UW Stevens Point doesn't get a whole lot of national exposure, so when the school gets featured in the New York Times, we who studied within its ivy walls are proud.
Until we read the actual story.
“Students In Rural America Ask, 'What Is A University Without A History Major?'” the headline reads and those who know what's up up north need read no further because they no doubt already are familiar with what's wrong at Point: declining enrollment means fewer tuition dollars and the expected budget woes that follow. Chancellor Bernie Patterson's decree that his school could “no longer be all things to all people” shocked those close to the school and sent ripples through other UW campuses like Stevens Point: small town with a regional draw, featuring affordable education in a host of diciplines.
Perhaps no more.
Big schools, including the UW system's anchor at Madison have no such concerns–awash with potential enrollees, they're flush in cash and functioning as usual. Those in smaller towns like Point where there are fewer kids graduating high school as the rural population heads for the big cities survive in a different reality.
Even UW Milwaukee is feeling the pinch, having balanced it's budget for the first time in almost a decade but at a cost, trimming faculty and making other cuts as tuition falls. There are 15% fewer professors there now than there were five years ago and 10% less students. Both Point and Milwaukee are redirecting resources where the interest is and targeting those tha apply to workforce needs. Smalls schools in Maine, Vermont and even neighboring Illinois are feeling the same pressures.
UWSP provost Greg Summers likens it to the environment. “The higher-ed climate has changed dramatically,” he tells the Times, “and it's not going back to the old normal.”
So what's happening? Can the patterns be reversed, or is seismic change the only way such schools survive? What then of a major urban campus like UWM? How come it can't make a go of things, and why are students going elsewhere?
The Milwaukee Press Club tries answering these questions and more February 27th when we host a Behind The Headlines luncheon, “UW System: Time For Transformation?” UWM student and faculty reps join Chancellor Mark Mone and UW System president Ray Cross for a discussion of how we got here and what's next. They'll be questioned by a panel of local journalists as well as audience members.
We'd love to have you there. Go here for registration information. It should be a fascinating and enlightening way to spend a February lunch hour. Hope to see you there.Â
