Joe Gow, the longest-serving current chancellor in the University of Wisconsin System, announced plans Wednesday to step down as leader of UW-La Crosse at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
Gow, 62, will transition to a faculty role after more than 17 years leading the 9,400-student campus.
Enrollment at UW-La Crosse last fall was slightly larger than when Gow started in 2007, a remarkable feat for the chancellor of a regional campus at a time when fewer students are available to recruit and an increasing share of them are opting out of four-year college degrees.
The university’s finances are also stronger than most other regional UW campuses, finishing the 2023 fiscal year without a deficit.
“It’s a team effort, of course,” Gow told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If I’ve been successful at anything, the main thing I’ve done is getting the right people into the right leadership positions to make things happen.”