Members of the UW-Whitewater Faculty Senate congregated via WebEx Nov. 10 for their monthly meeting to talk about the academic program & budget analysis, future enrollment targets, and other important topics within the university. 

Senators spoke about having a clear long-term plan for the university’s future, noting that they must always have a larger vision for the coming years. The call was for UW-W 2030 enrollment targets, which the senate passed with ease.  

“I think this would be helpful in terms of planning. We can’t make decisions today if we don’t know where we’re going 10 years from now,” said Chair Tracy Hawkins.  

The Faculty Senate plans to have a published document stating the number of students UW-W expected to be enrolled during the 2030-2031 academic year.  

The Faculty Senate has been invested in the future of UW-W and the Faculty has asked for a comprehensive budget document to know exactly where UW-W’s financial situation is, as well as receive a long-term enrollment target to be able to make the right decisions for the curriculum. The University Program Array Review Committee (UPARC) will handle the academic side and the Faculty Budget Committee (FBC) the budget side.  The two will work together to get the future enrollment target numbers, and to publish a comprehensive budget document.

 “The budget committee has met and I believe everyone is agreeable to take that charge,” said Budget Committee chair Zach Oster.  

When the Faculty Senate meets in March, Faculty Senators will evaluate the results and find ways to lower costs within academics.  

Another way to enhance enrollment and get students in the doors, or logged in online at UW-W was talked about Tuesday and was referred to as the Faculty Recruitment Initiative. This initiative would ask each faculty member to send two emails out to students that have applied and been accepted to UW-W, but not yet enrolled in classes.  The initiative is another helpful way to boost enrollment for next year, however this semester has added a larger workload to some faculty members than usual, making it harder to find the time to do something like this.  

“I’d like to one, just begin by acknowledging just how overwhelmed and the lack of bandwidth that so many of us have, however, I want to really urge us to support this,” said James Hartwick. “If we can get more students to UW-Whitewater, we’re going to be cutting less colleagues later on.” 

The next Faculty Senate meeting will be held Tuesday, Dec. 8 from 2-5 p.m. on Facebook Live of the UW-W Faculty Senate page.