From its inception, the Milwaukee Idea has been closely identified with former Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, an indefatigable advocate for community engagement. The Milwaukee Idea is now five years old, and UWM has a new Chancellor, Carlos E. Santiago. The obvious question, as one considers the future of engagement and service at UWM, is ‘What is the role of the Milwaukee Idea, and engagement in general, in Chancellor Santiago’s administration?’

The Chancellor has made collaboration a key theme, highlighting the need for research partnerships across disciplines within the University, with other educational institutions, and with the for-profit and nonprofit sectors of society. This focus on research as a collaborative activity has more in common with the understanding of ‘university as catalyst’ that underlies recent thinking about university engagement than it does with the traditional view of research as an isolated activity that occurs solely within academe. In this expansive view, research powers economic development, a concern that clearly resonates with UWM’s engagement profile. The Chancellor’s other areas of engagement-related emphasis include economic development, health-care issues, K-12 partnerships, the vitality of Milwaukee’s public policy arena, and diversifying the student body—all of which have ties to existing UWM engagement activities.

The Milwaukee Idea initiatives and the wealth of individual engagement and service activities across schools, colleges, and administrative units are based on two premises:

1. Faculty and staff members have the expertise to contribute meaningfully to campus-community partnerships
    
2. The spontaneous nature of community interaction will lead to discovery, yielding new directions for research. The interplay of engagement and discovery has moved UWM closer to meeting one of its stated mission goals—“public service designed to educate people and improve the human condition.”