The Student Association met on Nov. 15, and were greeted with one guest but also discussed many upcoming events. During this meeting, the Student Association President Jacob Schimmel gave his weekly report and touched on topics such as the university lawyer, more diversity on campus and the merger.

This merger is a merge between two-year institutions and four-year schools within the UW System. Schimmel stated, “Each two-year campus will be attached to a specific four-year, and some four-years will have multiple two year campuses that are a part of them.” They will remain a two-year component of the four-year school. One example of this is UW Barron County will be merged with Eau Claire. It will be referred to as UW Eau Claire at Barron County.

However, this will not have much impact on UW LaCrosse. Schimmel stated, “I don’t think UWL students have anything to worry about, but I just want to be looking out for other campuses, and trying to help out where I can.” UWL is one of the few campuses that won’t be merging with a two-year institution.

This merger will be put in place in July of 2018. “The merger officially goes into effect in July of 2018. Everything is not going to be finalized by then though,” Schimmel explained. There are still a lot of components of the merger that need to be discussed, and most of the discussions will be completed come the official merge in July.

This idea was adopted to help with low enrollment at two-year institutions in Wisconsin. According to Schimmel, in the last couple of years, the numbers of enrollment have dropped by 30% in some schools, and in others over 40%. There were two potential solutions to this problem. The first one is to eliminate two-year campuses or just some two-year campuses. The alternative would be to merge the two-year schools with the four-year schools. This merger should solve enrollment problems and will also make transferring easier for students. While this should additionally save the UW-system money it will eliminate jobs on some two-year campuses.

The UW system does have a steering committee to help make decisions on this merger. They are wishing for students to give input on these important topics and to be present on the committee. They are looking to add two more students to this team. If you are interested in joining this committee, contact Jacob Schimmel at [email protected].

This merger is not completely finalized, but it won’t have a big effect on LaCrosse since UWL is one of the few four-year schools that are not merging with a two-year institution. After July 2018, the UW System will have a better idea of what direction it will go to. They are still working out all the details and are figuring out how this will affect involved parties.