By Lauren Knisbeck, Josh Buntin, and Grace Prust
Amid major budget cuts, facing controversy surrounding diversity initiatives, and three years since the COVID-19 pandemic, student enrollment at UW-Green Bay (UWGB) is as strong as ever. While higher education across the country is facing declining enrollment numbers, budgetary struggles, and pushback from political forces, the number of students attending UWGB is the largest it has ever been in the school’s history, with over 10,000 concurrent students enrolled across its four campuses in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Marinette, and Sheboygan. According to UWGB, 1,800 students from 23 states make up the freshman class of 2023, more than half of whom are first-generation students and a quarter of whom are students of color. This includes first-time students and transfers.
Despite this historic milestone for the university, UWGB, along with the rest of the UW System, is currently running a structural deficit in its funding due to the cuts made to the UW System budget. According to an August press release, UW System President Jay Rothman is requiring universities to eliminate their deficits through corresponding budget cuts. According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, UWGB is making strides to cut its structural deficit by $381,800 and keep $5 million in the Tuition Fund reserve for 2024. The Fourth Estate spoke to UWGB Chancellor Michael Alexander about the university’s consistent and increasing enrollment and response to the budget cuts. He explained the university has passed 10,000 concurrent students this year for the first time in the school’s history, and enrollment is up seven percent compared to the previous year. Chancellor Alexander explained these numbers are greater than the enrollment projections by the UW System. “Those numbers can be deceiving because some of these are growth in [the] college crowd, in high school, some of this is Rising Phoenix, and some of this is full-time traditional students,” said Chancellor Alexander. The Chancellor went on to say the university needs to identify where the seven percent growth is and what direct budget implications the growth has. “Our job is to encourage more people to come into higher education and support them when they’re here,” he said of the mission of higher education.
The cuts are not as damaging to UWGB as they are to other UW System schools, such as UW-Oshkosh, which has been forced to lay off over 200 employees and mandatory furloughs for other staff members, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as well as ending in-person learning at their branch campus in Fond Du Lac. At UWGB, nine employees have been laid off from its library staff at its additional campus locations in Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Marinette. In-person library services at the Manitowoc and Marinette campuses will stop at the end of the academic year, and the Sheboygan campus library will be cutting hours at the beginning of the spring semester. Library services will be online for Manitowoc and Marinette. After the closures of the Manitowoc and Marinette campus libraries, those spaces will be repurposed.
The university has “very thin” margins to work with, and with the continued growth, it required departments to scale back some of their services and programs and make cuts on spending in order to close the deficit. This includes cuts to both academic and administrative activities. Chancellor Alexander and the university staff are working to ensure there is no direct impact on students from the budget situation and the changes the university is making behind the scenes to close the deficit. Chancellor Alexander says it goes back to a lack of investment by the state in higher education, which he believes is the core problem. “You want to invest in the future of your state, investing in students and helping drive them into the economy [and] into the future, make sure we maintain the great quality of life we have in Wisconsin, that we’re attractive to people who want to move here. There’s all kinds of reasons why you would invest in education.” UWGB is continuing to assess its budget situation and making adjustments as necessary in order to make sure the needs of its students, faculty, and staff are met. The UW System has also asked universities to “reassess” their branch campuses, such as actions taken in Fond Du Lac and Washington County. Despite the recent layoffs, UWGB has not announced plans to close any of its additional locations.
Statewide, the UW System budget was cut by $32 million, despite the state having projected a seven billion dollar surplus this year, according to PBS. The Republican-controlled Legislature decided to cut the budget in an attempt to get UW System campuses to cut back on, or even eliminate, their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The $32 million was what lawmakers estimated universities would spend on these programs over the next two years. According to the state legislature, schools can get this money back if they promise it will be used for workplace preparation efforts instead of DEI programs.
At UWGB, the Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusivity handles the university’s DEI programs. The office is a prominent and important part of the university’s mission in reaching and serving students, according to Chancellor Alexander. The Chancellor also noted he prefers the term inclusivity when discussing DEI efforts, as the university seeks to serve students from every walk of life, including first-generation students, who account for 51% of the university’s student population. “One of the things we’re constantly looking at is how to make sure that each individual student has the services that they need. And that’s why we tried to use the term inclusivity.” He says inclusivity is a broad definition, including accessibility and veteran services for students. According to the EDI website, they are taking ‘tangible steps’ to make UWGB a more equitable place. Numerous resources are provided on the website, not limited to just common diversity issues such as gender, race, or sexuality. They are also focused on making sure a student’s basic needs are met through the campus cupboard and the clothing closet. These services provide food and clothes to students for free, no questions asked. They also provide resources on reporting incidents of discrimination or bias on campus, which can be found here.
The Fourth Estate spoke with Dr. Stacie Christian, who is the Assistant Vice Chancellor of Inclusivity and Co-Chair of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity at UWGB, about DEI in higher education. Christian is a UWGB alumna, having earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the university. She believes diversity is important in a college setting because it leads to understanding that everyone has different backgrounds, values, and interests. This is important in a college setting because of the relationships between students, faculty, and staff, all of whom have different experiences, which must be taken into account.
Christian explains that equity is not the same as equality, and equality is not equitable. Equity is providing supportive resources with different backgrounds and abilities so everyone can succeed in college. “If our campus is inclusive in that each of us on the campus community respects and values each other’s differences, we will allow all voices to gather to communicate so the vision and outcome and the student success will be positive and strong. If we do not allow all voices, we will have a one-sided view of life and will not have success in the larger global market,” Christian said about why DEI is important. Christian added that businesses in Northeast Wisconsin are looking for college graduates who are educated about and supportive of diverse individuals, and she believes including all ideas results in a better service to the community.
As of November 2023, 11 of the UW campuses have self-reported running a deficit. Without necessary funds, campuses are forced to dip into their tuition reserves and pull from departments in order to break even at the end of the year, but this is not sustainable as the reserves are beginning to dwindle for most campuses. For the first time in 10 years, the UW System has lifted its freeze on tuition, enabling campuses to increase tuition costs, which have stayed stagnant over the years, in order to offset their structural deficits. A six percent pay raise for system employees has also been delayed due to the controversy surrounding the budget, despite having been approved as part of the annual budget earlier this year. At the end of October, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers sued the Republican-controlled legislature, asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to overturn the blocking of pay raises by Republicans, among other issues, saying the legislature was attempting to unilaterally change state law. Evers bypassed lower courts in his lawsuit, seeking action from the new majority-liberal Supreme Court. Chancellor Alexander cited the challenge of keeping up salaries with the rate of inflation as another issue facing the university amid the cuts.
To get a better understanding of the cuts to the UW System budget from a legislator’s perspective, the Fourth Estate spoke to Representative Kristina Shelton (D-Green Bay), whose district includes UWGB’s main campus. Shelton’s husband is also a professor at UWGB. She says the State of Wisconsin has the money to fund the UW System budget and more, citing a budget surplus of more than four billion dollars, which was signed into law by Governor Tony Evers earlier this year. Shelton believes the cuts are entirely political and only a tool to flame culture wars and a broader attack on higher education across the country instead of being a genuine reexamining of what funds are being used for by the Universities of Wisconsin. She cites the controversies around transgender athletes, gender-affirming care for minors, social and emotional learning, or meeting black, indigenous, brown, and Hispanic minority students where they are in an academic setting. Shelton also notes how UW System employees are struggling financially because of not receiving raises, being furloughed, or even losing their jobs. “There’s no reason we should be laying off people, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be fully funding the UW System,” said Shelton. She goes on to express how hard these impacts are through the lens of her husband, who has been with the university for over 10 years. “When you think about it from cultural and professional morale, it’s really quite sad to see the impact that these cuts have had on people as humans,” Shelton said, citing a personal connection to the struggles faced by UW System employees.
The Fourth Estate reached out to Senator André Jacque (R-De Pere) multiple times for comment but did not receive a response.
Shelton went on to say it is important for public universities to receive state funding because state funding helps offset tuition costs. The offset helps make college more affordable for working families and is an investment in the workforce and the future. Going further, Shelton said, “I would actually argue that the greater purpose of higher education is learning civic engagement, understanding information, and how to search for information and how to build community.” In addition to believing investment in higher education is why it is important for universities to be funded, Chancellor Alexander chooses not to focus on what is being taken away from the university but instead focuses on what students will be able to do with a college education, saying that while the cost of college may seem daunting for some, the long-term benefits outweigh the short-term costs, going back to the idea of investment. “But if you’re making a choice about education right now and you’re choosing between education or a car, okay, you could spend $32,000 on a car pretty easily right now. Right? That car will last you X amount of years, and it’s going to cost you money every step of the way. Or you could take $32,000, and that’s what it’s going to cost you and your tuition for four years to get a degree. That investment is going to benefit you for your entire career,” Chancellor Alexander said about the benefit of higher education. UWGB continues to assess its budget situation and make decisions to continue to serve its students and community.
The form to fill out a discrimination report can be found here.
The website for UWGB’s Office of Equity, Diversity & Inclusivity can be found here.
See here for more information on how the UW System budget is decided.
