9 The UW Centers Achieve Stability: 1983-1991

On July 1, 1983, the renamed University of Wisconsin Centers came into existence, signifying a new beginning for the two-year campuses. The institution also had a new leader, Lorman “Larry” Ratner, who began his duties as the Centers’ first Executive Dean in September. Ratner, a historian and experienced administrator, had spent the last six years at UW-Parkside as its vice chancellor and dean of the faculty. Because Parkside, too, had been under intense scrutiny for its excessively high costs and sagging enrollment, Ratner understood well the pressures he would experience in his new position. But he also knew that the Centers were in better shape than at any time since merger, thanks to the efforts of Acting Chancellor Robert Polk, the faculty, and the staff, who had developed long-range plans for the institution.

Ratner assumed his office knowing that a large share of his time would be devoted to consolidating the Centers’ recent gains and pushing toward fulfillment of its long-range goals. In budgetary terms, the institution needed to become even more efficient to further reduce the cost-per-student (CSI). The Long Range Planning Committee had recommended that these efficiencies be achieved by careful annual and long-range planning of the academic program to enable the Centers to make wise rather than expedient reductions during any future fiscal crises. The Centers also needed to work hard to maintain and even increase enrollment. In Fall 1983, it enrolled 10,454 students and was the sixth-largest institution in the UW System.

Ratner was also determined to improve the image and clarify the role of the Centers. The Scope Reduction episode had again demonstrated that very few persons outside the Centers really understood how the two-year campuses fit into Wisconsin higher education. For example, many still referred to their local two-year campus as the Extension Center, even though the connection with UW Extension had been severed in 1964. In addition, numerous citizens perceived the Centers as community or junior colleges, rather than as a fully accredited unit of the University of Wisconsin. Even some UW System administrators saw the Centers only as a troublesome entity which had repeatedly drawn unfavorable attention. Indeed, former Chancellor Polk had begun his duties skeptical of the ability of the Center System to surmount its problems. However, he had been won over as he came to understand the unique contributions the Centers made in providing access to higher education for thousands of students and in assisting the UW to fulfill the Wisconsin Idea. Polk had also recognized the political potential of the Centers, whose service areas included all or part of the districts of fifty Assembly representatives and of twenty-one state senators (72% of the state legislators) but he had not found the time to stage an event that would bring them together. Now, with the Centers’ circumstances much improved, Ratner intended to do so.

Ratner’s featured event was a legislators’ luncheon, officially initiated in February of 1984 by the Centers’ Board of Visitors (BOV). The BOV, consisting of one leading citizen from each Center community, had been established by Chancellor Fort in 1979. The Visitors had proven quite effective in contacting local legislators, regents, and even President O’Neil to plead the Centers’ case, so it made great sense to employ them in this endeavor.^[1] Amazingly, 47 legislators attended the inaugural luncheon, held at the Edgewater Hotel in Madison. Although primarily a social gathering, Executive Dean Ratner and President O’Neil presented a few key facts about the Centers and the UW System. Ratner capitalized on this introduction with follow-up visits to twenty legislators in the state capitol. Additionally, he directed the deans to invite their area representatives and senators to come to the campuses and become better acquainted with the Centers and its vital role in the communities. The legislators’ luncheon became an annual event, one that has been very useful over the years, not just to the Centers, but to the entire UW System.^[2]

The campaign to better acquaint the Regents and the top UW System administrators with the Centers pushed ahead when the Centers hosted the October 1984 Board of Regents meeting at the Marathon County Campus. The persistent efforts of Marathon County Dean Stephen Portch finally brought the regents to a Centers’ campus so that all the board members could learn first-hand about the Centers. The Centers seized this opportunity to showcase its best features. Four students, two former and two current, including one who had dropped out of high school and had returned to school at age 25, captivated the Regents with their accounts of how the Centers had helped them toward their goals. Collectively, the students recited the advantages that had convinced them to enroll at the local Center–they saved a great deal of money by living at home and keeping their part-time jobs, they could readily participate in student government and cultural events, and they found the staff and faculty readily accessible and attentive to their needs. The two who had already completed baccalaureate degrees testified that the Centers had prepared them well for upper division courses.

Roy Valitchka, a member of the Centers’ Board of Visitors, stressed the community services provided by the campuses. Among many examples, he described faculty consultants working to solve local problems, the College for Kids program at seven Centers, the sharing of facilities between Barron County and the Indianhead Technical School, and the campus-community bands and drama groups at several Centers. Kerry Trask, Chair of the Senate Steering Committee, completed the “show and tell” session with a profile of the Centers’ 345 faculty members. He illustrated that they held as many doctorates and had published as many books and scholarly articles as the University Cluster faculty.^[3] Following this successful occasion, the Centers have periodically hosted a Board of Regents meeting.

By 1983 it was clear that the days when the University could rely on an ever-expanding state budget, as it had during the 1960s and early 1970s, were gone forever. Governor Lee Dreyfus, who had entered office in 1979 amidst a debate over how most responsibly to spend a budget surplus, left to his successor, Democrat Tony Earl, the problem of overcoming a deficit to balance the state’s accounts.^[4] Indeed, economic issues had dominated the 1982 governor’s campaign, when Earl and Republican Terry Kohler each asserted that he was better qualified to revive Wisconsin’s economy and bring down her 11.3% unemployment rate. The poor economy, naturally, meant declining tax revenues, at a time when demands on the state’s coffers were increasing. During the 1982 campaign, the UW System released a study which revealed that, although its budget for 1981-82 had been increased by 4%, the University had actually received $54.6 million less in constant dollars compared to 1973-74.^[5]

The Centers’ budget situation in the early 1980s, of course, mirrored the increasingly tight fiscal circumstances of the entire University. Inflation, fueled primarily by the OPEC oil crises of 1973 and 1979, had greatly eroded the purchasing power of the dollar. In addition, the Centers’ and the UW’s enrollment had defied predictions and had continued to climb, putting even more pressure on budgets. Because the enrollment increase was not evenly distributed among the thirteen two-year campuses, some Centers, particularly the larger ones, were quite seriously underfunded and, in a few instances, understaffed. On the positive side, attracting more students enabled the Centers, in 1984, to reduce its CSI to sixth among the fourteen UW institutions, the best ratio ever.^[6]

The Centers’ unique configuration–thirteen campuses scattered across the state–compounded its fiscal straits. Executive Dean Ratner repeatedly made this point in his communications to the President’s office, seeking a fairer and larger share of the UW budget, to compensate somewhat for the institution’s inability to achieve the economies of scale available to a single-site campus.^[7] One concern he noted was that the Centers needed a healthy infusion of money to begin replacing old-fashioned and worn-out instructional equipment, much of which dated to the 1960s or even earlier. The problem was particularly acute in the laboratories. Ratner pithily noted that the Centers received $150,000 per year to maintain and upgrade thirteen sets of labs (97 labs, total), the same amount that his former institution, UW-Parkside, received for one set of laboratories. President O’Neil responded with a $200,000 no-interest loan so that the most pressing new instructional equipment needs could be addressed; but, because a loan mortgaged future equipment budgets, it did not solve the Centers’ perennial difficulty in providing the latest equipment for all of its classes.^[8]

Another concern was that the Centers’ libraries also desperately needed more money. The dollar amount of the libraries’ allocations had remained practically constant since merger, consequently the ability to maintain up-to-date collections had been eaten away by inflation. Hence the library directors increasingly had to prioritize book purchases and to prune the periodicals’ subscription list to balance budgets. In addition to these routine expenses, the Centers’ libraries were becoming connected with the Ohio Colleges Library Consortium (OCLC). When completed, OCLC would enable a student or faculty member to access a shared database for all the cooperating libraries in North America to search for a particular book or periodical article. Naturally a considerable expense was attached to converting the thirteen libraries’ catalogs to a machine-readable format and to provide the hardware, software, and network wiring necessary to become effective users of OCLC. Executive Dean Ratner repeatedly pled with UW System for additional funds to help underwrite these modernizing expenses.^[9]

Yet another concern was that faculty salaries had not been maintained at a competitive level. In the successful effort to trim operating costs, the Centers had held down starting salaries for new faculty. Since annual salary increases were awarded as a percentage of all salaries, this stratagem also held down the size of the pie available for distribution. The state’s fiscal constraints, too, contributed to the problem. A succession of raises far below the annual rate of inflation had caused a salary crisis throughout the entire UW System because the real dollar value of faculty salaries had declined by twenty percent since 1966.^[10] The UW found it increasingly difficult to attract and retain top-notch teachers and scholars. When advertisements of vacant positions failed to attract suitable candidates, Centers’ starting salaries were increased. This, however, created a salary compression problem by providing a few new hires with an initial salary very close to, or perhaps even exceeding, those of veteran teachers. Salary compression and inadequate raises were very demoralizing and caused some experienced faculty to leave the Centers for better paying positions.

The crisis peaked in the summer of 1983 when Governor Earl announced that, in order to balance the state’s accounts, all state employees’ salaries would be frozen at their current level for one year. Naturally, this decree drew strong protests from the state employees’ union and the Board of Regents. These groups asserted that persons who worked for the state were being arbitrarily compelled to shoulder an unfair share of Wisconsin’s economic burden. Subsequently, in September 1983, Governor Earl, in close cooperation with the Board, established a sixteen-member Faculty Compensation Study Committee. To increase the legitimacy of the group, the Committee had a non-UW majority and included just three faculty members. Professor Ted Kinnaman (Rock County–Music) secured one of the faculty slots.^[11] The Governor directed the study to be completed by the end of March 1984.

The Faculty Compensation Study Committee selected three out- of-state university peer groups (one for Madison, one for Milwaukee, one for the University Cluster and Centers) to which UW faculty salaries would be compared. Initially, the Committee planned to compare Centers’ salaries to those of other states’ two-year institutions, but the search for a comparable group proved futile, and the Centers’ compensation instead was measured against the University Cluster’s peer group of fifty institutions. A few University Cluster faculty leaders loudly complained about the inclusion of the Centers in their peer group. They believed that, because the Centers’ faculty taught just freshmen and sophomores, the Centers’ teachers were less qualified than the Cluster’s faculty. However, Ratner produced data that showed that two-thirds of his faculty held a Ph.D. or other terminal degree in their academic fields, a statistic that stacked up well against the Cluster faculty achievements, and that the scholarly output of several departments outpaced that of the Cluster departments.^[12]

The peer group comparisons produced startling results. The Madison faculty was paid on average 15% less; Milwaukee’s faculty was 11% behind; the Cluster faculty, who came closest to matching their peers’ compensation, still was paid 6% less; and the Centers’ faculty salaries had ranked a miserable 48th among the 50 peer institutions. This meant that a 17% raise would be required to raise the Centers’ compensation to the median of the group.^[13] Indeed, the survey also indicated that Centers’ salaries were well below those paid in the VTAE System and even beneath those paid to most Wisconsin public school teachers.^[14]

Armed with these figures in the fall of 1984 the Board of Regents developed its catch-up salary proposal for the upcoming biennium. The Centers’ proposed increase, 15%, was the same as Madison’s but, of course, the dollar value of the average increase was vastly different. The Madison average came to $5,351, while the Centers’ figure was $3,588. These amounts would lift Madison’s compensation to the middle of its peer group, but leave the Centers 3% below the median of its colleagues. UW-Milwaukee’s 11% ($3,416) would put her in the middle, too. The University Cluster fared the best because its 9% ($2,588) would elevate the average faculty salary 3% above the median. These catch-up increases, if approved by the legislators, would be paid in addition to the normal pay package and would be phased-in in three steps–40% paid in January 1986, 30% in July 1986, and 30% in January 1987.^[15]

Even though the data clearly showed that the Centers’ faculty deserved to receive the same percentage of catch-up as Madison’s, a few vocal University Cluster faculty leaders continued to complain publicly about this so-called preferential treatment. This opposition, potentially, could have jeopardized the entire catch-up salary process by giving naysayers in the legislature the opportunity to assert that no plan should be approved until the entire UW System had come to an agreement. In the midst of this bickering, Executive Dean Ratner used his political contacts to line up support for the Regents’ proposal. The annual legislators’ luncheon, February 6, 1985, attracted 45 legislators, giving both Ratner and President O’Neil a forum in which to promote the catch-up package. Ratner also urged the deans and their steering committees to invite area legislators to local campuses and lobby for the proposal.^[16]

Because Governor Earl and his party’s leaders in the legislature had pledged to support the recommendations of the Faculty Compensation Study Committee, the various UW faculties began planning how to divide the catch-up money. Naturally, the prospect of having $1,265,000 to distribute elicited differences of opinion among the Centers’ faculty over how the money ought to be disbursed. The senior faculty, for example, favored a straight 15% increase for everyone, since, as the data showed, they were the furthest behind in compensation and had suffered the longest. The junior faculty, on the other hand, preferred an across-the-board award of $3,600 to each person, because everyone had equally suffered from the effects of inflation and years of inadequate raises.. ^[17] As it turned out, however, the Board of Regents’ guidelines for dividing the funds specified that the distribution plan could not be across-the-board but that it must weigh heavily the merit ratings each faculty member had received since 1981 and must include a market adjustment factor for those departments whose members were at greatest risk of being lured away by higher salaries.

The Senate Budget and Steering Committees jointly developed the Centers’ plan. Adhering to the System guidelines, they determined that the greatest portion (62%) of the catch-up dollars would be distributed by multiplying ones total merit points earned during the previous five years by the value of a single merit point ($127.77). This formula would award the largest sums to the most outstanding faculty members. Then, thirty percent would be divided through the use of a rank factor (Instructor – 1.50, Assistant Professor – 1.75, Associate Professor – 2.25, Professor – 3.0), multiplied by one’s average merit. This calculation distributed the largest amounts to those in the upper two ranks, thus addressing somewhat the salary compression issue. Finally, the remaining eight percent would be used to counteract the market pressures on the salaries of the most meritorious members of five departments–computer science, mathematics, business, economics, and psychology.^[18] This carefully crafted formula has since been used, with necessary minor modifications, each time the state has provided special “catch-up” or “keep-up” raises for UW employees.

The legislature’s eventual approval of the Board’s catch-up plan greatly bolstered the morale of the Centers’ faculty and academic staff. Their elation, however, was dampened a good deal by the state’s latest budget crisis. It was the same old story: the revenue department had reduced its income projections for the next 18 months, January 1986 through June 1987, which forced Governor Earl to order state agencies to reduce spending by $33 million for that period.^[19] The UW System had to bear almost half of the total reduction, $15.6 million, with the Centers’ share pegged at $600,000. This figure included $100,000 that the Centers would contribute toward funding the catch-up compensation package. ^[20]

Once again, the suddenness of the mandated budget reduction compelled the Centers to extract most of the money from the instructional program, even though that meant reducing the number of sections of basic courses, such as entry level English and mathematics. Thus, $325,000 was trimmed from the instructional budget by cutting out eleven lecturers’ positions and by not filling some existing vacancies. The instructional equipment budget was slashed by $110,000, wiping out much of the progress that had been made with the loan to update laboratory equipment. The remainder of the giveback was skimmed from faculty salaries, primarily from the difference in compensation for a retiree and a new hire.^[21] Given the Centers’ record enrollment, these decreases meant that some freshmen would have to delay their enrollment in basic English and math courses and the faculty would shoulder a heavier workload.

Meanwhile, the Centers continued to work on two issues of Systemwide importance. First, the Board of Regents had directed, in April 1982, that UW-Extension faculty be integrated with the faculties of the thirteen degree-granting institutions.^[22] Secondly, the increased employment of non-tenure track instructors–or lecturers as they were popularly labeled–was a problem considerably less clear-cut in both its extent and its solution.

Historically, in the early days of the Extension Centers, the field agents in a Center’s district had also arranged non-credit, continuing education courses. In a Center community, these courses were usually offered at the Center campus. Elsewhere in the district, the Extension agent contracted with a vocational high school or with a business, which had the necessary equipment, for space to offer adult continuing education programs. This arrangement ceased, of course, in mid 1964, when the Center System was created. At that time, only three Centers–Baraboo, Fox Valley, Marinette–had retained a continuing education coordinator.^[23] The other Centers were either served by an Extension agent whose office was off-campus or they did not have a continuing education program.

The UWC-Continuing Education Long Range Plan, sent to Extension Chancellor Patrick Boyle by Executive Dean Ratner in April 1984, listed six continuing education needs which had been identified via surveys of the Centers’ service areas. These needs included, first, education, with a special emphasis upon providing courses for public school teachers to enable them to fulfill recertification requirements; second, technology, especially workshops that provided instruction in using microcomputers for data management and literacy in specific software programs; and third, health, with workshops focused primarily upon stress management, maintaining good health, and aging. The third need recognized an important demographic trend and aimed at assisting senior citizens to make the most of their retirement years. The fourth need–personal development and enrichment, which would be met via a wide range of non-credit courses that fostered cultural enrichment and the productive use of leisure time–also responded to this trend. Business, with a particular focus upon employee and management training and development was the fifth need identified in the surveys. Sixth, the surveys identified a need for inservice training for human services and law enforcement employees.^[24]

To implement this plan, Extension Chancellor Boyle authorized the transfer from Extension to the Centers of ten half-time continuing education coordinators’ positions and start-up funds for each.^[25] On behalf of the Centers, Ratner pledged that the Center dean, business manager, public information officer, and a secretary at each campus would devote approximately ten percent of their time to assist the coordinator in developing and expanding continuing education programs.^[26] It was anticipated that the continuing education courses and workshops, in addition to helping the University fulfill the time-honored Wisconsin Idea, would acquaint hundreds of adults with the local two-year campus. It was hoped that these adults would prompt their children and grandchildren to enroll at the Center.^[27]

In September 1983 System Vice President for Academic Affairs Katharine Lyall presented the Board of Regents with four reasons for the increased use of lecturers. All four concerned maintaining sufficient fiscal flexibility so that UW System could balance its budget. First, Lyall cited the regents’ own mandate that UW institutions maintain enough staffing flexibility to avoid tenured faculty layoffs in a time of fiscal crisis. Second, she explained that the state sometimes provided limited-term positions and funds so that the University could accomplish a special project; these positions could not be filled with tenure track faculty. Third, Lyall noted the state’s repeated last minute budget givebacks as a reason for using lecturers, because they could be laid off mid-year to free up funds. Finally, Lyall described the continuing economic uncertainty as the fourth reason to hold down the number of tenure track appointments.^[28] As the years passed the number of lecturers employed in the UW System has steadily increased. Indeed, the situation became so serious at some Centers that questions were raised whether some academic staff would need to be removed from local collegium membership in order to maintain the constitution-mandated faculty majority in the collegium and on its committees.

Lyall’s explanation (particularly her remarks about maintaining staffing flexibility to meet fiscal constraints) corresponded well with the Centers’ experience in employing lecturers. Indeed, Chancellor Fort’s consideration of these factors had prompted him, in May 1980, to attempt to deny tenure to several probationary faculty members to regulate tenure density. At the time Chancellor Fort made his announcement, the Senate had under consideration a “Policy on the Use of Teaching Academic Staff” which was designed to prevent vacant full-time positions from being filled by lecturers. The Policy stipulated that any vacant full-time position should be staffed by a faculty appointee, unless one of these conditions existed: it became vacant too late to follow the prescribed appointment procedure; the candidates were unqualified; the opening was temporary because a faculty member was on leave; or enrollment projections raised serious concerns about the long-term stability of the position. The Policy provided, further, that after a position had been filled by a full-time lecturer for two years, it should be reviewed by the chancellor, the dean, a faculty representative from the Center, and the relevant department chair to determine whether a faculty appointment could be sustained in future years. If the decision was affirmative, the vacancy would be advertised and filled by a tenure track faculty member.^[29]

Interestingly, nineteen eighty-six was a year of many transitions in the University and in state government. A new president took office at UW System; the Centers welcomed a new chief executive with the restored title of chancellor; and voters ousted incumbent Democrat Governor Earl in favor of Republican Tommy Thompson. In January 1985 President O’Neil confirmed rumors that he had accepted the presidency of the University of Virginia, as of the Fall 1985 semester. O’Neil explained that he could not pass up an opportunity to lead a university founded by Thomas Jefferson. Vice President Katharine Lyall served as Acting President for five months, until the new president assumed office.^[30]

The new System President was Kenneth “Buzz” Shaw. Shaw, who had headed the multi-campus Southern Illinois University System since 1979, was appointed in September 1985 but assumed office February 1, 1986. Shaw, whose academic credentials included a Ph.D. in sociology from Purdue University, drew a good deal of Wisconsin media attention because he had been a star basketball guard in high school and at Illinois State University during his undergraduate years. Only 46, Shaw impressed the search committee with his success in convincing the Illinois governor and state legislature to significantly increase funding for the SIU System.^[31]

Meanwhile, Executive Dean Ratner tendered his resignation, effective July 1, 1986, to Acting President Lyall. He explained that he would become the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, thus fulfilling a desire to return to a single-campus institution. Just shortly after O’Neil’s departure, Ratner had requested Acting President Lyall to support the restoration of the title of chancellor for the Centers’ chief executive. After due consideration, Lyall forwarded the proposal to the Board of Regents, which unanimously gave its approval. President Shaw, in his first meeting with the Regents, also strongly supported the restoration, noting that, with more than 10,000 students, the Centers ranked among the largest institutions in the UW System and that “. . . it was not fair for the institution to be headed by a chancellor in fact, but not in title.” Long-time Regent Ody Fish observed that he had very reluctantly supported the change to executive dean and that he now embraced the opportunity to vote to restore the chancellor title.^[32]

In August 1986, President Shaw announced that the Centers new chancellor, who would assume office on November first, would be Stephen Portch. Portch, a native of England, had earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Reading and had subsequently studied at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a masters degree (1976) in English and a doctorate (1980) in higher education administration. Portch had served on the UWC-Richland faculty as a professor of English from 1976 to 1981, at which time he became dean of the UWC-Marathon County. Chancellor Portch, in his inaugural visits to each Center, stressed three major goals he wished to achieve–a significant increase in sophomore retention, a Systemwide transfer of credit policy, and the creation of a new curriculum with a beefed-up associate degree.^[33]

The 1986 governor’s election pitted incumbent Democrat Tony Earl against Republican Tommy Thompson, who had served ten terms in the Assembly, including several as his party’s minority leader. As usual, economic issues played an important role in the campaign. Much of the debate was shaped by a fifteen-minute video, titled “Choices,” that blamed many of the state’s business community’s woes upon excessive state taxation and spending. In particular, the video’s three sponsors–the Council of Small Business Executives, the Independent Business Association of Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Association of Commerce–asked whether Wisconsin could continue to afford all thirteen four-year campuses of the UW System, its generous welfare benefits, and the high level of aid to local governments and public schools.^[34] “Choices” did not endorse a gubernatorial candidate; however, the Democrats quickly charged that the sponsors were pushing to elect Thompson, a known fiscal conservative. That allegation gained credence when Thompson, in early October, indicated that if he became governor, he would require all state agencies, including the University, to demonstrate how they would operate with a 5% budget reduction in the 1987-1989 biennium. Regent Ody Fish, a key figure in the Republican party, responded that the Board would be very hard pressed to operate the System with 50 million fewer dollars. Indeed, the regents’ Study Group on the Future of the UW System, which Fish chaired, had recently proposed a $50 million increase in the upcoming biennium to enable the University to maintain the quality of its academic program in the midst of ever-increasing enrollments. Thus, if Thompson would become governor and he implemented his 5% reduction, the University of Wisconsin’s 1987-89 budget would be $100 million less than the amount estimated to maintain quality and the current record enrollment. Fish summed up his observations with the comment, “There must be a limit somewhere to just how many of these [reductions] we can take and not hurt educational offerings.”^[35]

Although the Democrats pasted an “anti-education” label on Thompson for his campaign promises to reduce state expenditures for both the UW System and aids to local school districts, he easily defeated Earl, 773,458 (53%) to 683,172 (47%), in the November balloting. However, the Democrats retained majorities in both chambers of the legislature, assuring a spirited battle over the biennial budget.^[36] Two days after the election, news surfaced that Thompson, several days prior to the voting, had reassured Regent President Laurence Weinstein that the UW would not be required to plan for a 5% budget reduction, as would other state agencies. While this was welcome news, the fact that Thompson also warned the regents not to anticipate any increase in state support meant that the UW’s proposed 1987-1989 budget would be underfunded by at least $50 million.^[37]

Throughout 1986, the Board of Regents’ Study Group on the Future of the UW System, chaired by Regent Fish, had labored over budget issues. The Group worked with the understanding that a significant increase in state support for the University would not be forthcoming. Thus, the Study Group’s major task was to determine how to bring the UW’s enrollment and resources back into balance, while maintaining both access for students and a high quality academic program. The budget already was millions of dollars out of balance primarily because, contrary to predictions, a larger percentage of Wisconsin high school graduates had chosen to enroll, increasing the UW enrollment rate from 24.5% in 1979 to 31.5% in Fall 1985. This unexpected trend had pushed the UW enrollment almost 16,000 students above budget. Some of this increase was being accommodated by faculty and staff shouldering a heavier workload. But, at the most popular campuses, such as Madison, Milwaukee, Eau Claire, and La Crosse, this workload expansion had reached its limit, resulting in long lines of frustrated students during registration, who were forced to rework their schedules because key courses were closed.^[38]

The Board ultimately settled upon a four-year plan, known as Enrollment Management I, to reduce gradually the System’s enrollment by 7,000 FTE students. The regents believed this reduction, which would parallel a projected decline in the number of high school graduates, could be made without denying qualified students access to the University. The key to Enrollment Management I was beefed-up admission standards for high school graduates. Another objective of the plan was to encourage more students to enroll at UW institutions that were currently underutilized, such as the Centers, Superior, and Parkside.^[39]

The regents allocated the Centers an additional 2,250 students, the largest increase under Enrollment Management I. Tuition in the Centers was deliberately made the lowest in the System, as an economic enticement. In addition, the Centers remained the only open enrollment institution, thus it served as an access point for students who had graduated in the lower half of their class and who probably could not meet the stiffened UW admission requirements. The Centers, thus, would continue to provide the academic late-bloomers with an opportunity to try out college.^[40]

During the development of Enrollment Management I, the Study Group had been informed that important policy changes would be necessary to enable the Centers to attract more students. President Shaw, in his first meeting with the Board, had urged the Regents to strengthen the systemwide credit transfer policy to require acceptance of the Centers’ Associate Degree as fulfilling all four-year UWs’ general education requirements. Such a policy, Shaw said, would assure each Centers’ student that all the credits would transfer, making a Center an attractive place to begin a UW education.^[41]

Executive Dean Ratner, during his last six months in Wisconsin, worked hard to persuade the regents to support President Shaw’s proposal. Addressing the Board in February 1986, Ratner said that, “The issue of transfer needs to be acknowledged as a System concern and the best solution to it as one which emanates from the System. . . . An unambiguous transfer policy would encourage more students to attend a Center and [convince] more students to remain at a Center for more than one year.”^[42] A few days later, Ratner delivered the same message to nearly 60 state representatives and senators, who attended the annual Centers’ Legislative Luncheon.^[43]

The Centers’ Senate and its Steering Committee, chaired by Professor Jim Lorence (history–Marathon County), represented the faculty and academic staff and reinforced Ratner’s efforts. On February 26, the Steering Committee sent Working Together: The Centers in the University of Wisconsin System to the Regents’ Study Group. Four of the five issues addressed in Working Together concerned transfer. First, the Steering Committee described an “increasing tendency at baccalaureate institutions to mandate early transfer by requiring students to complete preprofessional program requirements and foundation courses in the sophomore year and, in some cases, even in the freshman year.”^[44] It called upon the UW System to monitor the baccalaureate academic programs to prevent the placement of preprofessional courses in the freshman or sophomore years, unless it was absolutely necessary.^[45] Another issue concerned the variation in the general education requirements at the thirteen baccalaureate campuses, which caused difficulty in properly preparing students for transfer. The best solution, the Steering Committee suggested, would be for the regents to “direct the full systemwide acceptance of the Associate Degree as meeting the general education requirements.”^[46] It noted that six degree-granting UWs already accepted the Centers’ Associate Degree for this purpose.

Third, the Steering Committee pointed out that a transferee could encounter difficulty when degree and/or major requirements were changed by one campus and this information was not promptly disseminated to all other UW institutions. When this occurred, the student was naturally angry and felt that credits had been “lost,” even though all the Center’s credits counted toward graduation. To solve this problem, the Steering Committee proposed creation of a systemwide computerized information system which would list the requirements for all majors and the course equivalencies for all UW institutions.^[47] The final section in Working Together concerned non-academic problems. The most common difficulty arose when a degree-granting campus treated a Centers’ transferee as a “new,” rather than as a “continuing,” student. This meant that the transferee, even if qualified for junior status, was compelled to register last. Often this meant that upper division courses the transferee needed were filled by the time he registered. Steering recommended that the Board mandate that a Centers’ transferee be treated as a continuing student. The Steering Committee supported its proposal with the observation that a Centers’ student, who had earned an Associate Degree, or who was bumping against the 72 credit rule, absolutely had to transfer. It just did not seem fair that a student was penalized when he transferred.^[48] Throughout its paper, the Steering Committee sprinkled reminders that the Centers would not be able to fill completely the role envisioned for the institution during Enrollment Management I unless each prospective student was assured that all Centers’ credits would transfer smoothly throughout the UW System.^[49]

The Report of the Regents Study Group on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System, issued in November 1986, contained solid evidence that the Centers’ lobbying efforts had borne fruit. For example, Policy Decision Summary #5, concerning Undergraduate Credit Transfer, said:

A student transferring a UW Associate Degree to a UW university will be considered as having fulfilled the general education requirements of that university. The President, with advice from a systemwide ad hoc committee, will recommend minimum standards for general education requirements for the associate degree.

To facilitate the transfer process, the UWs will establish a systemwide faculty appeals committee, a computerized course equivalency and degree requirement matrix, and will require recording on the transcript of the receiving institution all undergraduate credit courses previously completed at another UW institution.^[50]

Policy Decision Summary #9 reaffirmed the UW Centers’ mission and status:

The Board reaffirms the distinct education and transfer mission of the Centers and the locally owned status of the Centers’ physical plant. . . . Centers are directed to streamline their course offerings by reviewing all courses to ensure that they are appropriate to the freshman and sophomore level; they are also directed to seek additional joint activities with the VTAE. Regents’ planning thresholds [250 FTE students and a cost index of 120% of the Centers’ average cost] will be used by the Centers’ chancellor in biennial reports to the System President to assure that each Center is appropriately utilized.^[51]

This statement, after its adoption by the Board, required that the Centers eliminate all courses from its curriculum numbered above 200. The former UW Centers were still offering a few courses numbered 300, 400, and even, occasionally, 500, because their curriculums had been primarily crafted for transfer to Madison. While these statements by the Study Group were most encouraging, much hard work remained to assure that the recommendations became System policy.

During the first month of his tenure, new Chancellor Stephen Portch led and coordinated a campaign to implement the transfer recommendations. Portch’s three major priorities–increase sophomore retention, a Systemwide transfer of credit policy, and creation of a new Centers’ curriculum and associate degree–meshed smoothly with the Enrollment Management I goal to increase the Centers’ enrollment by over 2,000 (1,200 FTE) students. Early in 1987, Portch communicated to President Shaw his concern that the two-year campuses could not achieve this goal unless an associate degree transfer policy was adopted. Without it, he predicted, many students would continue to transfer after their freshman year.

Portch also described two additional policies that he considered vital to assist the Centers to achieve its goals. One was an “articulation agreement” between the Centers and each of the four-year institutions, which would precisely specify the transfer and academic major requirements for a student who transferred before earning an associate degree. The Chancellor envisioned that each articulation agreement would also contain a course equivalency table, to enable students and advisors to plan a program of study that would fulfill these requirements. The other policy was the pending tuition differential, which would set Centers’ tuition at $400 per year less than Madison’s and Milwaukee’s and about $100 less than the University Cluster’s.^[52] Its adoption would make enrollment in a Center even more economically attractive, especially if a student remained two years.

The Board of Regents took a big step toward helping transferees, in July 1987, when it approved the Minimum General Education Breadth Requirements and Associate Degree Transfer Policy. The minimum general education breadth requirements stipulated that a UW Associate Degree must require a minimum of 60 credits with a “C” average, including at least 40 credits in the following breadth areas–humanities and the fine arts, 9 to 15 credits; natural sciences and mathematics, 12 to 16 credits; and social sciences, 9 to 15 credits. Once a UW institution’s associate degree contained these minimum requirements, all other UWs had to accept it as fulfilling their own “university-wide, college and school general education breadth requirements.”^[53]

Chancellor Portch, building on this success, in October 1987, wrote to President Shaw to solicit his support for a new Regents’ policy that would guarantee a Centers’ transferee would be treated exactly as a continuing student for registration and admission to university housing and to academic major courses. He asserted that a Centers’ student deserved this so-called “preferential treatment” because he had to transfer whereas a student enrolled at a four-year UW campus had the option to transfer or remain at the current school.^[54] A couple of weeks later, Portch sent Shaw a letter which outlined a “suggested policy on transfer treatment of UW Center students.” He provided data that showed how the thirteen bachelors degree granting UWs presently treated a Center transferee. Six of these campuses–Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh–already treated a Center transferee the same as their continuing students. Consequently, Portch argued that requiring the other seven baccalaureate UWs to do likewise would not be a major policy change.^[55]

In November 1987, no doubt with President Shaw’s permission, Portch broached this subject, via letter, to his chancellor colleagues. With his rationale he included transfer data for the previous five years that demonstrated the number of Center transfers to each institution had remained stable. Thus, this new policy would not create a “management nightmare” for anyone.^[56] Portch went on to explain that because his fellow chancellors had been so receptive to his preliminary survey on this issue, he now believed a Regents’ policy was unnecessary to achieve the Centers’ goal. Instead, Portch proposed that a statement describing that a Centers’ transferee would be treated as a continuing student be included in the Articulation Agreements. This statement would spell out exactly how many credits (and in which courses) a student could earn at a Center in various majors prior to transferring to a particular four-year campus. The accord would also indicate how many semesters the transferee could expect to spend completing his bachelor’s degree. In this letter, Portch announced that he was reorganizing his staff to appoint a “transfer liaison,” who would negotiate the Articulation Agreements and trouble-shoot transfer problems. Once all these formal understandings were in place, Portch believed that the UW System could honestly say that any remaining transfer difficulties were “of the student’s own making.”^[57]

Despite the good progress toward ironing out the long-standing transfer problems, Enrollment Management I meant that the enrollment situation was fluid, as each baccalaureate campus adopted enrollment management policies most advantageous to itself. Consequently, new alarms about the treatment of transfer students arose. For example, in early January 1988, Chancellor Portch informed his deans and department chairs that a trend seemed to be developing toward a policy which required a higher GPA for a transfer student to be admitted in “good standing” than was demanded of a continuing student.^[58] President Shaw quickly reacted to this development, warning the chancellors that he did not want the four-year UWs to undo, with their transfer standards, what the System was trying to accomplish with its “tuition and Associate Degree policies.” Shaw illustrated his concern by noting that a few four-year units had decided that a transfer student needed a 2.5 GPA for good standing, while a continuing student needed just a 2.0 to maintain that status. Shaw feared that this policy would cause students to bypass the Centers and destroy the work of the enrollment management program. Shaw said that he intended to discuss this issue with the chancellors, during their next council meeting.^[59] Shaw’s intervention proved decisive, for Chancellor Portch reported, in mid February, that 11 of the four-year campuses had agreed to treat a Center transferee exactly as they treated a continuing student. The remaining two–Oshkosh and Stout–were reviewing their policies and Portch expected that they, too, would eventually sign the agreement.^[60]

In January 1989, Chancellor Portch reported to the Board of Regents and UW Center legislators the tremendous progress made toward ironing out transfer difficulties. He used the analogy of a three-legged stool to illustrate the three key developments: the Centers’ recently revised associate degree and its acceptance by all UW transfer campuses as equivalent to their general education requirements; joint admissions agreements which permitted a high school senior to apply both to a Center and his intended baccalaureate campus to insure his acceptance as a junior in two years; and articulation agreements that listed the course requirements and Centers’ equivalents for majors throughout the UW System. The latter policy served well the two-thirds of Centers’ students who, for a variety of reasons, chose not to earn an associate degree.^[61] Snags in the transfer process, of course, continued to arise but, with these policies and agreements in place, a process to rapidly resolve them had been created.

As a result of a lingering recession and years of inflationary price increases, late in 1986 alarm bells went off about the deteriorating fiscal condition of Wisconsin’s Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education System. The crisis had been triggered by the same adverse economic factors that plagued the University of Wisconsin–increased energy costs and, especially, the erosion of the dollar’s purchasing power. But, because of the VTAE System’s unique financing arrangements (12% from tuition, 28% from state aid, 60% from local property tax levies), the early 1980s recession in agriculture had devastated the VTAE’s largest source of funds by causing property values to plummet. As a result, four VTAE districts–Southwest in Fennimore, Blackhawk in Janesville, North Central in Wausau, and Mid-State in Wisconsin Rapids–were experiencing serious financial problems because they had reached the maximum property tax levy. Several more districts were rapidly approaching that limit.^[62]

Initially, many thought the solution lay in changing the fiscal rules that governed the VTAE district’s budgets. For example, the state could increase both the local property tax mill rate and the 12% limit on the tuition a vo-tech school could charge. Another possibility would be for the state to sharply increase its aid, thus reducing reliance on the property tax levy. However, none of these were politically palatable, in view of the state’s own budget crunch and the public schools’ pleas for more state aid. Some of the VTAE System’s own leaders expressed concern that increased state aid would naturally entail more state mandates and a corresponding loss in local autonomy.^[63]

A Governor’s Study Commission on the VTAE was appointed by Thompson in March 1987 to investigate and recommend solutions. One timeworn proposal that soon surfaced was a merger of the Centers and VTAEs to create community colleges.^[64] At first glance, this had always sounded like a sensible proposal–one which would save money through staff reductions and elimination of duplicate courses. Chancellor Portch quickly mobilized the deans, faculty, and staff for an offensive against a merger. He pointed out that, historically, Wisconsin had deliberately separated the two systems, so that each could concentrate on its distinct mission: job training for the VTAE and college transfer for the Centers. Portch also cited the Report of the Study Commission for Increased Cooperation between UW-Fox Valley and Fox Valley Technical Institute (1985), which had concluded, “The UW Centers do not offer a single course that is related to the primary mission of the VTAE” and “there are no [general education] courses similar enough to be comparable” to demolish the notion that a merger would eliminate a large number of duplicate courses. He asserted further that a merger would not save tax dollars because the VTAE average faculty salaries ($29,386) were much higher than in the Centers ($26,037).^[65]

After also hearing considerable opposition from staunch friends of the vocational schools, the Governor’s VTAE Study Commission eventually decided not to conduct an in-depth study of a merger. For example, Jim Haney of the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce testified against the community college idea because he believed a merger would decrease the emphasis upon vocational skills education. Likewise, the AFL-CIO repeated its long-standing antipathy to a merger.^[66] Even Governor Thompson eventually weighed in against the community college idea.^[67]

Once they saw that a merger would not occur, a few aggressive VTAE directors began a campaign to secure state authorization to establish college-credit parallel programs, like those already in operation in Madison, Milwaukee and Rhinelander (Nicolet Vocational-Technical School). Dr. Mel H. Schneeberg, Director of the Midstate Technical Institute in Wisconsin Rapids, took the lead in this endeavor. For example, during his negotiations with the Marshfield/Wood County Center to determine which general education courses the Center should offer in Wisconsin Rapids, Schneeberg claimed that the University of Wisconsin really needed to provide junior and senior courses, because Midstate already supplied the general education courses!^[68] However, Schneeberg’s assertion was seriously undercut when a Legislative Audit Bureau Study discovered agreement by the thirteen VTAE institutions without college-credit programs that their general education courses were “considerably different from those of university general education courses.” This same study revealed that the UW seldom accepted general education course credits in transfer from these thirteen VTAEs, unless a student transferred into a specific vocation-oriented program.^[69] The LAB report also contained data about the cost of Nicolet’s college parallel program ($5,282 per FTE) that proved the Centers’ costs ($3,506) were much lower. Again, neither the state nor the VTAEs would save money by creating additional college-credit parallel programs.^[70]

Eventually, as the nation’s economy improved, the VTAE fiscal problem diminished. However, two specific changes occurred as a result of the scrutiny given the VTAE System. First, the VTAE State Board voted, in July 1987, to change the schools’ names from “technical institutes” to “technical colleges,” as of January 1, 1988.^[71] The second change, no doubt because it required extensive negotiations between the UW System and the VTAE System, took over two years to achieve. In June 1989, the UW Board of Regents finally approved a two-page Statement of Principles on the Transfer of Credit From the Vocational, Technical and Adult Education System to the University of Wisconsin System. The key provision, from the VTAE viewpoint, authorized UW institutions “to accept up to fifteen (15) general education credits from a successfully completed non-college parallel Associate Degree program at a VTAE System institution.”^[72] The Centers regarded the “successfully completed . . . Associate Degree program. . . .” qualification as crucial to protecting its interests. This meant that the VTAE Colleges could not entice students to enroll just for their general education courses, with the expectation that those credits would readily transfer into the University of Wisconsin. In addition, the two systems exchanged “assurances” that (1) neither would seek to expand their missions into the other’s statutory responsibilities, (2) the VTAEs would offer only those general education courses required for their Associate Degree programs, and (3) that “. . . college parallel programs will not be initiated in other VTAE System districts.”^[73] The third assurance was particularly vital to the Centers because it ruled out increased competition for college-bound freshmen.

When Chancellor Portch entered his new office he had a good understanding of the Centers’ budget and personnel deficiencies because of his five years as Dean of the Marathon County Center. Many of the budget problems were perennial ones–not enough money to keep laboratories up to date, a great decline in the rate of library acquisitions, and a far too small budget for Supplies and Expenses (S&E). In addition, Portch believed that the Central Office staff needed to be reorganized and expanded, to provide better service to students and the campuses. He found the annual

backlog in handling applications in the Registrar’s and Financial Aids Offices especially alarming. The lack of adequate personnel in Financial Aids meant that some students did not receive their aid checks until nearly the end of the Fall semester. And the Registrar’s Office typically could not promptly fill requests for transcripts, which sometimes caused delays in the admission of Center students to a four-year campus.

To address these problems, Portch proposed adding at least one FTE staff person to the Registrar’s operation and, at a minimum, 2.0 FTE staff and additional part-time student assistants to the Financial Aids Office. Portch also believed the time had arrived to request that the System Administration return the data processing staff, which Chancellor Polk had transferred to UW System’s Office of Information Systems, to the Centers’ central office. As enrollment continued to increase this arrangement had gradually became more cumbersome and had occasionally caused delays in receiving vital data. Portch also insisted that a computer resources manager was needed to take charge of the evolving computerization of the student and business office records, the establishment of student computer labs on the thirteen campuses and to assure the compatibility of both hardware and software. Then, he wanted to create a position for a student services coordinator, whose responsibilities would be to monitor the new Associate Degree Transfer Policy, the articulation agreements and joint admissions and to trouble-shoot any transfer problems. Portch also proposed adding at least a part-time grants officer to his staff, who would assist both individuals and the institution to apply for grants and to identify new grant opportunities.^[74]

Because the Centers had reached the state and UW System mandated position limit, before any new Central Office appointment could be made the Chancellor had to convince President Shaw to increase that limit. Portch successfully presented his case during budget-building and goal-setting sessions with the President.^[75] Actually, the more delicate part of this process was for Portch to persuade his own faculty and staff that the time had arrived to reverse the Central Office reductions made in the early 1980s and that this could be accomplished without getting the institution into fiscal hot water. Portch began this campaign by streamlining the chain-of-command, reducing redundance in paperwork, and assigning new responsibilities. Then, after all this had been accomplished, he noted where gaps still existed.^[76]

Nineteen eighty-eight brought significant changes to the Central Office. In mid-year, it moved from cramped quarters in the Madison Board of Education building to more spacious surroundings in the Verex Building. The move immediately improved morale. A Grants Officer and a Director of Academic Services were appointed. The latter had responsibility for transfer liaison and for negotiating articulation and joint admission agreements with the baccalaureate campuses.^[77]

Low salaries continued to plague the Centers. The Chancellor stressed that because of low starting salaries, the Centers were unable to attract and employ a larger number of minority and female faculty members, as urged by Board of Regents policy. Portch described a position in the Philosophy Department which had been vacant for three years. In that time, eleven women had declined the position or had refused to even come for an interview because of the Centers’ miserly $20,000 starting salary. The position had finally been filled by a white male. In a separate incident, a black woman, who had applied for a tenure-track position in the English Department, instead took a similar position at UW-Milwaukee for almost $9,000 more than the Centers could offer.^[78]

Meanwhile, the minuscule 2% raises in each year of the 1987-89 biennium had swiftly eroded the boost provided by the 1985-87 faculty “catch-up” salary increases. Once again, University of Wisconsin salaries had plummeted to near the bottom of its peer groups and some distinguished UW teachers and researchers had been lured away by higher salaries. Consequently, when Governor Thompson included another catch-up proposal in his 1989-91 budget, the legislature readily approved it. As in 1985, the new peer group salary comparisons demonstrated that Madison’s and the Centers’ faculty deserved the largest catch-up percentage (7.2%).^[79]

The Board of Regents, because of its recent experience, quickly developed the guidelines for the individual UW institutions to follow in developing allocation plans. As with the first catch-up package, market factors and merit ratings drove the formula. The Centers’ plan awarded the top market discipline weight (4.0) to the four academic disciplines–business, computer science, economics, engineering–whose members were most likely to be lured away by better salaries. Thirty percent of the catch-up dollars was awarded on the basis of these market discipline weights, while ten percent was distributed according to rank weightings (professor 4.0, associate professor 3.0, assistant professor 2.5, instructor 1.0). The remaining sixty percent was distributed by squaring the average of an individual’s 1987 and 1988 merit ratings and adding the product to the other two formula factors. Squaring the average merit rating boosted the increase awarded to the most meritorious faculty members, hopefully preventing them from being hired away.^[80] In due course, both the Board and the legislature’s Joint Committee on Employment Relations approved the Centers’ plan.

One significant difference in the 1989-91 salary catch-up process, compared to the first one, was the inclusion of the academic staff. The academic staff had undergone an exhaustive study which resulted in a regularization in their position titles and responsibilities. Consequently, staff salaries now could be compared to appropriate peer groups. The Centers’ Academic Staff Catch-Up Plan was developed under the same guidelines as the faculty plan. Indeed, the plan for lecturers (instructional academic staff) paralleled the faculty plan, except for small changes in the weights given to the market and merit factors. In the case of the non-instructional academic staff, however, everyone was in uncharted territory. Fifty percent of the total catch-up dollars was allocated according to a market recruitment formula. This formula assigned extra weight to those titles/positions that were recruited nationally or regionally, while those advertised and recruited locally received no weight. The market merit factor, derived from an individual’s 1987 and 1988 average merit rating, accounted for 35% of the distribution. The Board of Regents had directed that all UWs needed to bring their academic staff salaries closer to a peer median. The Centers used the UW System salary ranges as its peer and calculated an adjustment factor based on how far each person was from the median, thus providing the largest increments to persons in the lower pay ranges. However, just 10% of the total package was parcelled out on this basis. The final 5% was allocated on market degree, which was weighted in favor of a holder of a doctorate or master’s degree.^[81]

In terms of the budget, 1990 was a very good year for the Centers. As the year began, everyone was still celebrating the announcement, in December 1989, that AT&T Computer Systems would donate $2.7 million in equipment to the Centers. This gift enabled creation of CENTERSnet, which linked the Central Office and the thirteen campuses to each other and to the entire world.^[82] The good news continued when Chancellor Portch announced that the Centers had received the largest percentage increase in its S&E allocation in the entire System, plus $150,000 to increase student access to computers and $66,000 to bolster library acquisitions.^[83] During 1990, the Chancellor also called President Shaw’s attention to vast improvements in the Centers’ CSI and faculty productivity. Portch noted that internal reallocations and enrollment increases had enabled both Barron County and Richland to move out of the danger zone, by reducing their CSIs to 101.04% and 100.05%, respectively, of the Centers’ average cost per student.^[84] Indeed, the Fall 1990 enrollment put the entire institution in its best position within the UW System since merger. The Centers’ CSI had declined to 99.6% of the University Cluster average, compared to 131% as recently as 1986. Now, six UW Cluster campuses (Green Bay, Oshkosh, Parkside, Platteville, River Falls, Superior) had a higher CSI than the Centers. The Centers’ faculty productivity now reached 290 SCH per faculty member, which exceeded the undergraduate level of UW-Superior, UW-River Falls, UW-Parkside, and UW-Milwaukee.^[85]

Unfortunately, 1990 ended on a sour note when Governor Thompson mandated a budget freeze for the remainder of fiscal 1991 (January through June 1991). UW System’s giveback equalled $16 million over the period, to which the Centers contributed $416,000.^[86]
Naturally, the unwelcome budget freeze chilled the hope for approval of the UW’s 1991-1993 biennial budget request.

In November 1990 President Shaw had presented a new budget strategy to the Board of Regents, for drafting the UW’s 1991-1993 biennial funding request. Shaw proposed that the Regents should request the entire amount needed by the UW System to maintain the quality of its instructional program. Then, if the state did not provide the entire amount, he recommended that the University should reallocate resources to support its most essential programs. At some point, Shaw cautioned, the UW might be compelled to deny admission to qualified students because it did not have adequate finances.^[87]

The Board had laid the groundwork for carrying out Shaw’s proposal the previous month, when it adopted the Enrollment Management II plan, which would be in force from Fall 1990 to Fall 1994. EMII envisioned a further reduction in the University’s enrollment of 5,685 FTE students. Unlike EMI, when admissions standards for all but the Centers were raised to discourage under-qualified high school graduates from enrolling, the EMII reduction should occur naturally as the number of high school graduates decreased. This meant the UW would not need to fill some vacant positions and could reallocate the dollars to other uses, without increasing the student/faculty ratio, a key component in quality. EMII anticipated that all UW institutions, except Green Bay, would experience enrollment reductions. EMII expected that the Centers would achieve its reduction (448 FTE students) simply by receiving fewer applications for admission.^[88]

Governor Thompson’s budget proposal for the UW System for the 91-93 biennium contained $40 million less than the Board of Regents had requested. The next month President Shaw unveiled a reallocation proposal for the Board, which he labelled a Quality Reinvestment Program (QRP). Shaw’s calculations predicted that the entire $40 million could be garnered by not filling vacant positions, most of which would occur through retirements, and by increasing tuition.^[89] Because the vacancies would not occur in proportion to need in each institution, the president proposed that UW System should levy a “reallocation tax” on each UW institution and redistribute the proceeds to address the most pressing needs. Shaw recommended that the largest amount ($23.7 million) be dedicated to faculty compensation, in order to maintain the gains achieved through the 1990-91 catch-up plan. The next largest sum ($7.2 million) would be used to improve S&E budgets, while lesser amounts would be shifted to the UW-Madison School of Engineering, a Systemwide course assessment program, library acquisitions, improved computer access, and laboratory modernization. Fortunately, the final 1991-1993 state budget contained sufficient dollars for library acquisitions, computer access and laboratory modernization, which allowed these items to be removed from QRP. Ultimately, over three years, 1992-1995, the UW System reallocated $26.5 million.^[90]

In late October 1989, Chancellor Portch appointed a thirteen member Planning Council and gave it a broad mandate to review all aspects of the UW Centers and to recommend necessary alterations in how the institution operated.^[91]
In its first meeting Portch observed that, because the Six Year Plan had elapsed in late 1988, the time was ripe for the Centers to evaluate how well the goals of the Six Year Plan had been achieved and to establish another long-range plan to carry the institution toward the 21st Century. Over the ensuing sixteen months, the Council invited individuals to identify problems and to suggest solutions; consulted with various constituent groups including department chairs, Deans Council, Faculty Senate, and Academic Staff Advisory Committee; and circulated numerous drafts of its report for comment.

In February 1991, the Council’s report, Moving Toward the 21st Century, was completed. When Portch transmitted the report to the faculty, academic staff, and classified staff, he urged everyone to keep an open mind about its sometimes bold suggestions. He also promised that the report would not gather dust and that action would be taken on each one of the recommendations. Portch asserted that he would personally implement some items, working groups would be created to tackle others, and some recommendations, because they involved policy changes, would be considered by the Senate. Portch closed his memo with,

Some may ask if we can risk moving forward at a time of one of the tightest budgets in a long time and at a time when we are in transition to a new chancellor. I would respond that we cannot afford not to, that we cannot stand still if we are to become stronger, especially at a time when we need to assure North Central [Accrediting Association] that we are not just planning but also moving ahead. This report gives us that opportunity. Let’s not miss it.^[92]

The reference to a transition to a new chancellor reflected Portch’s announcement, in mid-January 1991, that he had accepted an appointment as the UW System Vice President for Academic Affairs, an office he would assume on the first of May. On Portch’s last day in the Chancellor’s Office, he issued a “one-minute-to-midnight” memo which described the status of each one of the Planning Council’s 35 recommendations. Most notably, great progress had been made by a working group toward a “zero-base curriculum” protocol that would annually require each campus and department to review its courses’ enrollment history and determine how each one meshed with the Centers’ associate degree. Portch announced that the protocol procedures would be implemented during the 1991-1992 academic year. On the other hand, Portch said that the Senate Steering Committee would slow down its development of a new annual faculty merit evaluation procedure, because of the great diversity of opinion that had arisen. Still, he urged the Steering Committee to work toward presenting a set of options for the Senate’s consideration in September.^[93]

Chancellor Stephen Portch left the UW Centers in excellent condition. Through his straightforward leadership style, he had secured approval for several policies that assured a smooth student transfer process. The most important of these, of course, was the Associate Degree Transfer Policy that encouraged a student to remain at a Center for two years by guaranteeing that the Associate Degree would fulfill the general education requirements of any four-year UW institution. The articulation agreements, negotiated by the Director of Academic Services, had removed uncertainties about which courses were needed for various majors. In addition, when a four-year institution changed its requirements, the implementation had to be delayed for one year, to allow Centers’ advisors and students time to adjust to the new standards. Finally, a negotiation procedure was in place to iron out the few transfer problems which inevitably would arise. All in all, Stephen Portch had helped create a higher profile for the UW Centers and a broader acceptance of the thirteen two-year campuses as a truly integral part of the University of Wisconsin.

President Shaw, in late April 1991, announced that he would be leaving UW System to become the President of New York’s Syracuse University. After his departure, the Board of Regents named Senior Vice President Lyall as acting president. This was a familiar position for Lyall, as she had led the System for five months in the interim between O’Neil’s leaving and Shaw’s arrival. Indeed, some argued that the Board should immediately name Lyall president, in recognition of her leadership talents and of her service to the University of Wisconsin. However, the Regents decided to conduct a full-scale presidential search so that, should Lyall eventually be appointed, it would be clear she was the best candidate. Ultimately, in April 1992, Lyall was named the fifth president of the University of Wisconsin System.^[94]