UW-Waukesha Enrollment Decline Revealed at Meeting

An enrollment decline at the two-year colleges University of Wisconsin-Waukesha and University of Wisconsin-Washington County has reached the mid-to-high 20 percent range, Chancellor Mark Mone announced at the bi-weekly Academic Staff Committee meeting on Monday.

Mone said that the original numbers he had received were around the 7-9 percent mark, but new information shows the decline is actually closer to 24-29 percent. Mone, however, was optimistic about future enrollment at the two-year schools. “I think we can make this up to some extent,” Mone said.

Committee Chairman Susan Cashin was able to suggest a possible reason for the decline. Cashin said she has heard reports that prospective students have been confused about where to apply. Some students, instead of applying to UW-Waukesha or UW-Washington County as intended, accidentally applied to UW-Milwaukee, because they did not understand how the merger of the two schools is set to work. This could potentially cause some students to be stuck in a situation where they learn about their mistake late in the summer, and have a hard time scheduling classes at the school they intend to attend.

Cashin also said that some students are applying to local tech schools instead of schools in the UW system because of the confusion. Chancellor Mone said that this information made sense, as many of the tech schools in the area are in close proximity to UW schools. “Almost all UW Colleges have a technical college counterpart right in their area,” Mone said.

UW-Waukesha already offers some bachelor degree programs as well as degree-completion programs, but thanks to the merger with UW-Milwaukee, the school may be able to offer even more bachelor’s programs, making a wider variety of bachelor degrees even more accessible. This is good news for many students who live closer to Waukesha or Washington County, and would rather commute to the school closer to them before commuting to Milwaukee or paying housing fees to live on campus.

Since it was announced last year that UW-Milwaukee would be merging with UW-Waukesha and UW-Washington County, many concerns have come to rise about the probability of meeting the deadline of July 1. July 1 is when the merger is set to go into effect, according to UW-Milwaukee’s website.

In a statement found on UW-Milwaukee’s website, the school tells of a UW-Milwaukee Regional Campus Transition Committee comprised of faculty, staff, students, and governance representatives from UW-Waukesha, UW-Washington County, and UW-Milwaukee. “Planning is underway, led by a UW System Steering Committee with representatives from across UW System,” the website says. “The Transition Committee will work through a range of issues including accreditation, student support issues, academic offerings, budget, governance, operational structure, and other areas. There will be issues to address by July 1 and beyond.”

In another matter regarding the merger of UW-Milwaukee and the two other UW schools, Mone said that UW-Milwaukee is having some struggles accessing PRISM. PRISM is a program similar to PAWS and is used across multiple schools in the UW system. Access to PRISM would speed up the transition process considerably, and make it easier to merge the two schools, according to Mone. PRISM is also known as the student information center, and is used to access grades, pay tuition, and enroll in classes, among other things.

Also brought to notice at the meeting was a possible revision to UW-Milwaukee’s smoking policy. Eric Dietenberger, vice chair of the Committee, announced that UW-Milwaukee plans to revise the current policy to prohibit any smoking of any kind on campus property. As of now, according to the current policy, smoking is banned in all campus buildings, university vehicles, and parking structures. Smoking is also currently banned within 25 feet of all buildings, but is allowed in open spaces on campus.

The policy defines smoking as this:

”Smoking shall include the burning of any variety of lighted pipe, cigar, cigarette, or other smoking equipment, whether filled with tobacco or any other type of material.”

“Other smoking equipment,” according to Dietenberger, includes vapes, JUULs, and other types of e-cigarettes. Even though the proposed policy would ban smoking on any campus property, it would not prohibit students from smoking on the sidewalks going through campus, as sidewalks are considered public property.