How do we get to where we wish to be? Perhaps the most important message I picked up could be summarized in one word: “together.” “Top down” solutions seldom work and never in university settings.

I also reached the conclusion that there are no “magic bullets.” I found no credible approach that would, for example, in one fell swoop solve the chronic underfunding we face (and I agree that $2 million is a good approximation), and that leads to the very real issues we have with student/faculty ratios. Our strategy will require relying on a variety of different approaches, being innovative and opportunistic where possibilities serve our strategic direction. Over the months of meeting with people on and off campus, there were a variety of means identified for achieving our shared aspirations. These will be briefly noted before moving on to conclude this report.

Engagement
Engagement itself is a means to building resources needed to pursue our aspirations. Here, the political scientist in me is speaking, doing so with the cliché in mind that all politics are local. A cliché, yes. But, still true. We continue engagement — and raise its importance to UWGB — because it is the right thing to do. But, it also builds support for UWGB — locally, in Madison, and via philanthropy. One of those fortunate situations in which doing the right thing is also doing the smart thing.

Growing the University
UWGB is currently at about 5,500 headcount enrollment. That is small within the context of the UW System. We have been within 10% of 5,000 student headcount for the last two decades.

Whatever twists and turns our conversations took over past months, they seemed to come back, in my mind, to issues of size. There were resource considerations: the fact that unavoidable overhead costs incurred regardless of size pull away resources that could, otherwise, be directly invested in areas of need. But, size also relates to concerns I heard from students about the need for richer student life on campus and concerns from faculty about the need for a richer, more stimulating intellectual environment.

Growing means change and, possibly, losing qualities important to those — students, faculty, staff — who choose to be at UWGB today. At many meetings, I asked you how big UWGB might become without losing the qualities that currently attract people. Time and again, I heard the number 7,500. Sometimes a bit larger: e.g., 10,000. But, almost always around 7,500.

We cannot, and will not, grow simply to grow. Resources must be there to permit growth without sacrificing quality. Growth can also be a strategy for improving quality. If, as some campuses have done recently, we can fund growth through average costs that are below marginal costs, then resources become available to rectify the underfunding of UWGB within the UW system. There is the possibility, again, that doing the right thing can also be doing the smart thing.

How do we grow? Students are waiting to get into UWGB. But, it is very clear to me that the UW System is not interested in any approach that would involve reallocation. We can make all the arguments we want about being one of the smallest campuses in one of Wisconsin’s major metropolitan areas. And, we can promote our needs to be larger in order to have the resource base necessary to achieve our vision of regional engagement. But, those arguments will get us nowhere.

We will only be able to grow if we set this as a long-term objective to be sustained over a decade, being opportunistic as opportunities to grow occur that are consistent with our academic priorities. Basically, we will need to offer to take additional FTE in response to funding for the initiation of new programs or the expansion of programs with a demonstrated capacity to grow.

One fact is given: We will not bet on the come. Full funding must be available for such initiatives. We must not water down current programs to take on new enterprises, and that is what will happen if we undertake additional students without full funding.

Full funding includes funding for the new program and for the “spillover” consequences of additional students — the impacts upon existing programs. Here, it is critical that we have in place the budgeting mechanisms to allow resources to flow to all programs affected by growth. That is necessary to protect quality. It also is essential so that we recognize our shared fates, our interdependencies. Otherwise, we risk the dysfunctional environment in which everybody takes shots at everybody else’s great ideas out of fear that, if one gets ahead, others will fall behind. We would all lose in the long run.

Starting new programs is risky. How do we create opportunities for our highly creative faculty and staff to try out new but risky ideas? We could try something like an “academic program investment fund” to which programs (instructional and non-instructional) could apply for “up front” investments in initiatives. I imagine proposals that would show how, say, after three years of covering start-up costs, the initiative would be recovering full costs (through, say, funded growth). The fund becomes a pool that is constantly replenished through the success of the initiatives funded. This approach is substantially different from what we are accustomed to in higher education where funds, when available, are invested once in FTE and never seen again. The approach does require that proposals have “exit strategies,” allowing an initiative to be concluded if the projections upon which the proposal was grounded prove to be unrealistic.

I also was struck by the need to think broadly about ways to fund growth. GPR will always be central. But, there are programs that can recover full costs through tuition, and we need to keep such possibilities in mind.

Retention
We can also grow through improved retention. This is another example where the right thing may also be the smart thing. But, only if we are not penalized for improving retention.

Currently, we are penalized for improved retention. Keep more students and, not only do we not keep their tuition (forget about GPR) but also have to take smaller and smaller numbers of new students. We need to change this aspect of the UW System disincentive structure for retention. If we are successful here, then improved retention can lead, over time, to significant increases in size.

A caveat on retention, though. The best predictor of student academic success is family income. The easiest way to improve retention is to become more selective in the students we accept. Yet, as a public institution, we have our greatest impact upon individual students — and upon the economic prosperity of the State of Wisconsin — when we enroll and graduate those “first-generation” college students who have high probabilities of not being retained. I hope we never abandon that critical part of our reason for existence as a public institution of higher education simply because such students are “risky.”

Many of the factors that affect retention are outside of our control. Those factors within our control involve our academic program mix and, importantly, development of a sense of belonging among students through their experiences in the classroom and outside the classroom. Here, as I developed above, the instincts of the Learning Experience are right on.

Partnerships
Collaborations will be an increasingly important means by which we pursue our aspirations, including those of engagement and growth. That is the lesson emerging from around the country and one established here at UWGB in, for example, Nursing and Education. The proposed MSW program, to be jointly provided by UWGB and UW-Oshkosh, is a trailblazing program for UWGB and the UW System (the MSW is jointly awarded by both institutions) that will be a model for future initiatives, particularly at the graduate level or where expensive undergraduate programs are involved (e.g., engineering).

And, partnerships will pervade more and more of what we do beyond development of new curricula. Among academic and student support services, libraries are leading the way. As we seek to stretch funding further and further, expect partnerships in expanding areas including facilities and business services.

I should warn the campus that this is not a development that bothers me. In fact, I like it. I do not believe we should worry about turf or whose department is providing a service. Our focus should be on results: what works for our students, our programs, our region. And, at times, our turf issues may be trying to get others to come onto our turf to do things others can do better than we can, thereby avoiding spreading ourselves too thinly.

Marketing
Marketing — the mere use of the term — can make the hair stand up on the backs of the necks of academics like me. Smacks of deception. However, marketing involves understanding what one’s strengths are and then accurately communicating them. Through my many conversations over the early months, marketing emerged as an important need. The positive side is that people do not know much about us. There are not strong negatives, or even any negatives. But, wow, ignorance of who we are, what we are already doing in our region, and what we aspire to be is impressive.

We have formed a marketing committee, and we will find it helpful. However, we must first help the marketing committee by coming to agree on what our strengths are and what we aspire to be. With those pieces in place, marketing will be an important means to achieving our aspirations for engagement, growth, and pursuing our uniquely suited educational approach for the 21st century.