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UWM gets approval for two new schools

Proposed Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health

The UW System Board of Regents today approved requests to establish two new schools at UWM: The Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health and a School of Freshwater Sciences, both of which will offer graduate programs.

The schools are aimed at improving the health of the people in the Milwaukee region as well as across the state. If they receive the final nod from the state legislature next year, the schools will be the first at UWM since the School of Allied Health Professions (now the College of Health Sciences) was established in 1975.

The requests were part of Chancellor Carlos E. Santiago’s plan for transforming UWM into a research university that can drive Milwaukee’s efforts to reinvent its economy.

The Milwaukee region suffers a distinct economic disadvantage, especially when compared to Dane County, says Santiago. He believes recovery hinges on increasing the number of people in the work force with college degrees – and on importing more creative minds to the area.

The City of Milwaukee needs to boost the number of its residents with bachelor’s degrees from 18 to 36 percent if it is to remain competitive in the knowledge-based economy, he said.

New graduate programs
The regents also approved a new UWM doctoral program, in Africology, and master’s degree programs in Spanish and Women’s Studies.

Adding more doctoral programs and Ph.D. students is another way to attract the best researchers to come here, said Santiago.

“We’re going to build up this research university in a different way than our sister institution in Madison did,” he said. “UWM’s research infrastructure will be built with a very focused strategy tied to meet local and state needs.”

Since 2004, UWM has added five new doctoral programs, bringing the total to 25. Santiago would like to see more than 30.

Campus safety and other business

UWM students Andrea Kloehn and Jeff Riederer are volunteer S.A.F.E. walkers who patrol the UWM neighborhood and report problems or emergencies. They appeared at the UW Board of Regents meeting Friday with UWM Police Chief Pam Hodermann to talk about the program.

Photo by Alan Magayne-Roshak

In other regents’ business Friday, UWM presented its strategies for preventing and responding to potential violence on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods. Specifically, UWM Police Chief Pam Hodermann introduced the board to UWM’s S.A.F.E. Walkers, students and other volunteers who act as extra eyes and ears in the campus community after dark.

The walkers, who are trained in emergency response, patrol the neighborhoods from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., and they have already made a difference.

The group has radioed UWM police patrols to report incidents of graffiti, and also two instances of injury that could have been fatal without quick action.

Also on Friday, the regents approved a 5.5 percent tuition increase for resident undergraduates at four-year UW institutions, including UWM. The tuition bump means an increase of $340 per year for UWM undergrads.

More than half the tuition increase will go toward helping to pay for the state-mandated veterans’ tuition remission program, which subsidizes tuition for veterans at schools in the UW System and the Wisconsin Technical College System.

Text of Chancellor's Presentation to Board of Regents (PDF)

Slides from Chancellor's Presentation to Board of Regents(PDF)

Listen to the Chancellor's Presentation to the Board of Regents
(64Mb MP3 file; approximately 30 minutes)