Chancellor Michael Alexander on the Finances of UW-Green Bay

Frederica Freyberg:
UW schools separate from the flagship in Madison, mostly see falling enrollment and budget woes. As a result, some branch campuses have been closed altogether, resulting in layoffs. Some majors have been eliminated, and there has been belt tightening all around. The UW administration is asking the Legislature for $855 million in the next two-year budget to shore up the system. That’s expected to be a fight with Republican legislators. Amidst all of this though, a bright spot. UW-Green Bay this fall saw record high enrollment of 7,000 full-time students and eliminated its deficit last year. How did they do it? We turn to UW-Green Bay Chancellor Michael Alexander. Ahead of that, we should note PBS Wisconsin is part of UW-Madison. And Chancellor, thanks very much for being here.

Michael Alexander:
Thanks very much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So that big question is how did you boost enrollment to these levels?

Michael Alexander:
Well, I think we’re really trying to redefine how we view who a student could be. So we really view a student as anyone who wants to learn. And we feel that as a regional comprehensive, we should be of value to every citizen in northeast Wisconsin, whether they be, you know, all the way from pre-K, all the way through retirement, right, that there should be some way that as a regional comprehensive, we are serving people who want to continue their education. So we work everything from a lot of college credit in high school, our dual enrollment with students. Obviously, we have traditional students who come live on campus. We have a ton of commuters. We have a ton of people who are in the workforce who come with us, and we teach over 85,000 people a year in noncredit work to help them advance their careers and their lives.

Frederica Freyberg:
So do you feel as though UW-Green Bay has — is starting to become known as a place where people in different stages of their life can go and get that degree?

Michael Alexander:
I hope so. I think we are doing everything we can to make sure that we are viewing education through the eyes of a student. In other words, what makes it convenient for a student to advance their life through education as opposed to just thinking about what may be convenient for us. So we’re adapting the university as fast as we can to live in that reality in the modern world, where people have complicated lives and we need to meet them where they are to make sure they can have education, be a part of it.

Frederica Freyberg:
Do you feel as though other campuses will be using yours as a model example?

Michael Alexander:
I don’t know, but I know that every campus in the UW system is doing really amazing work, and all of us have very different circumstances based on location and all our different things. I think I’m really, really proud to have amazing colleagues across the system that are doing an amazing job educating students.

Frederica Freyberg:
At the same time, your Marinette branch campus closed in-person classes and UW-Green Bay eliminated some majors, including theater. What do you say to people who say campuses are now just trying to kind of turn out industry-specific workers rather than focus on college attainment in the liberal arts for its own sake?

Michael Alexander:
Well, I think that’s a really great question. I think that we believe very strongly that the reason you come to a university is because you’re going to learn more than just a skill for a job. You’re going to learn skills that will help you throughout your life and your career. That has to be skills that you learn through the liberal arts, like communication, like understanding how to talk to people who have differing ideas than you do. So important in the modern world, and learning through things like theater. So we are looking very carefully about how to make sure we can get more students who take things like theater. It doesn’t mean we have to have a major in it. We believe, though, that those liberal arts classes are core to who we are, and Marinette is a great example of this. Marinette, we have a technical college that’s right next door to us in Marinette, and we still have options for education in Marinette for students who need the university for an access point to their classes. But we’ve really invested in the theater there, and the theater in Marinette now is thriving. It’s sold-out performances. It has really grown under UW-Green Bay, and we’re really proud of that. It’s — I think we have to look at education differently and we view Marinette broadly as a success, even though we don’t have in-person classes anymore.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you had to spend down your reserves, I understand, to get rid of the deficit. How much does UW-Green Bay need an infusion of state dollars to keep going, even with your enrollment success?

Michael Alexander:
I think it’s really important that the state look at how it’s investing in education to make sure that we’re preparing the workforce we need for the future. And if you look at this, and if you look, there’s a Georgetown study that talked about this, about what good jobs will look like. And by good jobs, it’s not white collar, blue collar I’m talking about. It’s just jobs that are going to be able to pay well. And more and more of those as we look into the next decade, are going to require education beyond high school. And it’s certainly possible to have a rewarding career and not have any experience beyond high school. It’s just the odds of having a high paying job are less, right? And so how do we make sure that we’re putting people and allowing people to evolve in the workforce as the workforce skills you need change so quickly in the current age? If you think about even AI and what kind of skills we will need in the future, this is really important.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Chancellor Michael Alexander, we’ll leave it there. Thank you very much.

Michael Alexander:
Thank you for having me.