David Michael Miller
College students across the state are taking their final exams as the campuses of the UW System wrap up another academic year. As essays are hurriedly scribbled in Blue Books and dorm mates bid a tearful goodbye, there’s an undercurrent of undergraduate unrest as changes at UW-Stevens Point bode an ominous future for the UW System.
UW-Stevens Point Chancellor Bernie Patterson announced in March that his school would cut 13 liberal arts majors — including English, art, history, political science and world languages. The school is putting an increased focus on slotting students into majors with neatly defined job paths.
It’s additional chaos in the midst of UW System President Ray Cross’ passion project to merge the two-year UW colleges with the four-year campuses. UW-Stevens Point, is set to absorb UW-Marathon County and UW-Marshfield/Wood County. They are both two-year colleges that primarily teach liberal arts courses tied to a four-year university that is giving up on liberal arts majors.
For many students living in central Wisconsin, the choice is simple: go to a different college. They can go to UW-La Crosse, UW-Eau Claire or take advantage of the reciprocity options available in Minnesota.
But there are many reasons why a prospective student from central Wisconsin has limited geographic mobility when it comes to picking colleges. Some want to live with their parents to reduce costs, some have family members they need to care for. For these students, the message is loud and clear — you don’t get to dream. Want to have a career in fine arts? Do you dream of seeing your works hung in a gallery? Too bad. But Stevens Point still has a graphic design major, go design some burger ads.
I’m not knocking students who choose a major that neatly lines up with a career path. I went to UW-Madison as an education major to learn to teach middle school and high school social studies. While I quickly learned that I was not well suited to spend my life teaching eighth grade, I still think it is a wonderful career choice. Same with any student who chooses graphic design or nursing or any STEM major. But the operative word here is choice. Students, regardless of where they live in the state or their family’s income level, deserve the option to pursue the liberal arts.
The gutting of the liberal arts at UW-Stevens Point is another result of the Republican mismanagement of the UW System. Chancellor Patterson is justifying these cuts as part of an effort to fill a $4.5 million budget deficit at UW-Stevens Point over the next two years. However, UW-Stevens Point received a budget cut of $6.5 million during Governor Walker’s 2015 austerity budget, cuts that remained in the current budget.
Additionally, the multi-year freeze on in-state tuition is disproportionally hurting smaller campuses like Stevens Point. UW-Madison has been able to get around the freeze by increasing tuition on out-of-state students and graduate students in professional programs; those revenue sources aren’t available outside of the flagship.
This isn’t the free market deciding that these programs are no longer needed, this is market manipulation from Republican leaders intent on forcing the campuses to make impossible decisions.
Of course, these same Republicans will continue to send their kids to the campuses that aren’t forced to make these kind of cuts. For all of the conservative fainting spells over liberal college campuses, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson still sent all three of his kids to UW-Madison. Gov. Scott Walker sent his son Alex to be a Badger too. Alex even majored in political science, one of the majors set to be eliminated at Stevens Point. Walker’s other son went to the similarly prestigious — and even more expensive — Marquette University.
These elected officials made sure their children had the opportunity to have a well-rounded education; they just don’t believe other families deserve that opportunity. Their kids have the opportunity to be anything they want, while other kids get to be a cog in the machine.
Cuts like this aren’t going to stay at UW-Stevens Point. Members of the UW Board of Regents have not shied away from supporting Patterson’s cuts. As the Regents have recently given themselves a much bigger role in the hiring of high-level campus leaders, they’ll likely hire chancellors at other campuses who come up with similar foolhardy, draconian program cuts.
As long as Republicans control the budget and Walker appoints the Regents, the UW System will continue its slow descent as our public universities die a death of 1,000 budget cuts. As I said in an editorial last fall, defeating Walker in November is the only way to save our UW System. Stevens Point is one more canary in a coal mine that is rapidly filling up with dead birds.
Alan Talaga co-writes the Off the Square cartoon with Jon Lyons and blogs at Madland.
