The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute released a report Thursday that calls for a restructuring of the entire UW System, citing delayed graduation and high transfer and dropout rates among students as reason for this reform.
The report suggests that a new campus would solve a variety of problems, such as those previously stated, as well as institution spending, judging professors on classroom conduct and helping students “graduate in four years with a valuable degree.”
“The truth is that less than two-thirds of kids who start school in the UW System typically graduate from a system school in six years,” WPRI President Mike Nichols said in the report.
The report argues that although UW-Madison has the best retention numbers in the state, a large number of students take too long to graduate and “may end up regretting what they studied.”
The proposed curriculum suggests adding a summer session to the regular school calendar. WPRI executives say they hope the curriculum will “nudge students to spend a term abroad to expand their perspectives,” according to the report.
Another proposed change to the curriculum would decrease the number of upper-level course classes for liberal arts degrees.The report also encouraged humanities majors to receive some level of instruction which would possibly increase students’ employability.
“We don’t want to push students into disciplines, but we would like to nudge them [toward STEM] so as to ensure that they leave with a skill and a validation that they have a marketable skill,” the report said.
