Elsewhere

Academic libaries pursue new directions
Ken Frazier, director of the General Library System, recently updated the UW System Board of Regents on library system changes.

Frazier says UW System libraries in recent years have moved their collaboration to a new level of success and expertise, creating in essence one library for the entire UW System.

“The UW Libraries provide access to a truly great university library collection and to a global network of electronic information resources,” Frazier says.

Faced with limited budget growth, the libraries have used self-assessment to improve services, leveraged their buying power through cooperation, aggressively cut high-cost journals, implemented high-speed delivery of journal articles and supported new models of publishing.

Several board members and UW System President Katharine Lyall praises Frazier and his fellow librarians for excellent work despite the lack of state resources in the past decade. The UW Libraries only in the last few years have received additional state budget support, and only half of what the Board of Regents requested from the state, Lyall says.

“You have done an excellent job and delivered in a major way with the half that you have received, and it is my hope that we can provide the other half for you in the near future,” Lyall says.

Minority numbers rise
The 2001-02 annual report on minority and disadvantaged students reflects strong progress in some areas and leaves questions in others, says Cora Marrett, UW System senior vice president for academic affairs.

On the positive side, more than 10,000 students participated in precollege programs throughout the UW System, and of those, at least 88 percent were students of color, Marrett says.

Last fall, 2,647 new targeted students of color (African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian and Southeast Asian) enrolled in the UW System, up 7.7 percent from the previous fall, she says.

Retention rates for targeted students of color continued to be “more mixed,” Marrett says. While second-year retention rates for targeted Hispanic, Indian and Southeast Asian students have increased from 1990-2000, rates decreased slightly for African American students.

In the 2000-01 academic year, nearly $26 million was spent systemwide on programs for students of color and disadvantaged students. Campuses raised about half the amount from private sources, she says. The fundraising goes for scholarships, workshops and other efforts.

Milwaukee: Training better schoolteachers
UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Nancy Zimpher says a new campus-community partnership will improve the education of children in Milwaukee through better teacher preparation.

The Milwaukee Partnership Academy is an Urban P-16 Council for Quality Teaching and Learning. “This is a broad initiative,” Zimpher says. “We want to assure that every child in Milwaukee Public Schools is performing at or above grade level in reading, writing and mathematics.”

Zimpher says the academy’s “five breakthrough strategies” are creating a balanced literacy framework, developing school learning teams, fostering professional development, monitoring and reporting student progress, and encouraging tutoring and family literacy.

Partnership collaborators include the university, Milwaukee Public Schools, the teachers’ union and various community and business groups.