Campuses across the University of Wisconsin system are grappling with budget shortfalls after the state’s legislature approved $125 million in cuts to system’s budget earlier this year.
…Efficient administration of public education in this state that protects or enhances quality, is worth pursuing if it makes sense. So we’re up for a look at what a closer relationship between the Wisconsin Technical College System and UW Colleges and Extension might mean. Already the word merger has been attached to the talks, but there may well be other options.
The ink is barely dry on a new state budget that aims to make the University of Wisconsin System more nimble and efficient, and already another idea to reshape public higher education in Wisconsin is under review by Assembly Republicans.
Wisconsin doesn’t have a single, unified community college system — and many of the educators at the state’s two-year institutions say that’s a good thing. But as a legislative committee considers possibly merging the state’s two separate two-year systems, some politicians are questioning whether a more traditional community college model would work better for the state.
Wisconsin legislators have begun quietly and unofficially discussing how the state’s 42 public universities and colleges—the 26 UW System campuses and the 16 technical colleges—might be realigned to deal with dwindling state aid. If approved, any shift would be the biggest realignment of higher education since the UW System was stitched together in 1971 by merging state colleges, the Madison and Milwaukee campuses, and two-year centers.
A group of Republican legislators will meet this week to discuss the possibility of merging the Wisconsin Technical College System and the University of Wisconsin Colleges and Extension, lawmakers said Monday.
The Wisconsin Idea is going high-tech, as UW-Madison works to leverage distance education to reach more students and generate more revenue. Outreach to non-traditional students reflects a bedrock value of the university and responds to a national trend in higher education, say UW-Madison officials.
With Americans shouldering $1.2 trillion in student loan debt, and about eight million of them in default, Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday will propose major new spending by the federal government that would help undergraduates pay tuition at public colleges without needing loans.
Hillary Clinton will today unveil a massive plan to make higher education more affordable, student loan debt less burdensome and states accountable for supporting their public colleges. The plan — which would cost $350 billion over 10 years — is one that campaign officials say will be central to her candidacy for the presidency.
Rebecca Blank: When Gov. Scott Walker proposed $300 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin System, his most outspoken critic was UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank. It’s not just that she was outspoken, it was the impact of her advocacy — particularly the competitive disadvantages created by associated faculty changes — that helped turn public opinion against the governor’s plan.
Noted: Wisconsin has already turned down $560 million from the federal government to pay for Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health care law, which Walker has steadfastly opposed and wants to repeal. That’s enough money, Democrats and supporters of the law point out, to undo a $250 million cut to the University of Wisconsin approved in the recently passed budget and increase funding for K-12 public schools.
In 2014, 22,472 high school students took college-level courses, which give them both college and high school credit, according to system figures. That’s an increase of more than 75 percent over the past five years — 12,729 students took those classes in 2010. Plus: an item on a Web site tracks launched by two UW-Madison centers that monitors water quality in the Yahara chain of lakes. LakeForecast.org uses data from dozens of sites in lakes Mendota, Monona, Wingra, Waubesa and Kegonsa to tell swimmers what kind of water quality they can expect.
Some Wisconsin colleges and universities have made it easier for students to transfer between schools.
Noted: “My own view is that there isnt a deliberative process privilege thats available,” said Raymond Taffora, the vice chancellor for legal affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Taffora was formerly the top deputy to Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and chief counsel to GOP Gov. Tommy Thompson.
A $10 million gift from Milwaukee philanthropists Sheldon and Marianne Lubar will help the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee establish a center for entrepreneurship in a sleek new building that also will be the official welcome center for prospective students and other campus visitors, the university is set to announce Thursday.
American college campuses are increasingly patrolled by armed police officers — and it’s a trend that burst into public view Wednesday, when a University of Cincinnati officer was charged with murder in the shooting death of a black motorist during a traffic stop. But this arming of college cops is causing some worries.
Madison attorney David Walsh, in his last meeting on the board, urged Regents “to develop a strategy of taking the message to the people.” “You have to frame the message so the public knows what they’re going to lose if the state doesn’t continue to fund the university,” he said.
A unique agreement between the state’s flagship university, its public two-year colleges and a Madison technical college aims to increase the number of residents who hold at least an associate degree. The new “reverse transfer” agreement will allow students who transfer to the flagship before completing an associate degree to complete the requirements and pick up that degree while also working toward a bachelor’s degree.
The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is not a particularly wealthy school.
Column from Merluzzi, a doctoral student in the neuroscience and public policy program.
Q&A with Pedro Albiter, a UW-Madison alum who founded Latinos United for College Education Scholarships, or LUCES, (Spanish for “lights”) 10 years ago in Madison and serves as its president.
Leaders at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse are concerned about the effect changes in state law on shared governance and tenure will have on the campus.
American higher education is failing “far too many of our students,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan was scheduled to say Monday, as he calls for colleges to be held more accountable for graduating students with high-quality degrees that lead to good jobs.
Start-up accelerator gener8tor has launched an effort to pull more promising ideas out of Wisconsin’s colleges and universities and turn them into companies.
UW Colleges Chancellor Cathy Sandeen says that two-year schools will keep their traditional close ties to local communities, despite the sweeping reorganization announced Tuesday.
Nearly 30% of administrative positions will be cut on campuses as leadership and management of the state’s two-year public colleges are consolidated into regions over the next several months.
The pending layoffs — estimated at the equivalent of 83 full-time positions — are in response to state budget cuts and two more years of a tuition freeze handed down by state lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker, announced University of Wisconsin Colleges and UW Extension Chancellor Cathy Sandeen on Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin Colleges will lay off more than 80 employees in a cost-cutting move that will see the network of two-year schools consolidate administration of its 13 campuses into four regions of the state, officials announced Tuesday.The move is one result of a $5 million cut to the college system’s funding — its share of a $250 million reduction in support for the University of Wisconsin System in the state budget Gov. Scott Walker signed last week.
Out of 121 institutions surveyed by Inside Higher Ed, the top pick was Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, Just Mercy: A Story of Redemption and Justice, with 10 institutions electing to use the book as its common reading. Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and a law professor at New York University, writes about his experiences trying to help — and sometimes failing — to overturn death and prison sentences for criminals Stevenson believes to be wrongly convicted. The majority of those criminals are black men.
The University of Wisconsin is eliminating 83 administrative and staff positions at two-year college campuses across the state in a sweeping reorganization that was announced Tuesday.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison for the second year in a row ranked 25th in the world in the new Center for World University Rankings.
Professor Bill Tracy got right to the point when asked for his thoughts on a controversy that arose this week involving statements from University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab on Twitter.
“It’s a mess,” said Tracy, a member of the steering committee for PROFS, an advocacy organization for UW-Madison professors.
UW-Madison professor Sara Goldrick-Rab’s tweets comparing Republican Gov. Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler and suggesting the governor and “many” state lawmakers are “fascists” are the kind of thing you’d expect to see in anonymous online comment sections and other gutters of the Internet.
So it’s a good thing her colleagues at the university are willing to stand up for a smarter, more civilized form of political discourse.
The state budget signed by Gov. Scott Walker last week envisions broad changes to how the University of Wisconsin System is run, experts say, allowing for a more corporate management structure that empowers chancellors while professors with fewer protections take a back seat.
It’s a model that has incensed faculty, drawing national attention to the UW System as legislators stripped tenure from state law, weakened shared governance and expanded justifications for laying off professors.
Noted: The county is most concerned about indirect impacts of a $250 million cut to UW-Madison and level K-12 funding, said Josh Wescott, chief of staff to county executive Joe Parisi. Over time, a lack of investment in education, job training and other areas creates “a risk to stunting the growth we’ve seen here locally,” he said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been ranked 25th in the world and 18th nationally by the Center for World University Rankings. This is the second year in a row UW-Madison has received these rankings, according to a release.
University Communications science writer Kelly Tyrrell speaks with PNM’s Jim Carrier about science at UW-Madison, a biomedical research crisis impacting UW and the rest of the U.S., and the value of basic science. The end of the show is cut off, but can be found at the very start of the following program in the archives, Radio Literature (both on July 16, 2015).
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone told faculty, staff and students at a campus forum Thursday that he remains bullish and confident about the future, though realities of the new state budget will make the next two years “immensely challenging.”
With the $5.2 million in cuts to the University of Wisconsin Extension, officials say there’s no doubt programming will be impacted at UW-Extension Rock County.
Gov. Scott Walker signed the biennial state budget in Waukesha July 12, revealing the exact effects it will have on the UW-Madison community.
UW System professors no longer have tenure defined by state statutes as a result of Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015-’17 budget, which has left some worrying that university faculty and researchers will leave to find more secure jobs elsewhere.
The $5.2 million reduction is part of the state budget signed by Gov. Scott Walker. It represents an 8 percent cut in state funding for UW Extension, a university system whose mission includes educating communities that lack a four-year campus.
University of Wisconsin student leaders are relieved that Gov. Scott Walker has vetoed parts of a policy to scale back shared governance at state universities. They say things like shared governance and tenure aren’t safe in the hands of state lawmakers.
Vacant job openings will remain unfilled, and some staff cuts are coming, as the result of a reduction in state spending for the University of Wisconsin Extension.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – who announced a 2016 presidential bid Monday – faces intense criticism from higher education activists, after signing a $73 billion state budget that makes hefty cuts to the University of Wisconsin system and significantly reduces tenure protections for faculty.
About 24 positions will be eliminated from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, mostly in the areas of academic advising and support services, to address a nearly $3 million annual reduction in state funding.
The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will see one of the largest budget increases of any University of Wisconsin System campus next year, up nearly $3.9 million.
The University of Wisconsin Stevens Point will feel the impact of additional cuts made by Governor Scott Walker’s veto pen.
After Governor Scott Walker proposed a $300 million cut to the UW System, the legislature reduced the proposed amount by $50 million.
Gov. Scott Walker signed the next two-year state budget on Sunday, just a day before he’s expected to announce his bid for the Republican nomination for president.
Gov. Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s budget on Sunday afternoon, more than a week after the new budget year began and only hours before he was to announce his presidential campaign.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved a $6 billion budget Thursday that incorporates millions of dollars in cuts from the Legislature. Before voting, the regents worried about the effects of deep cuts on the UW System.
“At what point do we say ‘ouch’?” Regent Jose F. Vasquez asked.
The financial burden of college holds many Americans back from pursuing a higher education but a bill introduced by Sen. Tammy Baldwin Wednesday may make the first two years free.
A task force that will work to add tenure protections to University of Wisconsin System policy will meet for the first time later this summer after legislators voted to remove tenure from state law.
The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents on Thursday approved a budget that will absorb the first of two years of deep cuts in state aid to higher education and reduce funding for UW-Madison by nearly $60 million.
A proposal to weaken faculty tenure protections in the University of Wisconsin System remains among the many controversial issues in the budget now headed to Gov. Scott Walker’s desk.
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student president said his school is bearing too much of the UW-System’s $250 million budget cut, ultimately threatening the school’s core mission.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved a nearly $6.2 billion budget Thursday in a voice vote.
The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents hasn’t forgotten about possible changes to tenure policy: At its meeting Thursday, regents checked in on the progress of a tenure task force created earlier this summer.
Cuts to the University of Wisconsin system as part of the proposed budget will mean layoffs and the reduction of positions through attrition at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh faces a $7.4 million budget cut, but administrators have taken action to divvy up the cut over three years.
