story by Amelia Compton Wolff
photograph by Shane Van Boxtel, Image Studios
Manohar Singh’s American dream began with a German sports car.
“As a young man, at 18 or 19, I would put my head in my mom’s lap and say, ‘Mom, bless me so that I can go to America and drive a Mercedes,’” says Singh, a native of Punjab, India who grew up in a home with six brothers.
Despite never going to school themselves, Singh’s parents, refugees from pre-partition India, made education nonnegotiable for their children.
“They made sure that seven of their boys went to school [whether we were] naked, hungry or cold. That was the rule,” Singh says. “That basically led to our commitment to education as the surest and shortest path to not only a good livelihood, job security and financial freedom, but also the dignity that those three things bring.”
Singh went on to earn multiple degrees: bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Punjab University‑Chandigarh, as well as a master’s degree in economics from University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He also earned a doctorate in finance from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
His love for education turned into a 25‑year career as a college professor. Singh and his wife, a former professor of linguistics and language, passed their value of education to their two children, who are pursuing doctorates at Harvard and Columbia, respectively.
“I am a deeply curious man and tirelessly pursue discovery,” Singh says. “For me, discovery is joyful. As an educator, I’m able to expose many young minds to the joys of discovery.”
Being a first-generation college graduate, Singh’s mission is to make education affordable and accessible for others like him. It seems especially fitting to do so as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where more than 40% of the students are the first in their families to pursue a degree.
“The mission in my life is now to carry on the baton that my mom and dad gave me,” he says. “As an educator, it has been a blessing for me to be able to see that my decisions can open the doors to education for so many others.”
Singh intends to continue carrying that baton as the 12th chancellor of UW Oshkosh, a role he assumed July 1: a pivotal time for the university as it closed an $18.5 million budget deficit.
Singh is no stranger to turnarounds. At Western Connecticut State University, where he previously served as interim president, Singh helped eliminate a $12.5 million deficit and reversed a negative $2 million in reserves to a positive $11 million — transforming the university from the system’s fastest-declining institution to its fastest-growing.
Closing UW Oshkosh’s budget deficit wasn’t achieved without hard decisions, Singh says, but the university is now seeing positive returns on its cost-saving measures.
“The good news is that this year we will be closing our books in balance. No deficit. In fact, we will be building on some reserves,” he says.
Enrollment will play an important part in the university’s success. Despite the closure of the UWO Fox Cities and Fond du Lac campuses, Singh says enrollment is stabilizing compared to recent years. Specifically, the Oshkosh campus saw fall 2025 first-year students increase by 2%. New graduate student enrollment went up 17%, and transfer students rose 4%. Retention improved from 69% to more than 72% in a single year.
“There’s much that has been accomplished, but there’s much that needs to be accomplished,” Singh says. “It’s exciting because there is much opportunity.”
One opportunity Singh is currently exploring is compressing degrees from four-year to three-year programs, which he sees as a win-win for students and employers.
“It saves the students a year’s worth of money, and they also go to the job market one year in advance,” he says. “I’m hoping that we will create corporate partnerships to come up with solutions to real problems.”
Singh’s commitment to opening doors for students is rooted in his own experience of how education transforms dreams into reality. That youthful vision he shared with his mother — of going to America and driving a Mercedes — did eventually come to fruition after receiving “a beautiful Christmas gift” on December 24, 1999 in the form of a job offer teaching finance at Long Island University.
“On December 26, less than 48 hours after I got the offer, a Mercedes was parked in my driveway,” Singh says. “That is the power of dreams. That’s the power of education. And that’s the power of America.”
Infinite potential
In October, UW Oshkosh kicked off a planning effort called “UWO Infinite,” which invites students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members to provide input on a strategic plan that will be finalized next fall.
As Wisconsin’s public universities continue to face funding challenges and enrollment concerns, the new vision aims to evolve how the university delivers its mission to educate and serve students and communities in a rapidly changing world.
The one-year strategic planning process will take place in four phases, which will include listening sessions with area businesses. To learn more, visit uwosh.edu/strategicplan.
