 Welcome to Sheboygan County government working for you. My name's Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Bill Gehring. And today we're very pleased to have two guests with us, the new Dean of UW-Sheboygan, Al Harderson, and his assistant, essentially the assistant to the Dean, Rich Barnhouse. Good to have you with us, gentlemen. Thank you for the invitation. Al, why don't we start right with you? You just set off there. It's been about two and a half weeks on the job. How's it been going so far? It's been very enjoyable, Adam, and I want to begin by just thanking both of you for the opportunity to be here today. I've had an opportunity to meet a lot of people already, some of the faculty, some of the staff, some of the people in the community, and it's been a lot of fun. Now, we have this program once a month, and we focus on different departments. We have 22 departments in Sheboygan County, but a lot of people don't recognize that we have this beautiful facility, and it's a partnership with Sheboygan County owning the building and grounds. And the state, UW, taking care of the operations and providing the staffing. As UW Dean, please give our viewers a snapshot of what are your role and responsibilities? Well, that's a good question, Adam. I'm learning more every day what this role and responsibility actually amounts to. There are several. Jim Perry, one of my counterparts at UW-Fox Valley writes that the Dean has essentially responsibilities for all aspects of the institution. Thanks to Rich, I've got someone to help keep an eye on the money and the budget, but I have some responsibility and oversight of that along with the curriculum, working with the faculty and the associate dean for the academic curriculum matters as well as handling student life, and in addition to that, I have some responsibilities with the relations, with governmental relations, both locally and on the state level. And so it's a fairly broad role, and it's one that I'm sure as I've been in it for a while, I'll be able to give you even a stronger answer. Well, as you said, you're definitely in good hands. Bill and I have had the chance to interact with some of your colleagues here, and Rich has been a breath of fresh air. I think it's been, what, two, two and a half years? Rich? Going on three. Going on three. Rich, I know you've been on the program once before, but please share when you started and your role and responsibilities. Well, I started in August of 04, and my responsibilities, as I like to frame it, are everything from facilities to finance, and all that stuff in the middle. Really everything outside of the classroom and outside of student affairs. And so that's why I deal with the county government on a regular basis in regards to the facilities, some of the finance things, as well as risk management and collaborating together. So everything in there from HR to finance, risk management, legal affairs, all of those things fall under administrative services for which I oversee. Two of you have very important leadership roles, and as you said, Al, it's only been a couple weeks here, but you've had a chance to interact with some of the professors and other staff here. Please touch on that briefly. Tell us a little bit about some of the good things that your colleagues are doing here at UW-Chabuagan. I'm very impressed with the quality of the faculty. I was impressed during the interview process. As I become more involved, getting ready to come up and get started on the job, and now that I'm here, I've talked with the folks around campus, and I've found that we actually have some faculty who have been recognized on a statewide level in recent years, and in fact, we have two recipients of, and I'm gonna read it because I wanna be right, the Undercoughler Alliant Energy Award, outstanding faculty, we have two members of our staff that have been recognized, Carl Byron and Alice Homstead. Carl teaches geography for us and Alice Spanish. In addition to that, we recently had a faculty member, David Luzekie, and David's a philosophy professor here at UW-Chabuagan. David was recognized recently as the Regents Carnegie Foundation Award winner. In essence, he was named the State of Wisconsin Professor of the Year. That says a lot when you consider that's being named by the Regents, Wisconsin Professor of the Year. That's impressive. Well, not only impressive with the folks who are doing the teaching here and administration, but you look at this facility, and Rich, you've been right in the midst of that the last couple of years working hand-in-hand with the county, Jim Tobey, Start Building Services Director. How would you perceive that relationship between Chabuagan County and UW-Chabuagan, and tell us a little bit about just what's going on here in the last couple of years? Well, I mean, I've gotta start off by saying that it's a tremendous relationship, and I think really one of the finest relationships between a county and a UW campus, probably within the state, from what I hear from my counterparts. It was a very good relationship when I got here, and I think that it's even better now, three years later. I think it's because we identify with each other, and we know how we relate to each other now better than we had in the past. Also, we see an investment on both sides. Obviously, Chabuagan County is invested in this campus tremendously over the past five to seven years. We have two new buildings, the Acuity Technology Center, which is our most recent building, and just prior to that getting started, we completed the Broad Science Building, and both of those facilities just add more than square footage. They add tremendous opportunities for our students and for people in the community. It also highlights the campus. As you know, we're now seeing from the interstate, which is very important to us, and that's all because of the county's investment in our campus, and we take that very seriously and understand that we need to invest in the county residents and educating them and keeping them here and adding to the tax base and providing the next generation of leaders in the county, and also educating those returning adult students, and we've got just tremendous opportunities for those students now with these two new upgrades. Of course, they're far more than upgrades, but there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than simply the buildings, but there's also a budget that the county allocates to us for maintenance and upkeep, and but by and large, I would say that the relationship has increased because we meet on a regular basis. We're familiar with the county and the people that are involved in the county governance, and I think that those people are becoming familiar with us, and it's just been a tremendous relationship, and we're both involved in the same goal, and that is educating our Sheboygan County residents and allowing them the opportunity to stay in the community and go to school here, and so it's just been a tremendous relationship, and it continues to get better. And it certainly doesn't hurt when the county board chairman is a former graduate of UW-Sheboygan. That helps. He clearly has an appreciation for what this institution can provide and how important it is to the community, so I know, as you said, that the county board support as a whole has been very strong, and Bill has provided some leadership in that regard. Last question before I turn it over to Bill. We've talked a little bit about some of the improvements here, the good relationship and partnership between the county and UW-Sheboygan, and the excellent staff that are available for people of this community, but Al, could you touch on a little bit about how this campus relates with the other four-year institutions county statewide? I'd be glad to, Adam. That's one of the things that attracted me to UW-Sheboygan, quite frankly. UW-Sheboygan has an interest in developing and working on collaborations. The community seems very interested in that, and we have some in place where students can actually complete a baccalaureate degree right here at UW-Sheboygan, and in one instance, a master's degree. Again, with two and a half weeks on the job, I'm gonna go down through a list just to make sure I don't miss any. Currently, we have a degree with UW Oshkosh in nursing, so a student can actually finish a bachelor's degree in nursing. That's a plus for our healthcare community. It's a plus for our residents, and it's a plus for our students, so it's a win, win, win. We had two students that actually completed that degree this past May, and they're more on the pipeline. We have a bachelor of science in management in three different areas with UW-Stout. We currently have with UW Oshkosh a bachelor's degree in education that'll be starting up this fall. We're very excited about this. This is an opportunity for place-bound adults and for students who want to get a bachelor's degree in pre-K through sixth grade teacher certification. This degree leads to licensure in teaching in the state of Wisconsin. The degree will be one that will help the community. It'll provide a base of people that already live in Sheboygan County, that want to teach, and because of cost, distance, whatever, don't have the ability to go away and get that degree, they'll be able to begin getting that right here, and it's something we are very excited about. We also have had in place since 2001 master's degree in education from UW Oshkosh. Again, that's an opportunity that is a wonderful resource for our education community, and when you look at the number of schools within Sheboygan County, it's important that we have a base from which to be able to draw good faculty who are prepared to teach the students that live in our district. And as a follow-up, people who reside in this community, from an economic standpoint, if there's a little concern about financially sending someone to a UW-Madison or UW-Stevens point, they can get a quality education here and more affordable, can they not? Exactly, and we're interested in expanding those collaborations wherever it makes sense for the community and for the residents, and wherever it makes sense for UW-Sheboygan, we'll pursue those opportunities. Excellent, thank you. Now, we've already reviewed that the county has spent substantial dollars in upgrading buildings. Also, there has been community involvement in that. How does that really help both the University of Sheboygan and the students here? Well, Bill, it provides the UW-Sheboygan with, as Richard was saying earlier, facilities that are state of the art. It's very important, especially in the area of sciences and technology, that you not only have the technology, but you have the facilities that can handle that technology. And I'll just give an example with the science facility. Medbrot's Science Building gives our faculty laboratory space, lecture space, areas that they can have students work in small groups and teams where they can challenge them well beyond what they were able to before. And the better prepared our students are when they leave here, the better off they are and the better off we eventually are. And likewise, with the new Acuity Technology Center, we have state of the art classroom facilities, we have a wonderful library resource, and those are available to the community, not just UW-Sheboygan. So that's a win, win, win. And that has been an investment, but I believe you've invested in the future. And I believe that that investment will pay dividends many, many times as years go by. I believe so also. You've talked about some faculty successes. Have there been some student successes you'd like to share with us? Would you repeat that one, though? There have been some faculty successes. Have there been some students that have been especially successful in various areas? There have been, and rather than single out one or two, not knowing the students yet, there are a few around, but not many during the summer. I've talked again with Dick Geroche and others, and I'm finding that we have students who have gone on historically from UW-Sheboygan to the four-year schools in the state of Wisconsin, and they outperform the students that are transferring from other two-year colleges. And in some cases, they outperform the native student. Now, the native student, as I define it, is a student who started as a freshman at those four-year institutions. That tells me a couple of things. One, they're getting excellent preparation here to help them go on and succeed, but not only succeed, but to excel. I'm told we have doctors who have graduated from UW-Sheboygan, medical doctors, we have lawyers, we have pharmacists, we have legislators, we have CEOs, we even have county board members. Okay, great. Rich, there probably are some trends going on both in Sheboygan and statewide that are gonna impact the university in Sheboygan. What might they be? Yeah, there are a couple that immediately come to mind. And the first one I would say is the returning adult student, which has really come on in the last number of years in Sheboygan County. And I think that we are, in fact, seeing it statewide as well. We have approximately 30% of our student population being returning adult students. Many of these students have already gone to college, or technical college, and are coming back to pursue a degree so that they can move on into another area of their career. As you know, it's not typical very often anymore for a student or an employee to stay with an organization for their entire career. And so we're seeing people wanting to come back and be retrained in liberal arts as well as the sciences and business as well. So the returning adult student population is certainly one of the trends in Sheboygan County but also within the state. And the second thing that immediately comes to mind is this refocus on the liberal arts. I think for a couple of decades, there was a focus on being very, very specific in regard to your course of study, and furthermore, for your course of employment. But as I discussed a minute ago, we're seeing that change and the days of being able to do one thing well is being modified and you need to be able to do plethora of things at a high level. And that's something that the liberal arts education has always provided because it stresses being knowledgeable in a variety of areas but also very, very skilled in a variety of areas. And so we see this refocus and this reinvestment in the liberal arts education. And of course, sciences and specific disciplines are very, very important and always have focus and attention but we're seeing a refocus on the liberal arts education for that, for those reasons. The state budget is very much up in the air at this point. I think it's going to conference committee next week. How will that outcome affect the University of Wisconsin? Well, it has a dramatic impact on us and an immediate effect on us. As you know, we are in the current fiscal year and are without a budget. And so one of the things that affects our campus which directly affects the students is our ability to set tuition rates. So at this point, we're not fully sure what those tuition rates will be. And that's all based on the subsidies, the funding that we receive from the state government. And so there will come a point where we have to set as a system, the UW system, where we will have to set a tuition rate so that students can fully enroll. And so that's going to have an impact on students who are coming in and students that are trying to get set up at this point. So it will have an impact on us and ultimately an impact on the student and the Sheboygan County resident who is desiring to come to our campus. Okay, now I think we neglected earlier to ask you a little bit about your background. Were you worked what you did before you came to Sheboygan? Well, Bill, I have a little over 30 years, about 31 years in higher education. I started out as a part-time faculty member when I worked in the Mental Health Center. And I was teaching psychology and I enjoyed it so much. I said, this is where I belong. I look back and I think I made the right decision. Higher education is a great place to be. My last 10 years, all 30 plus years, I worked in the Illinois Community College System. Three different campuses, a little over 10 years in each. My last 10 years was at Joliet Junior College. And I served as vice president for student services at that institution. Okay, well, I'm very excited about having you here as the new dean. What do you think are some of our most critical challenges that we face down the road here at this campus? Well, that's a good question. I'm probably not the best person to ask since I've been here two and a half weeks. But I can say that I'm hearing that there are a lot of opportunities. I spent some time yesterday visiting with a couple of our high school principals and administrator superintendents and executive directors. I visited Lutheran High and went out to Random Lake. I have every school superintendent and principal on my calendar for the coming weeks. And the reason for that is I need to get a feel of the pulse and find out what the people who are out there in the community think about UW-Shabuigan and also can help me identify directions that we should be thinking about going in. And just in those two visits, we had some very good conversation. I've come back and shared with Rich and the rest of the executive team this morning, some of the feedback. And we're gonna see if we can respond to those things. It's my belief that there is much more that we can do with collaborations. And we talked briefly before this program about one that I'm very interested in, but I'm not gonna try to pique interest until we have something to really talk about. But I have a lot of background in adult ed. My doctorate's in adult ed. And as Rich says, this is something that we really need to spend time focusing upon. The taxpayers in this community, the taxpayers in this county deserve to have an institution that is responsive to their needs. And we certainly will be doing that. At the same time, we don't wanna turn our back on our bread and butter. That 18, 19, 20 year old fresh out of high school that once a good start to their first, the big bachelor's degree, their education, they want a good jump start. We're the place that they should be looking at. So we have a combination of missions that we need to stay within. Thank you, you're welcome. Well, speaking of opportunities, as we touched on a few years ago, the county board took action and collaboration with UW-Shabuigan to have the science edition put in place. And we've just of all completed our UW acuity edition and from a space needs. We just have a wonderful campus. In fact, Rich, I think you said during a county board leadership forum that we had here a month or two ago that in your opinion, out of the 13 two-year campuses, this is either number one or number two. Yeah, absolutely. It's just, it's really heartwarming to hear that. And I know that there's a great deal of support for this facility. And of late, the county board made another decision. And that is to relocate our UW extension office, which is currently in Shabuigan Falls. It's been there for a number of years, serves the people of this community very well, here to the UW-Shabuigan campus. And in part, there's been some changes at the state level with administration, streamlining and both UW-Shabuigan and Shabuigan extension, UW extension, answer to the same chancellor. But when the old library became available, I think the county board thought, hey, we have another opportunity here to consolidate and bring them all under the same complex. And again, that action was recently taken. They're gonna be moving in after we get the remodeling done. Al, again, knew on the job, but you certainly have followed this issue. What do you see as some of the benefits to UW extension and UW-Shabuigan being in the same complex? Well, Adam, I think, again, I am new, but I will say we've had quite a bit of discussion. My first day on the job, we met as a team and we talked about this. And we realized this is an eventuality that we're going to be dealing with. And we need to do everything we can to make it work in the best way, not only for the UW-Shabuigan staff and faculty and students, but for UW extension employees and the constituents that they serve, as well as the county residents as a whole. And to that end, we've actually had a couple of meetings. We had some folks from UW extension here on campus last Friday. We had a very good, about a two and a half hour discussion, began to lay the groundwork to make this transition as smooth as possible. Rich and I went out to an architectural meeting on Monday afternoon and I had a chance to actually walk through and get a tour from Dave Such through the extension. And that was really helpful for me to get a sense of what they have, what they'll be bringing to campus. And I'm beginning to get a focus of what that means for us. One thing I can say undoubtedly, we will have many, many people coming to this campus who otherwise may never have set foot on UW-Shabuigan's campus. And we see that as an opportunity to be talking to those 4-H students and those individuals who are receiving services from UW extension to begin talking to them about possibility of completing a bachelor's degree, working toward completing some certification. And we also see it as an opportunity to talk to the parents of those 4-H students and the rural farm community in a way that we may never have been able to have that dialogue before. So that's what we see at this point. And as you know, there's been more and more emphasis on doing more with less and being responsible with taxpayer dollars and the pressures at the state level are certainly at the local level. And one of the things we learned throughout this process and you alluded to it earlier, in the summer you don't have as many students here. And depending on the day versus the evening, there may be classroom space available. And one of the staff here internally took it upon him to do a classroom study or space usage study. And that really was helpful in our discussion because we recognize that UW extension really has a need for space. And as you said, there are some real opportunities there not only to interact more with the respective clients, the folks that both have been serving, but to share space here, get more bang for a buck from a taxpayer perspective. So I think there's a lot of enthusiasm for this. And I'm pleased to hear that you got involved right out of the gate with what the architect's looking at. And speaking of that, Rich, you've been involved with all the development here with the acuity and now the remodeling of the library. Generally speaking, what's the timetable for UW extension relocating here? I think at this point we'll be early spring that we're looking at. We're starting to hit our stride here. All cylinders are moving well. We're meeting on a frequent basis and with the extension staff. And it's nice to see their excitement. Obviously they're thrilled about this. And so we're very happy for them. And it looks at this point like it will be early spring. We've got some things that we need to sort out, but all things are moving along really quite well. Good. Well, we only have a couple of minutes remaining. And I don't know between the two of you, I'll start with you, Al, if there's anything further you'd like to share before we close. Well, just a couple of things, Adam. First, I'd like to publicly thank Acuity, the Acuity Foundation, Kohler, Sherbrooke and County Board for their generous help in helping to make the new Acuity Technology Center a reality. I'd also be remiss if I didn't take the moment to say thanks to a person who had a vision and had a dream. And that's Ray Hernandez, the former dean. Ray had a dream and that dream has now been realized. I'd also like to say, Adam, you look a little hungry to me. August 8th, chicken and jazz and Bill, you want some good music. I always look a little hungry, I don't know what it is. We're going to have chicken and jazz of our foundation. It will be sponsoring a cookout. We invite the community. Tickets are $12 at the door. I'm sorry, $12 in advance, $15 at the door. All the proceeds go to help students with scholarships and make UW-Shabuigan more affordable to the residents. Chicken and all that jazz on August 8th. On August 8th, very good. Well, we appreciate you both of you joining us today. We appreciate the good work that certainly rich you've done during your short tenure here three years. I can't believe how quickly that's gone. Dean Al Harderson, it's just great to have you aboard. We appreciate your time today and certainly look forward to your leadership in the future. So on behalf of the Shabuigan County Board, Chairman Bill Gehring and myself, Adam Payne, thank you for joining us today. Next month we'll have our finance director here, Tim Finch, to talk about the county budget process. But until then, again, thank you for joining us. Thank you.