Chancellor’s Update: Weigh in on UWM’s Future

Email Update - Header

Oct 21, 2015

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

I am writing with a request for your involvement and an update on the Chancellor’s Campus Organization and Effectiveness Team (CCOET), which was formed to examine large-scale issues of how UWM is organized, our processes, and our structure to enable us to better address our current challenges.

UWM faces a serious financial situation due to budget cuts, declining enrollment, a four-year tuition freeze, and other historical factors.  While the Budget Planning Task Force has worked on recommendations for specific budget cuts to meet the 2015-17 budget, CCOET is looking at “big picture” ideas to close our $25-30 million structural deficit.  CCOET is charged with making recommendations by mid-February 2016 on consolidating organizational units, shrinking or deleting functions, and proposing large-scale efficiencies.

CCOET is acting with urgency because the situation requires it.  Our campus needs to operate differently than in the past, and we need a plan for this that begins in the 2015-16 academic year.  For more details about CCOET’s membership, charges, and schedule, please see here.

In the last few weeks, CCOET launched several strategies to gather feedback from students, faculty, and staff.  They have established a CCOET web site that includes resource materials like meeting notes and FAQs, hosted several listening sessions, and offered an anonymous survey.  They are holding open meetings every other Wednesday from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Chapman Hall Regents Room that students, faculty and staff may observe.  CCOET representatives will also give regular reports at shared governance group meetings.  A summary of CCOET’s plan to involve the campus in this process is available here.

I extend my thanks to those who have already engaged in these processes, and ask others to do the same.  We want your ideas about how UWM is organized, our processes, and our operating (including budgetary) effectiveness.  We can all have a role in determining UWM’s future, as we develop clear, actionable paths forward.

Please consider attending the listening session on Friday, October 23 from 2:30 to 5 p.m. in the UWM Student Union Ballroom West.  You may either share your feedback in person at that meeting or through the anonymous survey.

UWM can only benefit from your involvement and input into this process.

Best regards,

Mark A. Mone
Chancellor