questions that community members or others hav.

>> Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin,