While the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus seemed to be frozen in time — and ice — throughout the duration of winter break, the news never stopped to sleep nor admire the snow. Here are four stories you may have missed during this past month off campus.
Wisconsin Foundation leaders maintain they will not make political statements with donor money
One of the main demands behind last spring’s pro-Palestine encampment was for the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) to divest its money from companies supporting Israel. Part of the deal student organizers reached with UW-Madison in exchange for taking down the encampment included the university administration facilitating access to decision makers at the WFAA.
In a recent interview with the Capital Times, WFAA leaders maintained the WFAA will not make “political statements” with money from alumni and donors.
“We're not going to make an announcement about it, because we know donors have very different feelings,” former WFAA CEO Mike Knetter told the Cap Times. “We have graduates who work in oil and gas. It's a big universe of people that invest with us, and we're respectful of all of them.”
When asked about potential divestment from practices protesters called unethical, such as arms and weapons manufacturing, Knetter said their investment committee is composed of donors and alumni and follows all the applicable laws and regulations in the investment industry.
“Even if we thought about having an exercise where we get people to agree to some criteria that we would follow in terms of investment strategy, the idea of getting agreement from all of those thousands of donors, it's impossible,” Alisa Robertson, who took over the title of CEO and President of WFAA from Knetter, said.
UW System reportedly paid $51 million to consulting groups even as budget deficits cited for faculty layoffs
The UW System spent $51 million on consulting services from Huron Consulting Group over a period of five years, Madison radio station WORT revealed in a December news report.
WORT said they were tipped off to the contract in October 2023 when UW-Oshkosh laid off 140 employees in an “Institutional Realignment Plan.” One contract, WORT said, shows Huron designed and facilitated a $24,000 “institutional realignment” workshop 2 months before the layoffs.
The information, which covers the period between 2019 and 2023 came from several public records requests at various UW schools, which would only provide contracts between that period, according to WORT. UW-Madison has yet to fulfill WORT’s records requests, WORT said.
Some UW System faculty and union leaders underlined the $51 million spent by the UW System is nearly three times as much as the $18 million budget deficit system leaders pointed to in justifying layoffs at UW-Oshkosh in 2023.
UW-Madison secures final approval for $300 million engineering building
Following a lengthy and contentious process to fund a new engineering building, UW-Madison finally secured unanimous approval from the Wisconsin State Building Commission for the project in early January.
In the past two years, the UW System has navigated politically motivated budget cuts. In May 2023, Republicans slashed $197 million from the allocated funding, with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, telling The Daily Cardinal that the UW System would “never get another nickel out of the Legislature” without cutting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Months later, UW reached a deal with the Legislature for funding in exchange for a cap on DEI hiring for the next three years.
The current engineering building was finished in 1964.
UW System to take a more active role in enrollment management after consulting firm review
The UW System will take a “more active role” in enrollment management following a review from a consulting firm that found 30% of undergraduate programs across the UW System are “low-enrolled.”
The consulting firm Deloitte found 194 out of 646 undergraduate degree programs analyzed in Fall 2023 had 52 or fewer students majoring in the program annually, which is considered “low-enrolled.” The analysis did not include UW-Madison.
In response UW System President Jay Rothman formed a work group to make recommendations and craft metrics on evaluating low-enrollment programs, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Deloitte’s report, which it released in December, also found a disconnect between campuses and the UW System in forecasting enrollment patterns, finding that enrollment declined at a majority of UW schools over a six-year period, though operations and expenses largely remained the same.
The review also found financial problems predated the COVID-19 pandemic. Over half of the 12 universities analyzed by Deloitte had negative operating margins in four or more of the last seven fiscal years.
The final report was presented to a UW Board of Regents meeting on Dec. 5. UW System interim senior vice president for academic and student affairs said during the Dec. 5 meeting that since last fall, UW institutions have cut or suspended 60 academic programs.
Deloitte stopped short of calling for cutting those programs but recommended UW System and the Board of Regents take a more active role in managing programs.
The Board of Regents will next meet from Feb. 6 to 7.
Annika Bereny is a Senior Staff Writer and the former Special Pages Editor for The Daily Cardinal. She is a History and Journalism major and has written in-depth campus news, specializing in protest policy, free speech and historical analysis. She has also written for state and city news. Follow her on Twitter at @annikabereny.
Gavin Escott is the campus news editor for the Daily Cardinal. He has covered protests, breaking news and written in-depth on Wisconsin politics and higher education. He is the former producer of the Cardinal Call podcast. Follow him on X at @gav_escott.
