UWM Merger Raises Concerns Over Credit Distribution

An open budget meeting that took place March 29 revealed that the two-year schools UW-Waukesha and UW- Washington were suffering before a vote was made by the UW Board of Regents to let UW-Milwaukee absorb the two schools

“Their applications and acceptances are down significantly,” said Mike Darnell. “Interestingly, we are seeing more applicants from those places than we were last year.”

Because of three curriculums now becoming one, schools are faced with courses being jointly combined. Because each college has a different curriculum, sometimes, courses do not match up to the respective college’s majors.

The meeting discussed the downsides to the merger and which college courses were best suited so that UWM could accommodate those majoring and minoring with courses not yet offered. This alignment described a major issue with Shakespeare courses where the two-year colleges offered a 100-level course while UWM only offered a 500-level course. The drastic difference means that those wanting to begin Shakespeare would not be able to take the course until they declared their major.

“We need to find a way to align them and align them quickly because we need this done for scheduling by 2019,” Darnell said. “Everything has to be scheduled and figured out by the end of this semester.”

Because of the new students enrolling at UWM, there were six proposed undecided major categories. The six categories include Social Behavioral Science, Arts design and Innovation, Humanities and Communication, Health, Business Industry and Applied Technology and Engineering and Natural Sciences.

“Students would come in and would indicate a general trajectory that they imagine they would take,” Interim Dean of the College of Letters and Science Dave Clark said. “Most students don’t come in and say, ‘it’s either Shakespeare or Medical Business’ even though I was a computer engineering major and wound up in English.”

The goal of creating these six categories is to make sure students, especially those coming from Waukesha and Washington, can at least get a 30-credit head start towards their career path. Though these categories have not officially been released to the public, Clark hopes that with this new way of being undecided, students will be able to take the math courses that are required for their major and align them to the required English and electives needed so they do not fall behind. This plan also helps students who want to change majors. If their major changes within these new categories, the student will not have to start with no credits in the new major.

The merger seemed to shock some, while others saw it coming. The two schools are not the only merging two-year colleges. All 13 two-year colleges will merge with their neighboring four-year colleges. This means that UW- Eau Claire, UW- Stevens Point, UW- Oshkosh, UW- Green Bay, UW- Whitewater and UW- Platteville will also be taking on at least one more school.

According to Clark, the short history of the decline in enrollment at Waukesha and Washington was their restructuring campaign where many recruiters were fired and administrators were moved into commuter roles. This is where representatives at Waukesha and Washington believe the heart of the decline began.

A time crunch is in order for UWM as it will be making changes this upcoming summer. The restructuring will be effective come July 1, 2018. With such a short window, faculty feels pressured to find a way to make their curriculums universal for the two new colleges and for the university as a whole.