The Board of Regents will focus on tying goals for University of Wisconsin System growth to the 2011-13 biennium budget during today’s meeting.
The UW System’s two goals are to create more jobs in Wisconsin through increased academic research and to produce more graduates to fill these positions. The next budget and future budgets will take those goals into consideration.
“The topic tomorrow really is how we align our financial decision making with those educational goals,” UW System spokesperson David Giroux said.
Giroux added the Regents will be discussing their long-term strategy over the next several meetings. They will not make their final budget request, however, until August.
The next elected governor would introduce his budget in February 2011, which would then go to the Legislature and hopefully be in place by July 2011, Giroux said.
Student representatives will also be present at the meeting to present their priorities for the budget, Giroux said.
While the regents will be looking ahead to the future budget, they will also be reviewing the UW System Accountability Report for 2009-10, which highlighted the progress each university and college in the system made in the Growth Agenda over the past year.
“We will present to the regents what we think are the most important data points; successes and achievements, short-comings and persistent problems,” Giroux said. “And then the regents will let us know what they are most concerned and impressed by.”
The regents will also be voting again to re-approve the University of Wisconsin-Eau-Claire’s Blugold Commitment.
The Blugold Commitment is a differential tuition increase of $300 per year for four years, approved this February, that will provide more financial aid, increase student success and produce global competitive graduates, according to Regent and UW-Eau Claire student Aaron Wingad.
Wingad proposed an amendment in February to have the regents re-examine the proposal in May, he said, because there was not enough information available on what the money being raised was going to be used for. Committees at UW-Eau Claire, however, have been working on possible proposals the tuition can be used for.
