$42.5 Million Budget Request to Increase Students’ Academic Potential

A proposal for the UW System to invest $42.5 million in universities across Wisconsin is slated to improve students’ opportunities to succeed both academically and professionally.

The proposal the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is creating for the 2017-19 biennial budget request will focus on four aspects.

These focuses will be an education pipeline, an increased university experience, business and community mobilization and performance metrics.

The upcoming biennial budget request will be considered after this academic year. At this time, departments on campus are focusing on creating an ideal proposal to submit before the UW System.

“There’ll be some jockeying, if you will, over the next few months,” said Nick Schultz, media relations director, in respect to the amount of money and propositions to be offered in the drafted proposal.

One proposal request is that classes at the collegiate level will be offered at public high schools to engage students in undergraduate studies before they enter a university setting. This would improve students’ opportunities to excel early in college and potentially reduce the need for remedial collegiate classes.

What UWSP hopes to see, if the budget proposal is to be accepted, would include increased academic advising opportunities to help students finish their desired degrees without delay.

Greg Diemer, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs, said that “helping students select the right courses to keep them on the track will help them to get their degree on a timely basis.”

Having the chance to talk to more professional academic advisors will help students realize what their majors should be and increase their time needed to complete their decided major.

Additionally, a chance to build professional relationships between students and local businesses would be addressed with this budget acceptance. Student internships and job opportunities would be provided by Stevens Point businesses and those in the surrounding area.

Michael Rutkowski, senior communication major, said, “I think that the vast majority of learning still happens outside of the classroom and academics are just a small portion of the college experience.”

“I think this would be an initiative that would get more of our faculty involved working with business operations to see if we can either help that business advance through approaches faculty might bring to the business or help the business bring a new approach that might further their opportunities,” Diemer said.

This push would give students an opportunity to work within their majors in a professional setting and gain experience in their field. Businesses would also improve their relationships with the university and the community.

Upon approval, the university’s propositions will take effect starting in 2019.

Alexa Dickson
News Editor
Alexa.S.Dickson@uwsp.edu