On Nov. 10, University Staff Senate met over Zoom to discuss COVID-19 testing, budgets, enrollment numbers and the 2022-2023 academic calendar.
On the main campus, faculty are encouraged to utilize the new COVID-19 testing site at the Bo Ryan Court. Students are encouraged to get tested at Hugunin Hall or Student Health Services; however, Bo Ryan Court is also available for testing.
On the Richland campus, students can get tested in the Classroom Building. On the Baraboo campus, the Fine Arts Building (R.G. Brown Theatre lobby) is open for testing. Both branches have testing open for faculty and students on subsequent Wednesdays from 9am to 4pm according to Sarah Vosberg, the Chief Human Resources Officer at UW-Platteville.
Enrollment at all three campuses has been in decline over the past five years. The retention of freshman students on the main campus is at 75%, and the national average for four-year colleges is at 71%. Baraboo is at 51% and Richland is at 56%, compared to the two-year college national average of 49%.
The lack of enrollment is suspected to be due to demographics, fewer graduates in Wisconsin and the Tri-State area, fewer transfer students and particularly the pandemic this year.
Angela Udelhofen, the assistant chancellor for Admission and Enrollment Services, said, “We are implementing the strategic enrollment plan in order to manage the decline and sustain enrollment.”
According to Victoria S. Livingston, the executive director of Enrollment and Student Success, these plans for getting the enrollment numbers back up include targeted events for underrepresented minority students and for the branch campuses, launching a new virtual visit that will be more dynamic and engaging, looking into a market share analysis and doing some research on the unique selling points for the branch campuses.
“The biggest concern caused by the declining enrollment is that our base budget is based on an enrollment we haven’t achieved since 2016,” said Livingston. Because of that, the budget is being adjusted and has already been brought down $5.6 million. About $3 million to $4 million of the deficit remains.
Looking at the academic calendar for the 2022-2023 school year, the proposed schedule was that finals week would be Dec. 19 through 23. However, with this being too close to Christmas, the new idea was to have finals Dec. 15, 16, 19, 20 and 21, and to flip the Thursday and Friday class schedules for the two days before Thanksgiving.