The UW System Board of Regents voted Friday, March 8 to suspend undergraduate admissions at all UW campuses, citing the burden of budget cuts by Gov. Scott McCallum and the Joint Finance Committee.
Despite the freeze on admission at the 26 UW schools, undergraduates already accepted for Fall 2002 were not affected.
High school students Who were not notified of their admissions status by the date of the freeze implementation had their applications suspended.
“We realize the impact this has on the lives of our applicants and their families, and we apologize for the inconvenience,” UW Regent Jay Smith said shortly after the freeze was implemented. “But we have no other choice.”
UW-Madison was affected less than other UW System schools because the admissions process for the fall was nearing completion
“Because we were quite near the end of our admissions cycle, as a practical matter it didn’t have a tremendous amount of impact on our admissions — certainly not as much as it did at some other campuses,” Charles Hoslet said.
Hoslet said the university is now operating essentially “business-as-usual.”
“Now we’ve finished the admissions process and are expecting to come in at or a little above our target number,” he said.
Tom Reason, assistant director of admissions for UW-Madison, said the university will meet its targeted numbers, though admissions will be down from last year.
“The new class will be expected to be smaller, [around] 5,740,” he said. “Due to an unexpected increase in applications, we ended up with about 6,100 last year.”
Also responding to the budget situation, System President Katharine Lyall ordered a hiring freeze for all UW Campuses.
In a March 12 memorandum, Lyall instructed all UW chancellors not to fill vacant positions and to begin working on contingency budget plans.
Officials said they would try to make the best of the dire situation and avoid layoffs by leaving vacant positions unfilled.
“We’re not considering layoffs in any situation,” Provost Peter Spear told the Badger Herald in March. “I hope it won’t come to that point. I’m optimistic that it won’t come to that point.”
Layoffs of university employees did not occur; however, the pending budget situation still poses questions for the future of university.
“If there is a cut to the overall system, we’ve known about that long enough that we will be able to manage it in a reasonable way. Some of the hiring that might normally have occurred would be put off, but some would go ahead,” Hoslet said.
He continued, “But once you get past $40 or $50 million, it’s a different ball game. We wouldn’t be able to hire the faculty and academic staff that we need to and services would end up being cut.”