UW restructuring affects local campuses

By Hub City Times staff

MARSHFIELD — University of Wisconsin President Ray Cross is expected to announce a major restructuring of the state’s 26 campuses to cut costs and deal with declining enrollments. It would not close any one campus, but among other things, the two-year campuses, like the one in Marshfield, would be clustered with four-year schools in the same region.

The reorganization would allow the schools to share personnel and make it easier for students at the two-year colleges to move to four-year schools to get degrees.

The move is fueled by demographics, as Wisconsin’s number of working-aged adults, 18 to 64, is expected to increase marginally by 2040. One reported goal of the new plan is to stabilize enrollments at the two-year schools, which have had 32 percent fewer students since 2010.

The UW-Marathon County and UW-Marshfield/Wood County campuses have seen major drops in enrollment, according to UW Colleges and Extension Chancellor Cathy Sandeen. As a result, six faculty members at the institutions were transferred to other campuses with higher teaching workloads.