Faculty and students are demanding regents oust top administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, arguing their leadership has been erratic and incompetent.
Faculty members and students sent the regents a letter Thursday expressing a lack of confidence in Chancellor Bernie Patterson’s administration.
“We, as members of the UWSP community, write to oppose Chancellor Patterson’s restructuring plan and to express our lack of confidence in his administration. Rather than a forward-thinking strategy, Patterson’s proposal arbitrarily singles out low-cost programs to cut. It fails to address our dire financial emergency, which results from years of mismanagement by Patterson’s own administration. We fear our current leadership cannot steer us effectively through our current crisis, or the challenging years ahead,” the letter reads.
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The letter argues Patterson’s staff expanded enrollment and over-hired when they should have planned for a leaner future.
UW-Stevens Point physics professor Mick Veum, who was also a former assistant vice chancellor for personnel, budgets and grants, said hires were made despite trends showing declining enrollments.
“I don’t want this institution to ever again open a tenure track line knowing that it wasn’t financially viable,” said Veum. “That’s really to me where the big failure in leadership was … we were approving positions that were advertised nationally as tenure track knowing that we were not going to have the enrollments to get the tuition revenue to cover those salaries.”
In March, UW-Stevens Point administrators announced they wanted to eliminate 13 programs to help cope with a $4.5 million deficit. On Oct. 12, the administration scaled that back to six majors.
In a Thursday interview with WPR, Patterson said administration is now eyeing cutting as many as 68 positions, though around 40 of those are now vacant.
“When you sort through all the vacancies, the retirements, the people that may be leaving, all that, we’re down to the possible elimination of 15 faculty positions,” said Patterson.
An email from Provost Greg Summers sent Wednesday to faculty and staff at UW-Stevens Point detailed the proposed cuts.
“Much as I suggested at the beginning of the year, reducing spending by $4.8 million will require eliminating approximately 62 positions and moving 7 positions to alternative revenue sources,” wrote Summers. “However, by utilizing vacant positions and program revenue wherever possible, the layoff and non-renewal of individuals will be limited to approximately 15 faculty members and 11 staff members. All positions below refer to headcount rather than FTE, meaning that some positions indicated are part-time.”
Asked why the number of faculty facing layoffs changed within the last two weeks, Patterson said it’s a moving target.
“We are working through this and every day the situation changes,” he said. “Because somebody announces a retirement yesterday, that affects the total today. So, this is evolving and we’re trying to share information as it becomes more specific and more definite.”
Patterson said even those potential cuts wouldn’t solve the campus’s budget woes. He said administration is also looking at finding savings through administrative functions.
“We are studying the possibility for outsourcing various services on campus and to what extent that would save money or not,” said Patterson. “It has to all be analyzed and that takes quite a bit of analytical horsepower to get to informed decisions about that and those are all in progress as we speak.”
As for the letter calling for his and Provost Greg Summers’ removal from their administrative posts, Patterson noted that it didn’t come from the official shared governance groups on campus.
“This is a union group that has convened themselves,” Patterson said. “They are not shared governance groups on our campus that represent, officially, the faculty and staff and students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. But still, they’re colleagues and we’re interested in what they have to say.”
UW System spokeswoman Heather LaRoi pointed to system President Ray Cross’ statement earlier this month supporting the majors cut.
Veum said he isn’t sure whether regents will act on the letter.
“Just because the board of regents may or may not do anything, if they at least listen, one of the things that can happen back here on the campus is that you can have a change in attitude, you can have a change in approach,” Veum said.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 4:13 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018.
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