It may be too harsh to call it a death spiral. But the University of Wisconsin System is in trouble and it’s not clear when or how it can turn things around. Consider what’s happening.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos nixed a 6% pay raise for UW System employees while allowing it to go through for other state employees. He’s trying to put pressure on the UW to discontinue its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
UW-Madison is leveraging swathes of experience across departments — and across the University of Wisconsin system — to meet student demand for an architecture program.
Ranks of at least five colleges and universities in the state, including two from the University of Wisconsin system, have changed in an updated U.S. News & World Report’s latest list of educational institutions.
Gov. Tony Evers filed a lawsuit against Republican state lawmakers Tuesday, claiming their decisions to block pay raises for employees of the Universities of Wisconsin, conservation projects and updates to the state’s commercial building standards are unconstitutional.
In a lawsuit that could upend how the state Legislature operates, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is suing Republican lawmakers over decisions to withhold pay raises for University of Wisconsin System employees and to block conservation projects, arguing such actions made by legislative committees rather than the full Legislature violate the state Constitution’s separation of powers requirements.
Evers said it was “a bridge too far” and “just bull s—” that Republican state lawmakers were telling 35,000 University of Wisconsin employees who were expecting pay raises to “stick it.”
Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, has sued Republican legislators for allegedly defying the state Constitution and undermining his executive powers by withholding approved raises for University of Wisconsin system employees.
The Wisconsin governor, now in his second term, has reportedly attempted to bypass the lower courts, asking the state supreme court to take up the case directly.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, outlines Evers’ allegations that Republican members of the Legislature are holding hostage the pre-approved raises for 35,000 University of Wisconsin System employees and misusing the legislative veto process to block executive actions outside the bounds of normal budgetary operations.
Legislative committees controlled by Republicans are violating the state Constitution by blocking pay raises for around 35,000 Universities of Wisconsin employees and stalling conservation projects, Gov. Tony Evers argues in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The governor accused Republicans of an intrusion into executive powers and violating the Wisconsin Constitution.
Weeks out from opening day of an Indigenous art exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum last year, Doug Kiel raised an alarm with other curators.
One of the featured artists, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and poet Margaret Noodin, had posted a statement online meant to address long-running questions about whether she was really Native.
With support from the agriculture industry, UW-River Falls agreed the program was a good fit for the university, given its strong ag programs. Faculty in the university’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) designed a program and worked to recruit students. They sought funding, some of which could come through a proposed bill currently before the state Legislature.
Here’s what guests on the October 27, 2023 episode said about ongoing staff shortages in Wisconsin’s prison system and budget woes prompting closures of two-year state college campuses.
A new financial aid initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is aimed at making the cost of college more affordable to Wisconsin-based students from low-income backgrounds.
State universities may have specific mandates to educate local students over those from abroad, which was the case when the University of California system capped out-of-state enrollments in 2017. But even large state systems like the University of Wisconsin take in significant numbers of international students. Why should the more than 3,000 international undergraduates in Madison be tossed out?
Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges could be liable for up to $100,000 in damages and institutions could be cut off from state grants under a Republican-authored bill seeking to add civil penalties for violating a person’s right to free speech.
Carthage College’s faculty members believe a new policy increasing the number of classes they must teach without upping their pay is the administration’s first step toward laying off staff.
The proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 86, would put an end to scholarship displacement in Wisconsin for students who receive scholarships of $5,000 or less from external sources. Currently, any college or university in the state can decrease a student’s financial aid when they receive funding from outside scholarships even if the student still has a balance for tuition.
“The idea is to kind of focus more on a colorblind society, and that’s a long time coming. I think there was maybe a reason in the past to do it the way it was done,” said Republican Senator Eric Wimberger, co-author of the bill. “If you keep it at the idea of simply being a disadvantaged status, then if there’s a systemic issue going on, then there’s gonna be a disproportionate number of people benefiting, who happened to be kind of having that negative effect.”
The Assembly’s higher education committee considered a bill Thursday that sets free speech policies at Wisconsin’s public universities and colleges and provides penalties for violating them. Another bill taken up by the committee would eliminate race-based higher education loan and grant programs.
“UW-Madison educates the state’s future workforce and drives its economy forward,” said UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin. “I have been clear that funding cuts, the lack of approval for a widely supported Engineering building and a hold on much needed pay increases for our employees, defy both reason and longstanding legislative tradition.”
Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill for a fourth time that would punish Wisconsin universities and technical colleges for free speech violations.
When Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, coined the terms “buckynomics” and “buckymarkets,” he couldn’t have predicted he’d end up in a legal battle with the University of Wisconsin and its iconic mascot, Bucky Badger. But according to a report from the Houston Chronicle that is exactly what is happening.
The U.S. Department of Education explained the new measures in a meeting with members of the press on Monday.
This is the fourth chapter of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic. As the health care crisis raged, facilities on the front lines began to have severe staffing issues. Drawing inspiration from the foundations of the UW System, they found ways to help students jump from the classroom to the community to assist.
Dozens of employees at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville will be laid off and more positions will go unfilled as the university continues to deal with financial pressures, according to an email sent to campus employees Wednesday.
Evetovich explained that the 111 cuts make up just over 12% of the school’s workforce. More than a third of the positions cut were academic staff members. There were 31 positions open that have been permanently cut.
In a letter to employees, Chancellor Tammy Evetovich said the school is eliminating 111 positions, which is about 12% of the university’s workforce.
Over the next three years, Milwaukee Public Schools will have help securing candidates for some of its toughest-to-fill teaching jobs.
A new partnership between MPS and the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides on-the-job training through a 10-month teaching residency, paired with a special education teacher preparation master’s degree program.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville is eliminating 111 positions, or 12% of its workforce, the second school in the state public university system to significantly downsize in an effort to reduce budget deficits.
UW-Platteville plans to lay off 60 employees this week and will lose dozens of others to retirements, vacancies and administrative restructuring, as it seeks to fully close its $9.7 million budget shortfall by the end of the 2024 fiscal year.
Wisconsin Republicans are pushing a bill that would end consideration of race in college scholarships, grants and loans, arguing the practice perpetuates stereotypes in higher education.
Written by Ken Brosky, an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Two Republican lawmakers are seeking to eliminate race-based criteria for college scholarships, grants and loan programs under a draft bill released Monday.
The bill, authored by Rep. Nik Rettinger, R-Mukwonago, and Sen. Eric Wimburger, R-Green Bay, comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that public and private universities could not use race as an admissions criterion. Republicans in the state Legislature have hinted they would eliminate race requirements within state statutes following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The Republican led Joint Committee on Employee Relations voted to separate employees of the University of Wisconsin system from other state workers who will receive a pay increase.
UW System President Jay Rothman is disappointed with the outcome and says they will make the best of this difficult situation.
Black bear research conducted in Wisconsin by UW-Stevens Point faculty and students will stretch into perpetuity thanks to a $1 million endowment.
During a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Washington County orientation at the start of the semester, an administrator fielded questions from panicked parents who had read headlines about the small campus’ uncertain future and a potential merger with the local technical college.
“There was a general feeling nationally that incarceration needed to be about punishment and deterrence, and that was going to be ultimately the key to reducing incarcerated populations in the country,” said Peter Moreno, director of UW-Madison’s Odyssey Beyond Bars and the Prison Education Initiative. “In the past 20, 30 years, people were coming to prison and many, many of them were returning to prison after they had left because they weren’t prepared for success when they got out.”
UW-Oshkosh laid off 140 staff, 76 more chose to take voluntary retirement, and others on contract found that the university would not renew their employment agreements. In total, the losses account for over 20 percent of UW-Oshkosh’s workforce.
The ASM Sustainability chair and co-coordinators represented UW-Madison at the UW System Sustainability Annual Meeting Oct. 12 and 13.
UW–Milwaukee at Washington County enrollment fell by 55% in past five years according to spokesperson.
Non-graduating students at two University of Wisconsin System two-year campuses will transfer or shift to virtual learning after UW-Oshkosh, Fond du Lac and UW-Milwaukee at Washington County end in-person learning in June 2024.
This is the third chapter of a 5-part series in which former University of Wisconsin System President Tommy Thompson and Vice President Jim Langdon reflect on their experience guiding the system though the COVID-19 pandemic.
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander is trying to alleviate concerns among UWGB staff after Republican lawmakers in Madison excluded the University of Wisconsin System employees from a two-year pay raise.
Starting next year, there will be no more classes at UW Milwaukee-Washington County and UW Oshkosh-Fond du Lac. The news comes amid the layoffs of 20 percent of employees at UW Oshkosh’s main campus and Republicans in the state house blocking pay raises across all UW campuses. A reporter explains.
Jon Shelton, a political science professor at UW-Green Bay, says he always knew it would be a possibility that UW employees across the state would feel the side effects of the tension between the legislature and the Universities of Wisconsin.
Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, who co-chairs the Legislature’s employment relations committee, has promised to block pay raises for UW employees until the school system cuts its so-called DEI spending by $32 million.
Rothman told reporters during a conference call that he has decided to shutter UW-Milwaukee’s Washington County campus and UW-Oshkosh’s Fond du Lac campus. He said that in-person instruction at the two schools will end by June 2024. Enrollment at both schools as well as three other two-year campus has ticked upward this fall, but it’s not enough to offset more than a decade of decreasing enrollment.
Enrollment at Fond du Lac and Washington County campuses this year was expected to be 243 students and 276 students, respectively.
ARepublican-controlled legislative committee on Tuesday approved 6% pay raises over the next two years for most state employees, but withheld any increase for Universities of Wisconsin staff unless the UW system eliminates its diversity, equity and inclusion positions.
President Jay Rothman has ordered chancellors to cease in-person instruction at UW-Milwaukee at Washington County, located in West Bend, and UW Oshkosh at Fond du Lac. UW-Platteville’s Richland Center campus will also officially close after receiving a similar directive as the other two schools last year.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s Richland campus is being closed, Universities of Wisconsin president Jay Rothman announced Tuesday.
Half of state workers, about 34,000 people, will not be getting pay raises included in the state budget, as a Republican-controlled committee on Tuesday approved a 6 percent raise over two years for all but those who work for the University of Wisconsin System.
In Madison, AVID/TOPS is a partnership between the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) and Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County (BGCDC). It began in 2007. It functions as an elective class students have every day.
A new evaluation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative found that the program is working.
In an ongoing battle between Republican legislative leaders and the state’s public university system, GOP lawmakers on Tuesday approved a two-year pay increase for state workers but left out the 41,000 people who work for the University of Wisconsin System.
The University of Wisconsin system is shutting down in-person instruction at two campuses and closing one campus at the end of the school year, officials announced Tuesday.
Two more University of Wisconsin system campuses will end in-person instruction by the end of this school year, potentially spelling the end of existence for UW-Milwaukee at Washington County and UW-Oshkosh Fond du Lac.
UW-Platteville Richland is closing, Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman announced Tuesday. Meanwhile, UW-Milwaukee at Washington County and UW-Oshkosh, Fond du Lac campus will be stopping in-person instruction by June 2024.
