The Nelson Institute has a unique mission. It is designed to encourage broad, transdisciplinary collaboration among faculty members at UW-Madison. Ideally, this creates a synergy that benefits the individual participants and strengthens the ties between their colleges, schools, and departments.
To meet its campuswide mission, the Nelson Institute is administered by a director who is appointed by the chancellor of the university and reports to the provost.
An elected faculty chair oversees all operations of the Nelson Institute's academic programs. Each of these programs, in turn, has its own faculty chair and committee. Each of the institute's research centers has its own faculty director, appointed by the director of the institute.
The institute's Governance Faculty is the main decision-making body. This group includes all faculty members who hold tenure/tenure track and/or funded appointments in the Nelson Institute, the institute's associate director and academic programs chair, the chairs of the institute's degree and certificate programs and directors of its research centers, and any other Nelson Institute faculty or academic staff member approved by the Executive Committee.
The Executive Committee comprises tenured members of the Governance Faculty with either 50 percent or more of their tenure in the Nelson Institute or less than 50 percent of their tenure in the institute but for whom the institute was a principal sponsor of their appointment. The committee may admit additional faculty members who meet certain other criteria.
A variety of standing and ad hoc committees of faculty and staff members and students deal with matters ranging from curriculum review to long-range planning.
For further details, see Nelson Institute Policies and Procedures and Appendix (both are PDF files).