The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents discussed difficulties reconciling heavy budget cuts and above-target enrollment during their second day of meeting at UW-Whitewater Friday.
Currently, UW System institutions maintain a total enrollment of 134,998 full-time equivalency students, 2,659 over the original enrollment target. Adding to the System’s financial woes, UW institutions are not only educating more students than originally projected, but are doing so after a $44 million budget cut earlier in the year.
According to the UW System, $44 million educates approximately 8,800 students. However, with the budget cuts and the above-average enrollment, UW institutions are attempting to find funding for 11,000 students more than their original estimates.
“This is roughly equivalent to operating one of our larger, comprehensive campuses with no funding,” UW System president Katharine Lyall said.
The increase in the number of students causes faculty to teach larger classes while the decrease in funding causes campuses to hire instructional academic staff rather than faculty.
“Student learning eventually would suffer if the UW System were to continue to admit increased numbers of students without receiving proper funding,” Regent Fred Mohs said.
Mohs said he also believes the “campus culture” and the faculty commitment to student success and the success of the campus community will begin to change if this continues.
In an attempt to “challenge the campus and measure progress,” UW-Whitewater chancellor Jack Miller has already evaluated much of his campus. He conducted a presentation Friday detailing the results of the survey in what was referred to as a “campus report card.”
Evaluating areas such as graduation rate, campus-wide participation in experiential learning programs and graduate-program enrollment, Miller issued 10 As, 19 Bs, five Cs and two Ds.
Miller spoke about the goals he has for UW-Whitewater to improve in certain areas that did not receive high marks.
“It’s important to have goals because there is so much to distract us from accomplishing them,” Miller said. “We’re not embarrassed by failures. We wish to look at them as additional opportunities.”
The two-day meeting came to an end with two resolutions. The first invited citizens as well as organizations to the third Wisconsin Economic Summit, which will take place Oct. 14-16 at the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee This year’s theme is “Taking Steps to Move Wisconsin Forward.”
The second resolution thanked UW-Whitewater for hosting the Board of Regents meeting.
Madison will host the next UW System Board of Regents meeting Nov. 7-8.
