New UWM Dean of Letters and Science holds 1st Annual State of the College Town Hall

Scott Gronert welcomed faculty and staff of the College of Letters and Science to Merrill Hall Oct. 19 for what he calls the first of his annual State of the College Town Hall meetings.

Gronert was named the new dean of the college at UW-Milwaukee Aug. 1, and he says that he has been trying to learn as much as he can about UWM since he began his tenure. Many of the challenges that Gronert brought to his meeting to be discussed were the new budget cuts, dropping enrollment numbers in the college and at the university and college standard requirements, i.e. GPA standards.

Gronert hopes that these town hall style meetings will allow the faculty and staff of the college to feel like they are able to come together and discuss current trends and matters in an informal manner. He believes that these meetings will provide an atmosphere that will create conversation among peers to move the college forward as they face new and old challenges together.

Citing the college requirement that students are now required to maintain a 2.5 GPA to graduate from UWM in a timely manner, Gronert said that he would like to reevaluate this requirement.

“This strikes me as something that I have never seen done in other Letters and Sciences school,” said Gronert. “I would like to know why we are putting this constraint on our students.”

Much of the beginning of the town hall meeting did focus on the budget cuts that the state has implemented.

“My predecessors did a great job in getting our budget in line,” said Gronert. “We’re a little lean right now, but we are good.”

Enrollment numbers in the college and UWM were a big focus of Gronert’s meeting. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Gronert cited much of his data from researched statistics.

Concerned with the enrollment numbers, Gronert showed that while UWM showed a 2.5 percent drop in incoming students, the College of Letters and Sciences had a larger number with a 3.5 percent drop in newly enrolled students.

Gronert believes that this statistic is not the norm of many U.S. universities and colleges and showed that UWM is at the bottom of a list of many comparable schools. The only school that seemed to show lower enrollment and graduation numbers was the University of New Orleans.

“While population growth has increased in the South, which results in higher enrollment numbers, New Orleans has not recovered from Hurricane Katrina. The school itself has not been able to rebuild to what it originally was and numbers reflect that,” said Gronert.

Other numbers that seemed to bother Gronert were the Pell Grant student numbers compared to other schools in the Midwest.

“I was honestly surprised that Milwaukee’s numbers were lower than most,” said Gronert.

Gronert was also quite concerned with the graduation rate of African-American students at UWM.

“It is hard to look at these numbers,” said Gronert when showing the statistics of African American students who stay at UWM for four years and graduate.

“It is low,” said Gronert. “It is definitely low.”

“I would like to figure out how we move this dial,” said Gronert.

Gronert did cite that student funding and aid is a challenge to increase enrollment numbers, while other schools offer more to their incoming students.

Gronert also wanted to see the college continue to be involved with the community.

“I want to see us continue to be involved not only within UWM,” said Gronert. “But outside the university as well.”

Gronert used past work at the Mathis Gallery as work to reflect on while pursuing other community engagement opportunities.

The new dean also said that he looks forward to working with the staff and faculty of the College of Letters and Sciences and hoped that if anyone had any questions and concerns that they would let him know.