A
Note from the Provost
Confronting the Governor's Budget
Creating Innovative Solutions: Summer School
2005
At
the UW-Green Bay alumni awards banquet last week, I had the privilege
of hearing five outstanding alumni reflect on their UWGB education and
what it has meant for them. One comment particularly stands out for me.
It was from Distinguished Alumni Award winner William Hanrahan, Wisconsin
Assistant Attorney General and a 1982 graduate of UWGB’s Urban and
Regional Studies program. Recalling his days at UWGB, Mr. Hanrahan said
what made UWGB so exciting was the spirit of innovation, that:
“UWGB’s faculty and the curriculum were out of the box before ‘out of the box’ was even a phrase.”
That made me wonder, are we still “out of the box”? Long after
we retire, will we recall UWGB as fostering creativity and experimentation?
Long after they’ve graduated, will our current students say their
UWGB faculty and curriculum were “out of the box”?
What does this have to do with strategic planning?
Some regard planning as an exercise to “pin everything down,”
to remove ambiguities and make everything predictable. For those folk,
policies, procedures, and planning are important to keep things from happening
unless they are 100% sure that the new development is “proper,”
guaranteed to work, clearly prescribed by prior planning work.
Others pursue strategic planning as a means of ensuring
agility, innovation, and experimentation in keeping with changing conditions
and opportunities. I’m in that camp. For me, policies, procedures,
and planning should help us navigate in changing waters. They should empower
us to work together and individually, and to adjust and experiment as
we go. We agree on the “big picture” goals and objectives
we want to accomplish, then we are free to use our creativity and individual
initiative to move in that direction.
We will be challenged by the unexpected – both
positive and negative. But whether we are confronted by negative challenges
to address (like the recent budget reductions) or positive opportunities
to explore and experiment with, our planning process should help us navigate
intelligently and intentionally for the common good. In other words, to
“confront the emerging challenges, control the issues, and create
innovative solutions.”
If we are successful, future alumni and retirees will
recall their years at UWGB much as Distinguished Alumnus Hanrahan did
– as creative, experimenting, and “out of the box”?
I wish you all a successful conclusion to the Spring
semester and a wonderful summer. As always, we welcome your comments,
questions, or suggestions.
Sue K. Hammersmith,
Provost
Confronting the Governor's Budget
The
Governor’s budget proposal for 2005-07 calls for the UW System to
make significant budget reductions, including the elimination of 200 positions.
UW-Green Bay was given targets for reducing our state-supported budget and
personnel proportionate to our share of the total state support for the
UW system. In the Provost’s area, our budget divisions heads worked
together, as a team, to develop budget-reduction recommendations guided
by the ongoing work of the Academic Affairs Planning Committee (AAPC). Did
the AAPC’s prior planning work affect our discussions? Absolutely!
Of all the high-quality, efficient operations we have, which functions could be reduced or eliminated with the least effect on our students, faculty, staff, and planning goals?
The decisions were still difficult, but at least they were guided by a confident
eye to the future and where we want to be five years from now. Make no mistake,
the slated budget reductions will have effects and some of those effects
will be negative. But not random, and not fatal.
This illustrates how planning helps us cope with the unexpected, as well as with events and issues we can anticipate.
As
a result of AAPC discussions last semester, Dean Erickson, Dean Hughes,
and Associate Dean Salisbury worked with the academic units and offices
across campus to make UWGB’s 2005 Summer Session more entrepreneurial,
more responsive to market needs, and more profitable. They developed an
innovative and flexible business model for handling tuition revenue and
instructional expenses. They put together a market-sensitive array of
summer courses. And they engaged in a creative, public relations/recruitment
campaign to increase enrollments.
To date, we see a dramatic increase in enrollments
(both head count and student credit hours). Of course, instructional expenses
will also be higher because we are offering many more classes. As a result,
we won’t know the final fiscal impact of this new summer school
model until later in the summer.
The summer enrollments continue to grow, as registration is still open. The recruitment campaign will include two additional groups who have not yet registered: incoming freshmen, and Green Bay area students who attend college elsewhere but will be home for the summer. As an early indication of success, though, this is how the Summer 2005 enrollments and projected tuition to date (April 22, 2005) compare with the final enrollments and tuition revenues from Summer 2004:
| Indicator | 2004 (final) | 2005 (to date) | Difference | Change |
| Enrolled person | 1,281 | 1,716 | 435 | +34% |
| Student credit hours | ,3922 | 5,293 | 1,371 | +35% |
| Tuition | $595,000 | $886,000 | $291,000 | +49% |
Clearly,
both enrollments and tuition revenue will be up this year. So will expenses.
We won’t know until much later what the impact will be on our actual
net revenues. One thing is certain:
This experiment shows a previously untapped potential for growing our summer school.
We will continue to monitor enrollments, revenues, and expenses throughout the summer. We will incorporate what we learn into planning for Summer 2006, as we continue to “confront the challenges, control the issues, and create innovative solutions.”
Creating Innovative Solutions: Summer School 2005
The
AAPC has identified five goals to guide Academic Affairs Area planning
and budgeting in the coming year. Each of our budget divisions will be
asked to address these goals in its planning discussions, activities,
and budget proposals for the coming year. (Our budget divisions are Information
Services, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Outreach and Adult Access, Professional
and Graduate Programs, Student Affairs, and the Provost’s Office.)
Those goals can be summarized as follows:
AAPC is currently considering the more specific objectives that can be
pursued for each of these goals, as well as what information and performance
indicators we should track to monitor how well we are doing with respect
to each goal. Before the semester ends, AAPC will circulate to the entire
campus a working draft of our goals, the major objectives for each goal,
and the performance indicators that we will use to monitor progress toward
achieving each goal. We will welcome feedback, suggestions, and comments.
Over the summer, our budget divisions will begin to
incorporate these goals and objectives, as applicable, into their planning
for the coming year. Information Services, Outreach, Student Services,
and the Provost’s Office all have planning retreats over the summer,
and these will provide an opportunity for broad-based discussion within
those units. In Liberal Arts and Sciences and in Professional and Graduate
Studies, the deans will work with their planning committees to prepare
for fuller discussions when the faculty reconvene in the fall. We also
will continue to monitor and evaluate innovations which are already underway
– e.g., the new summer school model – and will incorporate
what we learn from experience into our planning for the future.
The results of all this will guide our planning and
budgetary decisions in the coming year.
By incorporating planning as part of a year-round cycle,
by continually monitoring our performance with respect to our goals and
objectives, and by actively connecting planning and budgeting, we will
be in a much better position to seize control of our future, to effect
and manage change, and to deal with conditions, issues, and opportunities
as they arise.
Again, before the semester ends, AAPC will circulate a set of goals, objectives, and performance measures. We look forward to campus discussion, feedback, and creativity as we move forward with this.
