Testimony by Chancellor Ray Cross before the Wisconsin Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Higher Education, November 15, 2011.

Good afternoon, Senator Schultz and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is Ray Cross and I’m the chancellor of the 13 two-year University of Wisconsin Colleges and UW-Extension.

The University of Wisconsin Colleges makes the first two years of a UW education affordable and accessible to thousands of students of all ages. Without UW Colleges, they might not be able to get a college education.

For those students and their families, UW Colleges is the embodiment of the Wisconsin Idea.

UW Colleges has a total of 14,600 students. That represents a 15% growth over the past 5 years.

We have the lowest tuition in the UW System - $4,503 – and that is comparable to WTCS liberal arts tuition.

• UW Colleges has more incoming freshmen than any single institution except UW-Madison.

• 61% of our freshmen are first generation students – the most of any UW institution.

• 46% of UW Colleges students are from the lowest two income quartiles.

• 685 of UW Colleges students are veterans. That’s second only to UW-Milwaukee.

• 69% of those who transfer from UW Colleges earn bachelor’s degrees. That’s a better success rate than WTCS or private colleges.

• UW Colleges meets the unique needs of adult and nontraditional students, which account for 1/3 of our students. We do this through our Adult Student Initiative. We have designed courses to meet adult learners’ needs for flexibility so that they can earn bachelor’s degrees.

UW Colleges and UW-Extension also live out the Wisconsin Idea by extending UW resources to help industries and small businesses throughout the state.

Innovation has always been the hallmark of the Wisconsin Idea. Innovation is needed to grow and regenerate our Wisconsin economy. Because of our statewide access, industry often approaches us to help resolve priority issues. Here are 3 examples of how the UW Colleges and UW-Extension responded to industry needs.

Employers expressed their need for engineers, so we developed an engineering degree program. Kimberly Clark, Oshkosh Truck and Mills Electric approached UW System expressing a strong need for a local engineering degree program for their employees.

The solution? Starting in 2005, we partnered with UW-Platteville to offer the engineering degree program at UW-Fox Valley in Menasha, UW-Rock in Janesville and online with campus support at UW-Washington in West Bend and UW-Sheboygan. Here’s a measure of the program success: Of 49 UW-Fox graduates, 46 found immediate employment with Wisconsin companies.

Industry asked for graduates skilled in sustainable management, so our Continuing Education division developed a Sustainable Management Degree. We consulted with Johnson Controls, Kohl’s, Ford, SC Johnson, Eastman Kodak, Quad Graphics, Fed Ex, Veolia Environmental Services and Modine Manufacturing. We created an online bachelor’s degree program in 2009 in cooperation with UW-Superior, UW-Stout, UW-Parkside and UW-River Falls. Enrollment quadrupled from the fall of 2009 to the fall of 2011.

Marinette Marine – the lead contractor for the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship – needed designers. UW-Marinette responded. UW-Marinette worked with the North Coast Alliance of industry representatives and technical colleges. UW-Marinette now delivers 6 marine design courses uniquely tailored to industry needs. Marinette Marine has 700 hourly workers and expects to double in two years.

On the UW-Extension side, our Cooperative Extension division supports Wisconsin’s agricultural industry, which affects every county in the state. Agriculture is a vibrant part of our state’s economy, contributing $59.16 billion annually and providing more than 350,000 jobs statewide -- nearly 10% of total employment.

Both rural and urban communities benefit from Wisconsin’s ag and processing industries. In rural counties like Lafayette and Clark, ag and related processing businesses account for nearly half of the employment. Ag-related industries provide 14,228 jobs in Milwaukee County and 16,766 in Dane County.

Ag-related jobs are not only from farm employment, but include crop and livestock consultants; feed, fuel and crop input suppliers; veterinarians; machinery and equipment manufacturers and dealers; builders and agricultural lenders. They also include employees in Wisconsin’s complex food processing businesses such as cheese-making, meat processing, and production of a wide range of products from the state’s cranberry industry. Every job in agriculture supports an additional .89 jobs elsewhere in Wisconsin.

With the current lapse allocation, what part of our work in agriculture do we cut?

UW-Extension’s Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development helps entrepreneurs start businesses and helps small business owners grow their companies. These services are provided through two main programs.

One is the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network (WEN), which provides access to a statewide network of resources and helps high-potential entrepreneurs advance their businesses.

In addition, WEN presents the Wisconsin Companies to Watch awards program to support second-stage companies. The network also brought the 2011 National Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Conference to Wisconsin. This provided Wisconsin entrepreneurs and innovators access to federal grant managers.

Our second main business program is the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center Network. The network includes 12 service centers and three specialty centers located at four-year UW campuses. The centers serve more than 1,800 counseling clients annually and train more than 9,000 existing and aspiring entrepreneurs through a wide variety of educational classes and programs.

Specialty centers include:

• The Wisconsin Business AnswerLine, based at UW-Madison, which answers more than 2,200 calls annually from nascent and existing business across the state.

• The Wisconsin Innovation Service Center, based at UW-Whitewater, which specializes in new product and invention assessments, feasibility studies and market expansion opportunities for manufacturers, technology businesses and inventors.

• The Center for Innovation and Development, based at UW-Stout, which assists businesses with prototype and product development in their facilities and business incubators and accesses Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer federal grants.

Our UW Colleges and UW-Extension innovative work helps grow the Wisconsin economy. That progress is seriously threatened by the proposed lapse. Please recognize our pivotal role in regenerating Wisconsin’s economy and consider a fair alternative to the current lapse allocation.

Thank you for your attention. I would be happy to answer any questions.