Campus of the University of Wisconsin Green Bay

Testimony of Bruce Shepard,
Chancellor, University of Wisconsin Green Bay

First, I want to extend a hearty Northeast Wisconsin welcome to our guests from across the State. We are very pleased to have you here in this dynamic region and to have you on what, after five months of my own to draw upon, I can confidently report has to be the best institution in the UW System!

You are set upon a very serious matter, and we understand the challenge that you face... that we, as a statewide community face. Yours is both a difficult and a thankless task. That you approach it with vision and dedication to the future is characteristic of the caliber of political leadership for which, as a recent outsider, I can report Wisconsin is recognized nationally.

In that tradition of looking to the future, my remarks this morning will direct your attention to the UWGB of tomorrow rather than the predicaments of today. I will cite specifics when it comes to the impacts of the Assembly's Budget Repair Bill. And, I have a handout to share with you providing details. But, I believe we can best understand the hard choices that presently must be made by first glimpsing the future which all of us, together, wish to share.

Where is UWGB headed? Over the last five months, I have met with every single faculty and staff member on campus, with many students, and with many people in the community: civic organizations, alumni, contributors, political leaders, businesses, boards, and benefactors including leadership of the diverse groups that increasingly enrich our region. I asked over 700 people, face-to-face, where UWGB needs to be headed.

Several answers came through loud and clear.

The community wants to be part of the University, and the University wants to be part of the community. This is the major theme to emerge. UWGB is already involved in the community in many ways and serves as a critical cultural and educational resource through the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute for Learning Partnerships, and programs in many areas including business, nursing, teacher preparation, social welfare, urban and regional planning, and ecosystem management. That is a solid foundation, but only a foundation. From the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, we are about building Green Bay's University of Wisconsin.

Engagement is one major theme. Another clearly emerged: the increasing relevance of the distinctive approach we take to higher education at UWGB. We emphasize community engagement, practical problem solving, and, first and foremost, understanding based upon multiple disciplinary perspectives.

Today, we are preparing people for careers that do not yet exist. We are preparing them to be effective members of societies that will be facing challenges — economic, social, cultural — that we do not yet know. How can we be doing that if all we are doing is providing technical skills and information?

Our answer is relatively simple. We emphasize learning how to learn, lifelong. And, we emphasize engagement in society. But, what will matter most in dealing with the future is the capacity to grasp the new and novel, from multiple perspectives — interdisciplinary perspectives — and that's where UW-Green Bay is unique.

In learning about UWGB, I've also come to appreciate that this institution carries terrific economic importance for this region. Considering our payroll, multiplier effects, and the spending of our students, I estimate that we contribute, in dollars-and-cents terms, close to a quarter of a billion dollars to the economy each year. That is with a state GPR investment in UWGB of $33 million.

We are important to local economic vitality in other ways: our largest major, Business, has close to a 1,000 students; teacher education is second with 600. You will find our alumni in leadership positions everywhere you look in the region, and we proudly count among them two of your Senate colleagues: Senator Robert Cowles and Senator David Hansen.

We, and the UW system, are critical to Wisconsin's future in another more fundamental way. While all the hoopla centers on today's economic downturn, that will be solved soon. There are, however, underlying long-term trends that, if left unchecked, will pose a major problem for the economic well-being of our State even after the current recession recedes.

One statistic captures the problem: looking over decades of data, personal incomes for the people of Wisconsin are dropping ever further below the national average.

Now, please consider two facts: that a college degree is worth, over the course of a person's life, about a million dollars in additional income and the fact that 93% of our recent graduates stay in Wisconsin. To me, it could not be more clear: Investing in public higher education is the solution to Wisconsin's long-term economic challenge.

As a proudly public institution, we are an expression of the state's ennobling commitment to share that brighter future, broadly, with citizens of diverse means and varied backgrounds. But, to reach that future, invest we must.

Quickly, one last theme before I conclude. UWGB needs to be bigger. This region believes UWGB needs to be bigger. We are small. Our enrollment is 5,500. Many of the resource issues we face are a result of unavoidable inefficiencies associated with small size. But, more importantly, we cannot adequately serve the needs of a region of a half a million people with the resource base of such a small campus.

We intend, again continuing my emphasis on long-term vision, to grow to 7,500. Just how, has to be worked out. But, already, the secret is out. Enrollment applications are up 10% for next fall. That is on top of the necessity to cut our freshman enrollments by 10% for next fall. That cut, put in place before the current budget crisis, resulted from the success of our efforts to improve retention. Because more students are staying, we had to cut the number whom we were admitting in order to stay within our previously specified size.

Now, of course, we are having to consider movement in what, from a long-term perspective, is absolutely the wrong direction. We are staring at reductions in our overall size, and it is that subject I will address in conclusion.

To me, it is simple hydraulics involving access, quality, and cost. Hydraulics: pushing on any one affects the other two. We want high quality, low cost (tuition), and appropriate access (enrollment size). When budgets are reduced, we can have a combination of any two but not all three. Which two is it to be?

Recently, we projected our budget for next year using the best information we had available: the proposals contained in Governor McCallum's budget repair proposal. Our reduction was to be $607,000. We made the cuts by seeking efficiencies and flattening the organization, protecting along the way every penny there was for instruction so that we could fully serve all the students we had committed to admit.

Today, a $607,000 cut has grown to $2,000,000. That is 6% of our GPR funding. If you take out the portion of the GPR that we cannot reduce — for example, debt payment — the reduction is 7%. Having just come from a thorough reexamination of our budgets and having eked out all the opportunities for efficiencies that we could find, I am convinced that, should we need further cuts, instruction can no longer be spared: Specifically, the Assembly's Budget Repair bill would affect us in the following ways:

• UWGB's contribution to the economic stimulus package, passed by you last session, would be dead in the water.

• Graduating students will be entering a highly competitive work environment having learned, at UWGB, using equipment a year older than would otherwise have been the case. They will also be sitting in classrooms less often cleaned and walking across grounds more unkempt. Library hours will be reduced by up to 10%. It will be harder to see an advisor. Waits will be longer when seeking the critical services of the Financial Aid and Registrar's offices.

• We currently have 39 unfilled positions, all of which are frozen. 15 of those are faculty positions. I estimate that we will have to leave 2/3rd's of the 39 positions unfilled.

• In addition, we will eliminate the pool of funds we have specifically protected to offer additional general education sections. There will be at least 21 fewer sections of such critical courses as writing and mathematics.

• As a consequence and in order to keep our commitments to making sure students who are enrolled can get the classes they need to graduate, we will reduce student headcount enrollment, I currently estimate, by 467 students. In that calculation, I am including both the reduction necessary because of the budget cut and the further reduction necessary because of a double whammy: by reducing access, we also reduce tuition.

• Our current suspension of admissions means that we are not, today, acting upon over 450 new freshmen and transfer applications. Normally, nearly 80% (about 350) of these applicants would be admitted. An additional 700 applications, largely representing our non-traditional students, expected between the beginning of the suspension and next fall, are also not being acted upon. Normally, nearly 90% (about 630) of these applicants would be admitted.

Reducing access. It is in the inevitable hydraulics of access, quality, and cost. The Assembly's bill takes costs (tuition) out of play; we have an obligation to Wisconsin and to our enrolled students to protect the quality they have chosen; that leaves access.

I began with a vision for the future — where our region wants UWGB to be.

Long-term vision is essential as we grapple with short-term challenges. I ask that the Senate re-examine the severity of the cuts passed along to the University of Wisconsin System by the Assembly. We understand the extent of the budget crisis and have figured out how to take our share by absorbing the Governor's budget reduction. However, the cuts proposed beyond the Governor's $51m would have a severe impact on our institution, the quality of education our state takes great pride in, and represents a severe disinvestment precisely when we need to be investing in Wisconsin's long-term economic vitality and quality of life.

Your dedicated efforts on behalf of the citizens we too exist to serve is much appreciated. Thank you for listening. And, to Senators Jauch, Erpenbach, Meyer, and Hansen who — joined by 14 Senatorial colleagues — have just sent a letter to Regent President Smith pledging to protect assess to a world class system, UWGB says, "thank you for hearing."