Lawmakers and members of the state’s administrative units met with University of Wisconsin System officials Wednesday to discuss various ideas to refine the affairs of higher education.
UW System President Kevin P. Reilly, Wisconsin Technical College System President Daniel Clancy, Assembly Committee on Colleges and Universities Chair Rep. Robin Kreibich, R-Eau Claire, chair of the Senate Higher Education and Tourism Committee Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, R-River Falls, and President Stephanie Hilton of the United Council for UW Students and Waukesha County Executive Dan Finley attended the meeting.
Reilly briefed the group on a recent report delivered to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee last month. The report highlighted several cost-saving measures aimed at reducing the amount of UW System staff while maintaining a degree of quality and efficiency.
“I remain confident that ours is the most administratively efficient public higher-education system in the nation,” Reilly said at the session. “Nevertheless, we can never lose sight of our goal to be as resourceful as possible.”
Reilly’s plan included the elimination of more than 225 administrative posts.
“The majority of these position cuts were in response to state funding reductions,” Reilly said. “If it holds, the governor’s budget proposal would require us to cut an additional $35 million and 200 more administrative positions over the biennium — on top of the 225 already eliminated.”
Reilly has also proposed a plan backed by the UW System Board of Regents where the chancellor position of the UW Colleges and UW-Extension System will become a single administrative unit.
Several other members at the session also had ideas in past months for making the UW System more practical. One suggestion came from Finley, who proposed selling the UW-Waukesha campus to the state of Wisconsin for $1. Finley argued the move was to save Waukesha taxpayers money should the UW System decide to begin offering four-year degrees at the campus.
Another proposal, from Kreibich, suggested a “nucleation” of the four-year and two-year universities. Kreibich’s proposal would link each two-year university to the nearest four-year university as a satellite campus.
Additionally, Reilly and Clancy discussed recent benefits that resulted from credit-transfer opportunities from the collaboration between the UW System and WTCS.
Last year, the UW System Board of Regents and the WTCS Board jointly decided to allow several credit-transfer opportunities beginning a six-part plan to work together on several initiatives.
“The joint committee really focused on the issue of ways we could cooperate on new degree-completion programs,” Clancy said in a phone interview.
Clancy added the recent plan would help especially in incorporating “upside-down degrees” into higher education in Wisconsin. Upside-down degrees would allow students to attend a two-year WTCS site and continue again later in their career at a four-year UW System site. The program would allow students to gain more job-related information in their first two years and more general information in their next four years of education.
“[O]ur programs … are really designed for someone to start their career right away,” Clancy said. “Once they being their work they could get their four-year degree, which could help them advance in their career.”
Hilton, Finley, Harsdorf, Kreibich and deans from the UW Colleges also traded several ideas.
UW System spokesperson Doug Bradley said the ideas were of great benefit to Reilly and others at the joint session.
“I think the president is really into this mode of if there are good ideas or if there are good suggestions, we’re going to look at them,” Bradley said. “We realize these are tough fiscal times and there are a lot of challenges.”
