By Morgan Andrews, Sarah Hart, Greg Bintz & Daniel Bestul
The University of Wisconsin – Green Bay (UWGB) enrollment reached full capacity at the beginning of the school year, Fall 2023, with a record number of students, resulting in packed parking lots, crowded classrooms, full dorms, and a mixed bag of unintended consequences.
According to UWGB Housing, residential hall move-ins were at 100.6% capacity, which means that all dorm buildings and apartments were full, and there was no room for any incoming students. Resident Mentors were asked to have students occupy their extra bed spaces due to the high percentage of students. UWGB is in the midst of adding on a new residential building, expected to be ready in Fall 2024. Between commuter students, residential students, and professors, many parking lots are full, causing complaints to arise. It’s clear that the campus is growing rapidly – but what does having a full capacity mean for UWGB?
The original vision for UW-Green Bay was to have 20,000 students. UW-Green Bay has 9,614 students as of the beginning of the Fall 2023 semester. Chancellor Michael Alexander expressed that expansion is in the works for UWGB. “We are excited about our first new dorm in a long time, coming online in the Fall of 2024,” says Alexander. “Along with this, UWGB announced a new 10-year plan to expand the campus and build improved buildings for the incoming students.
Last fall, UWGB sat around 91.27% occupancy in the dorms. As of October 20th, 2023, UWGB is currently sitting around 97.71% occupancy, which is nearly six-and-a-half percent higher than last year. Students dropping out and not living on campus, which opened up more living spaces, helped aid the 6.5-percent increase. The new building could create up to nearly 250 new beds available to help with the growing capacity of students.
Executive Director for Residential Education, Kelly Thacker, is happy to see more people living on campus. “Since the pandemic, campuses across the country have seen a decline in student involvement and people living on campus,” she explained. “So it is exciting to see campus housing in demand from UWGB students.” UWGB’s housing goal is to keep seeing an increase in applications to live on campus.
Students, professors, and housing are all being affected by full parking lots. Currently, the trads parking lot is under construction – forcing the Kress Center parking lot, East Housing parking lot, and Studio Arts parking lot to be more crowded than in previous years.
Commuter student Will Soquet, a senior, says that the lack of parking has negatively impacted him. “I’m not able to park close to my classes because the Kress lot is always full,” he said. “The walk from the Wood Hall lot to MAC is eight minutes for me – and I walk fast. That’s an extra 15 minutes out of my day that I can’t afford to lose.”
While parking lots and recreational locations on campus are full, students and professors have also expressed experiencing exceeded capacities in their classes.
Professor Carly Kibbe, who teaches Biology, says she has struggled with the General Education courses that she teaches. “My Gen Ed courses and lower-level biology courses have been filling quickly, and the University has been asking faculty to volunteer to teach extra sections as overload,” she commented. “I have not offered to teach extra sections because I just don’t have time in my schedule. Teaching high-enrollment classes like BIO 201 impacts my teaching because of the workload associated with more student emails and more grading. It can also be hard to promote active learning in larger classes.”
Kibbe expresses that while the high enrollment is a positive sentiment, there are downsides as well. “Reaching capacity is a sign of the growth of the University, which I think the administration is happy to see,” she said. “However, I do think if the University is not able to adapt to the increase in student numbers, we are at risk of faculty burnout from course overloads and negatively impacting student learning if they are not able to get into a class they need, or class sizes increase to a size that cannot facilitate active learning.”
Dr. Bryan Carr, one of the UWGB Communication professors, echoed Kibbe’s sentiment.
Despite the downsides to growing enrollment, other faculty and staff, including Carr, highlight the positives of the situation. “The more students we have, the better – provided we have the infrastructure to support them and give them the quality education and enjoyable campus experience they deserve,” he said.
“It’s wonderful to see so many students in my class, and in person, I find that the fuller the class, the more interesting and complete our discussions can be,” Carr continued. According to Carr, the primary concern with growing attendance is that students may be more likely to not attend class. “Students may feel ‘lost in the crowd’ – some may be less likely to attend if their absence is not noticed,” explained Carr. Nonetheless, Dr. Carr and other staff believe having full classes is a good thing.
Shauna Froelich, who teaches Communication Law, Small Group Communication, Public Address, and First-Year Seminar classes, also expresses excitement. “I love the engagement of many students,” she commented. “Three of my courses have many international students – China, Japan, Spain, Jordan. This has brought great diversity.”
Another place on campus that is seeing a large increase in the flow of students is the Kress Events Center. The Kress Center is open to both students and community members. With the recent spike in the number of students, equipment is reportedly being used more, and students are finding that they have to wait long periods of time to find benches or machines or get equipment to work out with. From September 1st to October 24th, 2022, the Kress Events Center saw 12,923 students access the Kress. Switch the year to 2023, and the Kress saw 14,060 students, an increase of 1,137.
Max Sorenson, a junior, says that the Kress has been more full this year than it has in the past. “It has definitely been busier than usual when I go,” he said. “I haven’t run into the issue of not having access to the equipment yet, but I go earlier in the day. I imagine that in the evenings, when more people typically work out, it’s very cramped.”
Jenna Kohl, a junior majoring in early education, has had a negative experience with the full capacity of the UWGB campus. “I have gone this school year to use the gym space,” she said.
“It was very full and hard to do what my group wanted to do, which was play basketball, without interruption from other students and gym members.” Kohl expressed her negative experiences as “annoying circumstances” from the full hallways, parking lots, and classes. Although some students may struggle with the increased activity on campus, others are excited that there are more people around.
University Dining is also busier than it has been in previous years. Dining areas have seen a big increase in sales and business. The biggest thing they have seen this year is the constant flow of students at their different locations to get food. Product Marketing Specialist Kylie Eben says that they are seeing increases all around campus dining. “We have seen an uptick in sales at the Garden Cafe. The Common Grounds staff has noticed trends of students and ordering times increase from last year. Also, the Social House at the Marketplace has seen 100 more daily guests in 2023 of October compared to 2022 of October.”
Ben Savage, a senior, loves seeing new faces – but with more people, this means longer waits. “I love seeing new smiling faces, don’t get me wrong, but it has been incredibly busy to just get lunch at the dining hall,” he explained. “There will be lines out the door, which affects me because I have to get to class. I don’t have 20 minutes to wait around for lunch.”
Savage has enjoyed seeing the campus so full. “Campus feels alive again, and we are finally back to pre-pandemic numbers. Obviously, COVID-19 took a hit on students staying on campus, but since the end of the pandemic, there has been a huge increase in student engagement in joining clubs.”
The TaeKwonDo Club has seen an increase in engagement as a result of the busier campus.
Aaron Hartmann, a sophomore and the President of the TaeKwonDo club, says he has seen a positive increase in club engagement. “I am proud to report that just this semester, we went from only nine members to 22 members!” One of the main reasons Hartmann thinks people are joining his club is because it offers an experience different from other clubs. “It’s not like the other clubs. A lot of people join to learn how to defend themselves, but later find that learning TaeKwonDo also grows their confidence, increases their flexibility, and helps them find a fun way to exercise while also being part of a close-knit team.”
The increase in enrollment affects UWGB in many different ways, both positive and negative. Sarah Hart, Morgan Andrews, Greg Bintz, and Daniel Bestul conducted a survey to understand the statistics of students affected by the increase in enrollment on campus. 150 students anonymously took the survey, and 53% reported being negatively impacted by UWGB’s full capacity, with only three percent reporting a positive impact and 44% saying they don’t feel they are affected. According to the university, the student-to-faculty ratio is 22:1 on campus. The average ratio across the United States colleges is 14:1, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
While the student response highlights the negative impact, Chancellor Michael Alexander expressed that the positive impact from full capacity extends beyond just the campus itself. “Increased enrollment helps create a vibrant university, but more importantly, it means more people are benefiting from an education at UW-Green Bay,” says Alexander. “That helps our communities and our economy and increases the quality of life for our region.”
