David Markee has completed 13 years of service in the highest administrative position at UW-Platteville. His contributions to our campus and our community have proven to be exciting and prosperous. Among the many achievements that he has made here, two stand out in particular to me.

The most important of these was the Tri-State Initiative. This system gave students in the Tri-State area the ability to pay in-state tuition, as opposed to the higher out-of-state tuition, while attending UW-P. This was a innovative program because at the time there was a fear of downsizing and decreased enrollment. The Chancellor decided to find a way to increase enrollment despite the budget crunches, which forced other universities to shrink their number of incoming students.

The other major accomplishment of Chancellor Markee was overseeing the construction of new buildings and the renovations of older ones. For example, Southwest Hall is a state-of-the-art residence hall featuring suites, private rooms and a more personal kitchen, bathroom and recreation area than traditional residence halls. Additionally, the construction of three impressive new buildings (the Student Center, Ullsvik and the Engineering Building) occurred during Markee’s time, as did renovations to other buildings on campus such as the drastic makeover of Glennview. All of these improvements not only benefit the current students on campus, but also serve to attract new students as well.

Chancellor Markee is an alumnus of UW-P. It is a tremendous advantage to this campus that our chancellor started out as a Pioneer, came back as a Pioneer and is retiring as a Pioneer. This gives him a unique and personal understanding of the challenges, traditions and responsibilities that pertain directly to our university. We now face the challenge of trying to replace this university’s most inspiring, influential and longest serving chancellor. UW-P has definitely set very high standards for our highest administrative position after these past 13 fruitful and influential years.