Several committees convened to discuss issues pertaining to educational quality and federal dollars as well as other academic matters at the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents meeting Thursday.
The education committee is making the quality of education provided to college students in Wisconsin one of its primary focuses for the 2002-03 school year.
This issue was discussed in full at the meeting yesterday, which examined examples of quality measures, the process one should take to identify these measures, and their relevance to certain stakeholders.
“The objective of these discussions is to develop a consensus among the members of the Board of Regents on how to measure quality in the UW System,” the board’s agenda read.
Identifying the relevant stakeholders in educational quality issues and what they have in common was also a main focus at the meeting. Different opinions on the issue rose among members of the committee. However, the committee expressed interest in finding common ground among all stakeholders.
Another issue discussed was the allotment of federal dollars to individual UW institutions.
A report given Thursday to the board said the UW System “shares national priorities with campuses so they can position themselves to more successfully compete for federal dollars.”
During the last fiscal year, the UW institutions as a whole received an additional $55.4 million more than the previous year in federal research awards. The University of Wisconsin-Madison received the bulk of these awards with $54.4 million.
UW also recently received a $35 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF grant will be used to further science and math education. However, UW was not the only institution to receive federal funds.
The U.S. Department of Education gave grants worth well over $3 million to UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-La Crosse and UW-Marinette for training history teachers.
Another highlighted contribution was for aerospace and engineering research. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration contributed almost $600,000 to the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, located at UW-Green Bay. Campuses such as UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Parkside and UW-Whitewater are also members of this establishment.
“UW System campuses have had recent success in competing for federal dollars,” said UW System federal relations coordinator Kris Andrews.
