 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 a special guest with us, the interim dean of UW Sheboygan, Mary Beth Emmercks. Mary Beth, good to have you with us. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Now, this may be a new face for some of you as you may be aware, former dean Ray Hernandez has chosen to step down as dean and he's going to be teaching here. Is that correct, Mary Beth? He's preparing his art classes to start teaching in the spring. Outstanding, and you started as the interim dean when? Well, August 16th, just this past summer. Well, please share with our viewers a little bit about yourself and the roles and responsibilities of being dean of UW Sheboygan. Be glad to. I started here at UW Sheboygan in 1996 as a lecturer in history and then got the faculty position, eventually became a tenured professor here and then wandered off into administration as well as teaching. I was asked to be interim dean at UW Manitowoc last year and I feel like it was sort of an apprenticeship. I went up there and learned about all the things you had to be to be dean. You had to watch budgets and organize things and solve problems. That was the part I liked best. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed full-time administration. So when Ray stepped down and I was asked to fill in as interim dean here, I thought, yes, I really like doing this job. You spend a lot of time doing different things. You do go to large numbers of meetings but they're often very good meetings where more problems get solved and people learn things. So I don't even mind them. I have 100,000 miles on my 2003 car. I drive all over the state to meetings and so I get to see a lot of Wisconsin. I'm not a native Wisconsin person, so I get to see all the parts I haven't seen yet. It's a very varied job and full of interesting things to do and interesting people to meet. Now, you said it. You were in Manitowoc County. You've been here since August and perhaps give our viewers a flavor for a while. How many people are at UW-Shabuagan? How many staff do you have or professors? How many folks are you working with? We have about 75, 76 staff. That includes faculty and support staff, financial specialists and secretaries and directors of departments, student services, administrative services. That's the money part. You could call him our CFO, our Chief Financial Officer. We have librarians. We have information technology people and what we would do without them. I do not know. So much technology on this campus. It's great to have experts who help us learn how to use it. We have food service people. So it's actually a fairly small staff. We have a custodial staff who double as grounds people. So not only do you fix things and put picture hangers on the wall so people can hang pictures, but then you go out and mow the grass. A real diversity of staff. Yes, everybody's job is varied. Now, with being Interim Dean, I imagine you may have some hopes that you will ultimately be selected as Dean, but our viewers may be wondering, well, how's the process work with becoming the Dean? When will that decision be made? Well, before I answer that, one thing I forgot to say before is our enrollments are pretty good. They're both the same as they were last year. We'd been expecting a great fall because many of the four-year universities are aggressively recruiting first-year students. And so we're very pleased. Not only that, our FTE went up. That's the full-time equivalent. How many students are taking 15 credits of classes? So we're actually quite pleased because we had expected a drop. As far as searching for a permanent Dean, there's a pretty set procedure. The campus puts together a committee, a search committee, in cooperation with central administration. The committee contains faculty, administrative staff, a representative from the community, a student representative, a Dean from another campus, and a faculty member from another campus, as well as a support staff person from central administration who knows all the rules. I thought our interview team was large for departments. I think they've got us beat here, Bill. Well, it's a big committee and it does an enormous amount of work. I will apply. I have no predictions about what will happen after that. Well, get some nice information about yourself, and it's good to have you here, and I've certainly gotten to work with you a little bit of late. It's been a pleasure. Back to enrollments. You touched on that briefly in the introduction, and my sense is here at UW, you should boy again as you just touched on that a lot of good things are happening out here, and we're going to talk about that more in a moment, but what's happened with enrollments the last five, six, eight years? What kind of trends are we seeing? The number of new freshmen on campus this year is the third highest for the last 10 years. So we don't look at an enrollment figure that goes like this. Sometimes it goes like this. Sometimes we have more new freshmen and fewer continuing students. Sometimes we have more continuing students and fewer new freshmen. We did really well with brand new first year students this year. What we'd like are more returning students. Any person who is listening to us today, if they have, for instance, five credits left to finish an associate's degree, they should come back because things are so exciting here. If they have 10 credits to do or 15, they could come back and do it here because one of the things that we will be concentrating on is returning students. Students who have stopped out or stayed out over the last few years because of work, family, they should come back and there will be plenty for them to do. Demographically, we're going to hit a pretty flat spot in high school graduating classes over the next bunch of years. So we will be looking for students wherever we can. We're not going to be chasing them down on the streets, but we can't count on large graduating senior classes from the high schools. That's happening in many places all over the state. Probably the Fox Cities, Madison, and Milwaukee are the only areas in the state that I know of at the moment that may experience growing high school classes. What's your total enrollment as it stands today? Head count, 690. Okay, very good. It means the parking lots are full. And you mentioned a lot of exciting things and if folks are watching this and thinking about continuing their education or completing a degree, what's a snapshot of some of the degrees that are provided here? I know there's been collaborative efforts of late with a four-year that they can finish up here at this two-year campus. How does that work? Well, it's a wonderful thing for people who can't just pick up everything and move to a different place to go to university. We give as a standard our Associate of Arts and Sciences degree on the campus. That's what the two-year colleges are about. But in order to serve people who can't go away from home and finish up their degrees in a four-year, we've been building and it's really been over the last nine years or so a number of ways to get bachelor's degrees and stay here in Sheboygan. We started out with a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and we've gone through a lot of others. We have a master's in education from UW Oshkosh and this is a degree that's recently been redesigned and the cost per credit has been lowered. So if anyone's looking for a master's in education, we've got that. We have a Bachelor of Science in Nursing completion program so that anyone who's done a two-year nursing degree can take classes here and at LTC and at Manitowoc. It's a Lakeshore Cooperative and finish their Bachelor of Science in Nursing. We have an Information Systems degree with UW-Milwaukee. That's a library degree. We have, well, we're working on a number of them too. With UW-Plattville, we're exploring the desire for engineering degrees in this area. UW-Plattville has cooperated with both Rock County and UW-Fox in bringing the last two years of an engineering degree to those campuses and now a number of the southeastern Wisconsin UW colleges are also discussing with each other and with Plattville and with people who might need engineers in their businesses around the area. Do we need this degree? Do you want us to bring it? If you do, we'll work as hard as we can. Working on another one, it's a Bachelor of Liberal Studies in Leadership Development. This is all the rage in the business world. One of the people I talked to said, Americans are overmanaged and under-led and what we need are people who understand what leadership is, how to lead without micromanaging, how to help people become the best they can every day in the workplace. And this is going to be an interesting degree. It's going to be about problem-solving and critical judgment, all the skills that businesses would like students to have when they come in their doors. That's going to be in cooperation with UW Oshkosh. We're working on it pretty much right now. And I would like to see it established and functioning next fall. Excellent, very good. Thank you. Dean, I certainly share the idea that you have the great value that the university here in Shebaugin brings to the community. It's been more than 40 years since both my wife and I spent two years here. I think that's great. A lot of things have happened since then. Back then, there was one building. Just recently, we had the completion of the over $4 million Bratz building. We're currently working on the $6 million Acuity Technology Center. How are things coming with the finalization of the Acuity Center? It's wonderful. One of the neatest things that I get to do is watch them build the building. It's right outside my window. It gets a little noisy, but I'm really growing to appreciate the skill and craft of the people who are putting that building together. It's going to be gorgeous. It's not only on schedule. It's ahead of schedule. The plan is that the building will be finished somewhere at the end of March, beginning of April. We will be able to use it starting in fall semester next year. It's just astonishing. I hope that everyone who drives up and down I-43 is noticing it. It's going to be such an addition to the campus in so many ways. Could you talk a little bit about what the actual completion of the building will bring both to the faculty and to the students, the technology itself? The library is going to be a tremendous resource for everybody. And remember that Sheboygan County residents have access to our library and they will be welcome in the new one. So they shall come. And just see how wonderful it is. We've needed a new library for a long time just because technology is so popular and pervasive on campuses doesn't mean we still don't need books. And so there's plenty of that. And archival storage and journals and periodicals. The other things that this building is going to bring to the campus is a conference center. And I've been really excited about this. Sheboygan needs another place where small to medium sized conferences can be set up comfortably with access to communication and technology, presentation technology that they need. This is going to be a lovely place for community organizations, local businesses, schools to have teacher in service days. It's not only going to benefit our campus but it's going to benefit the community as well. There's an IT section to the building. It's where our information technology people will be and they're going to be surrounded by a lot of technology to take care of in this place. So they'll be centralized there. There's a computer classroom. There'll be another compressed video room. All the modern methods we need to deliver education both on campus and to people who can't get to campus will be in that building. So it's going to be a real learning technology center and our gratitude to both the county for its support and to acuity for its wonderful gift is huge. Without that support and without that major gift from acuity we would not have been able to do it. I am so impressed at the support that Sheboygan County gives to this campus. Certainly building the partnerships first with the Broad's family for the center that was completed at the Science Center and now acuity has really stepped up to the plate and helped the citizens of Sheboygan County and the students in Sheboygan County. It has the Broad's family foundation and acuity show that community partnerships work for public universities as well especially in a climate of reduced support from the state. These people are devoted to their communities and they've shown that devotion by supporting us as well. What might, what other opportunities and needs might there be for both the students and the faculty here? Well another degree I'm working on I don't know if it will be established by fall but I would certainly hope so an early childhood education degree also working with UW Oshkosh. One of the things we'd like to do and Joe Sheehan and I have been talking about this is make sure that our students who want to go on to be teachers can start their education as educators at UW Sheboygan then finish their education degree through Oshkosh and during that time from the first year on have access to laboratory conditions in which they can learn how to be better teachers through working with students in the Sheboygan area school district. Both the superintendent and I and anyone who's going to be a teacher are pretty excited about that. Finally are there any other national or local trends will be impacting UWS in the near future? Well the demographic trend is definitely going to have an impact. There is a new initiative rising in the colleges and extension called the adult student initiative and it's part of our desire and mission to help anyone in the state to get a bachelor's degree no matter where they are. It's part of the boundaries of the University of Wisconsin reach the boundaries of the state and so this adult student initiative is a cooperative effort between extension and the UW colleges to make sure that we can spread those degrees because we've all been reading about the fact that Wisconsin does not reach up very high on the list of how many people in the state have bachelor's degrees. We're very good at getting bachelor's degrees for people and then they go to Minneapolis. So what we have to do is create the kind of climate that will keep our highly educated people in Wisconsin so that we can have a highly educated economy. Thank you. Good transition you talked about the UW system and our viewers may not be real familiar with that. There are four-year campuses, there are two-year campuses. How in a nutshell would you describe to someone who's never heard of the UW system before what it is? Well, the UW system starts as many universities in the United States as a land grant given to the states by the federal government to form agricultural colleges so that farmers could be trained back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Wisconsin, that then spread to become possibly the greatest educational system in the United States. We have 13-4 years from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Milwaukee as doctoral institutions through Stout and River Falls and Green Bay and Oshkosh and the others. The two-year UW colleges are part of the UW system in that we are access institutions. We provide access to people who may not or cannot start their first year in college at one of the four years. But we're so, well, we hope, we're so seamlessly attached that students can go from our college to a four-year and finish their degree as easily as we can possibly make it. The technical colleges shouldn't be forgotten though. They're not part of the UW system but they are part of what's probably a foundation for whatever kind of education you want in Wisconsin from the four-year colleges and the two-year colleges through the technical colleges. Now, within the UW system there's also extension. Extension is a product of the early 20th century need to educate people in rural areas and Wisconsin's has become so much more than that. Not only does it educate people in rural areas, take care of water quality, learning that sort of thing, but there are family living classes for people who need to know more about parenting and nutrition. The UW extension takes care of small businesses who might need advice about getting patents or venture capital. They just do an amazing amount of stuff and so all together the UW system and the technical colleges provide a state supported and I think state in many ways beloved educational institution that we hope everybody continues to support. So 13 four-year campuses and then how many? 13 two years. 13 two years. So it's 13 and 13. All right, folks can remember that. 13 four-year, 13 two-year, a number of technical colleges. I don't have any idea. I think maybe seven. Seven, all right. So between the three areas there's a lot of opportunity for folks depending on their niche and where they live. Although not every county is as fortunate as Sheboygan County to have a two-year campus. Right. And not every county has access to a nearby technical college either. But one of the things that the colleges and the four-year UWs are doing is becoming more cooperative with the technical colleges. So the people who go to the technical colleges can get some of their education from us. They can go on and finish degrees if they wish in the four years. Some of our viewers may be wondering, well, all right, I got to handle on this now. I know who the interim dean is. I know that Sheboygan, UW-Sheboygan has a lot to offer that there's a lot of exciting things going on out here. That there's, you know, these campuses across the state, four-year, two-year technical, but they also might be wondering, is Sheboygan County right now? I know it's going through a pretty grueling budget process and there's state fiscal caps. And we hear at the state level that there was this $3.2 billion deficit and now there may be another deficit. And how does that impact you as dean and UW-Sheboygan as a campus? Well, our budgets go down and we learn how to do more with less. We have a very cooperative faculty and staff. When belts get tightened, they respond and they do really well. Yes, there are a lot of physical problems on every level of government, but one of the things about a university system is that you're investing in the future that will make everything continue to grow. Now, I've been impressed with Sheboygan County since I came back from Menitowoc. It seems like it's just burgeoning in so many ways. And people I talk to say, I feel like we're on the verge of something really exciting, that the future here is really good. And people are saying it on campus, about our campus too. This is the start of something fabulous. And I think together the county and the campus are going to make it happen because we create the future economy that's going to pay the taxes, that's going to make the place grow, that's going to make it an attractive place to live. So the county is investing in the future of the county. The taxpayers are investing in the future, but they should never forget that they're also investing in the present, that the people we're educating, the people who live here now are really important and that it's happening. I think you sum that up beautifully and probably a nice note to end on. And I was remiss in mentioning at the beginning that the county, and a lot of people don't recognize this, the county owns the buildings and the grounds out here. The state takes care of the operations and it's been a long-standing partnership. It's been a very successful partnership and now it's been even strengthened with some of the contributions and support from the private sector. So I agree with you, Mary Beth. I think fantastic things are happening out here. It's because of a lot of people getting involved and supporting the facilities. And I think it's critical to our economy and the well-being, quality of life in Sheboygan County. But we only have a minute or two remaining. Is there anything else you'd like to touch on or share before we close? Well, one thing I'm excited about is a group of extremely talented, inventive and creative women who would like to bring Bookworm Gardens onto our campus as a resource for local children, school children who could come and get acquainted with all kinds of literature. This is a project that will be privately funded and if people are interested in getting children and books together, this is something that they should really support whenever they hear about it. Fantastic. Fantastic. Again, more attention coming to this hidden jewel here that at least it used to be. I think now people are starting to recognize where UW-Sheboygan is. Right, especially since they can now see it when they drive. Bye. Bye on to 43. Well, Mary Beth, a pleasure having you as our guest today and a lot of good information. If folks have questions about UW-Sheboygan or the enrollment, how they might, you know, learn more about a degree that's offered, who should they contact? Well, there are a number of places to go. We have a really well-organized website that can direct you through some of the answers to the questions. The phone numbers are all there. Just go to Sheboygan.uwc.edu on any browser you choose to use and there's plenty of information. If you want to call and have a person figure that out for you, then the number is 459-6633. We'll get you a person to talk to in student services and they can answer any beginning questions you might have. Wonderful. 459-6663. Oops, 6633. 6633. I took a risk and I failed. 459-6633. Yes. Very good. Well, again, Mary Beth Emmercks, Dean, Interim Dean of UW-Sheboygan, doing a wonderful job out here. We've had a nice time getting to know her the last few months and obviously tackling some major initiatives out here, some good things happening and we appreciate your time and overview today. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Bill. Thank you. Thank you for joining us and on behalf of the Sheboygan County Board, Chairman Bill Gehring and myself, Adam Paine, thank you for joining us today and until next time, when we have Anne Wundergem here, our Director of the Health and Human Services Department. Stay well.