<p>Last week I attended my first meeting of the board that oversees many of the interesting programs in the UW L&S college. It was both eye-opening and very reassuring that the UW is now in very good hands with a stronger focus on undergrads. </p>
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<li><p>The UW is trying to re-define what it means to be a freshman as so many students arrive with lots of credits from APs etc. The study has been underway for about a year and is nearing completion. This will deal with some of the registration issues, access to FIGS, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>Everyone recognizes undergrad scholarships aid is inadequate for OOS students as there are only about 35 general scholarships for OOS students (others just for minority, etc). They are fundraising to improve this right now but it's not easy right now. More aid is coming but it won't be overnight</p></li>
<li><p>The residential college programs are very successful and being expanded as are FIGS which will be expanded to sophs and transfers. </p></li>
<li><p>They are very aware of the graduation ratre issues and have hired a person to focus on this. One thing they found out is that there is no required mechanism to track progress to graduation in L&S with many students waiting until senior year to even take a hard look at what they need to do to graduate. They plan to start using a more carrot and stick approach to getting students to focus on their meeting of all graduating requiements. </p></li>
<li><p>Dorms dorms dorms. They will be building enough additional dorm space to be able to guarantee ALL freshmen rooms in the dorms. The new dorms will be in the lakeshore area. They will be higher amenity dorms as that is where the demand is. </p></li>
<li><p>The Madison Initiative has everyone in pretty high spirits about the future--especially for undergrads. Faculty are being added rapidly (for a college) in the high demand areas with a focus on the liberal arts. The Dean said they are now able to get top choice people that migth have gone to an Ivy in other years. They are very happy but have an eye on the next elections and budget cycle too. </p></li>
<li><p>They had a number of students come in and talk about their UW experiences. Very accomplished and inspired kids. Just spending more time on campus I sense a more focused academically oriented student body. Walked through some of the libraries on Sunday afternoon and kids were studying everywhere with most seats filled. The sea of laptops was amazing to me--not as many books being read as in the old days.</p></li>
<li><p>The renovated grand reading room at the Historical Library is beautiful.</p></li>
<li><p>Lots of construction all over campus certainly mars the beauty of the older part of campus. Chainlink fencing just does nothing for me. </p></li>
<li><p>New brick oven pizza and sushi places are very good. I was really surprised at the good sushi you can get now. </p></li>
<li><p>Learned about the UW First Wave program which is attracting some really talented mostly minority artists to the first such program in the US. They just won a national poetry slam competition. Friday night at the Union Terrace they had an up and coming female hip-hop recording artist who drew a very diverse crowd to the Terrace--a pretty rare thing in Madison.</p></li>
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<li>Overall I was convinced the UW is very much on an upswing but has some weaknesses in the administrative areas that appear to be being addressed. I'll be glad when some of the major construction is over. But that day might not come soon.</li>
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<p>Helpful report. What I find interesting is that you’ve consistently denied in other posts that UW’s graduation rate is a cause for any concern, yet here you’re saying that “everyone is aware of the graduation rate issues.” So are we talking about a situation where you can say your sister’s ugly but nobody else can?</p>
<p>Actually what I said was that there are many reasons for the lower UW 4 year grad rate including double majors, changing majors, working part-time, and a general lack of pressure to graduate in 4 years. Obviously UW can do something about some of these things and not others. The entire UW System has a new goal to raise graduation rates at all the UW schools. They know it’s not a single source problem and they are looking at some adminstrative things that could improve the students’ focus on graduating “on-time”. This includes monitoring students as they get closer to graduation and having them complete a graduation course plan. Presently it is up to the student to go see their counselor to do a graduation plan and some are not taking the freedom seriously until senior year when it’s often too late to get all the required courses done. So they plan to be a little more parental on this.</p>
<p>Also they are adding $20,000,000/year in available grant aid to ALL students over the next 3 years and permanently after that just from the Madson Initiative. That’s not a nominal amount. </p>
<p>Thank you for the information. My son will be glad to hear of the focus on Liberal Arts. His decision to attend UW is looking better and better.</p>
<p>I am glad that UW is taking its 4-year graduation rate seriously. In these economic times, graduating in four years or less is becoming more and more important to the average income family. UW offers an enormous variety of courses and the university should be commended for its efforts to provide so many different paths to choose. However, the university should be able to provide guidelines to achieve graduation in every major within the four year time span. </p>
<p>Among other universities, my son considered Florida State University ( the in-state tuition was extremely attractive to me). FSU is a good university and has put great emphasis on its 4-year graduation rate. To that end, they have established “Academic Maps” to help guide every student. You may want to take a look at the website. By using this guide and discussing the options with a qualified advisor, students have managed to improve FSU’s graduation rate. Despite the vast array of choices that both schools offer, an organized map to success is possible. </p>
<p>That looks good. I see they have some sticks built in if you stray from the plan too much. I think UW valued exploration and free-wheeling very highly and grad rate was not a big deal. Now more people look at it as meaning something it may or may not actually mean and the governor certainly looks at the numbers too. I’ll pass it on to the person working on the plan.</p>
<p>I think that UW can adapt its maps to allow for exploration. If you look at the typical English major map at FSU, you will see that they recommend an LS Math in the first semester. UW’s version of such a map could include a link for the term ‘LS Math’ and provide a list of courses that would fall under that description. In that way, a student can select the LS Math that fits his/her needs.</p>
<p>I am sure that advisors would welcome such a map for every major. With such maps, students and advisors can spend more time talking about possible career and academic goals and less time on the nuts and bolts of meeting university requirements.</p>
<p>Many depts at UW have a similar sheet they hand out but it is on uniform nor is progress monitored in some of the schools (Ag is known for being hands on with students). UW operated on a very decentralized model with high levels of faculty control rather than a top down administrative model. The Chancellor is relatively weak when it comes to imposing rules on schools/depts so things tend to not change in a uniform way. IT’s a more like many top privates where the faculty have most of the real power. Generally it works well until you want to change something across the board. Then you have to get lots of people involved.</p>
<p>Certainly the economic downturn has had something to do with the new publicity on costs of extra years getting an undergrad degree.</p>
<p>My D has firsthand experience with the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (CALS) in Madison. While it’s true that they ARE hands-on (and a very talented bunch BTW), with all the majors within the college, one major advisor might not know what the requirements of double majoring or degree-ing with another major within CALS. And unless the student is on his/her toes and asks a lot of questions, he/she could get some wrong advice & a screwy schedule going forward.</p>
<p>Hopefully that’s part of what’s being addressed.</p>
Those factors are not at all unusual for many of the top universities. What is unusual is UW’s low 4-year graduation rate. We’re still hearing complaints from friends about their kids being locked out of needed classes due to class/school/degree program restrictions. That can easily set students back a semester or two, especially when the degree course requirements are heavily sequential in nature. Is that problem being addressed?</p>
<p>UW is adding profs and improving advising through the Madison Initiative in areas that have been bottlenecks for required classes. Every major state U has some problems with access to classes as needed. It’s not just a UW problem but UW is one of the few now fixing the problem. In just a few years it will have added 100 new faculty in high demand areas. </p>
<p>The AP thing really puzzles me. AP has been around a long time. I wasn’t even aware of AP until my nephew graduated from our relatively ordinary exurban high school with mid-30s AP credits 10 years ago. It must take a brontosaurus bureaucracy more than a few years to just get up off the ground, let alone get moving. </p>
<p>For those who are going to be freshmen this coming year, fixing problems in 3 or 4 years isn’t going to help much.</p>
<p>Actually most things will be fixed this Fall. People entering with Soph standing will have their own group of SIGS to choose from. I also think the problems have been somewhat overstated as having higher class standing also has some advantages. Very few classes are “freshman only” outside the FIGS. And now that they are aware of the problems exceptions will be easier to make.</p>
<p>etherdome - The sample academic maps that you refer to at FSU are exactly what I’ve been looking for on UW’s site. I think I posted a question about this earlier as well. My D was considering the U of M - Twin Cities at one point and they had some nice sample 4 year schedules on line that I thought were very helpful. I was sure UW would have something similar but so far, no luck. I think something like that would be extremely helpful - especially for Freshmen who can be a little overwhelmed trying to figure out a plan on their own; even just in anticipation of their SOAR session.</p>
<p>This is awesome! University of Wisconsin is like my 2nd or 3rd choice next year. Though, I’ll probably go to Madison because getting into North Carolina as an outta stater is near impossible! (thank you for living in missouri, parents haha) Thank you for sharing this though!</p>
<p>Agreed. I hope that the administration can convince each department to participate in a centralized mapping system so that students can intelligently navigate their careers at UW.</p>
<p>They don’t tell you when in what exact sequence to take classes. I think they did not want to make students feel boxed in so that they had to take this class exactly then. But this does lead to missed classes and timing issues. So maybe it’s time to get more “parental” (something that goes against the UW’s core values) and direct students as to where and when classes need to be taken. The days of free random exploration might have to circumscribed.</p>
<p>Kids leaving home, for the first time, should be given help adapting. Freedom is a great thing, but perhaps weaning them onto total independence is the wisest course. </p>
<p>The days of casually floating through college are vanishing. The costs are simply too high. I am glad that UW is addressing this issue.</p>
<p>Barrons, please let me know how the administration is receiving the notion of academic maps.</p>