With only one dissent, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents approved a plan Thursday from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that will include the layoff of 35 tenured faculty members.

It would be the first mass layoff of tenured faculty anywhere in the Universities of Wisconsin system since state law weakened the system’s tenure protections nearly a decade ago.

The plan calls for dissolving the College of General Studies, associated with a pair of suburban two-year branch campuses, and its three academic departments. The UWM administration says that is a “program discontinuance,” allowing for the layoff of tenured faculty under a Board of Regents policy.

UWM’s College of General Studies was established as the vehicle for awarding two-year degrees from the two campuses, in Waukesha and Washington counties, when they were joined with UWM six years ago.

Falling “market demand” combined with shifting demographics have forced the closure of the two campuses, UWM Provost Andrew Daire told the regents’ education committee Thursday morning.

Nationally, the number of college-age students fell 39% from 2010 to 2021, Daire said, and while 12.9% of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in two-year colleges in 2010, that fell to 8.5% in 2022.

“Unfortunately, the numbers in Wisconsin are a bit more dire,” Daire said. Enrollment in UW’s 13 two-year campuses was just under 10,000 students in 2010 and fell 64%, to 3,556, by 2023.

The 13 campuses were merged into four-year UW schools in 2018. The campuses in Waukesha and Washington counties became part of UWM during that process.

Those two campuses have “seen significant decreases” with “almost a 58% enrollment decline since 2018,” Daire said. “We also cannot be optimistic in terms of future changes in enrollment.”

The cost per student in a two-year degree program “is more expensive than the cost on the main campus for bachelor’s, master’s and PhD students,” Daire said. “So the market demand and cost effectiveness is really what has gotten us to this unfortunate place of the program discontinuance and this proposal for faculty.”

Regent Policy 20-24, adopted in 2016, allows for faculty layoffs “for reasons of program discontinuance.” Under that policy, “faculty layoff will be invoked only in extraordinary circumstances and after all feasible alternatives have been considered.”

The board adopted the policy after the Legislature and then-Gov. Scott Walker enacted changes that deleted tenure-related guarantees from state law and allowed tenured faculty to be laid off due to changes in university programming.

State Superintendent Jill Underly cast the only dissenting vote, both in the education committee Thursday morning, which recommended approving the UWM plan, and in the full Board of Regents meeting Thursday afternoon, which concurred.

“I’m just deeply troubled that tenured faculty members are being laid off due to program eliminations,” Underly said before casting her vote. “With a [UW system] budget that exceeds $6 billion I believe we could have found a way to preserve these positions, especially when their combined payroll represents such a small fraction of our financial resources.”

Underly said cutting tenured faculty would hurt the UW system’s reputation as well as the faculty members and their families.

She acknowledged that the two-year campuses’ financial straits needed to be addressed, but argued that “it’s even more important that the system has a real plan for our two-year colleges, and we currently don’t have one.”

Underly said she would oppose eliminating programs, colleges and tenured faculty without “a responsible plan for these colleges.”

Regent Kyle Weatherly, who voted to accept the plan, called it the best option and pointed the blame at the state for not keeping up with its past record of funding for the UW system.

“What we lack, in my opinion, is the political will to invest in those students and those businesses and ultimately, our state’s future,” Weatherly said.

He recalled that two decades ago, when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin taxpayers covered 37% of the cost of an education. “It is now half that,” he added.

“I feel that some of those my age and older, those in power, are at best unbothered and at worst, eager to pull up that ladder that my parents’ generation provided me,” Weatherly said.

Regent Tim Nixon said the system had fallen short in letting the two-year campuses — created decades ago — operate without considering how the world had changed since they were established.

But Nixon rejected the idea that the UWM plan was “an attack on tenure.”

“Tenure is a protection for teaching and research interests,” so professors in fields of study that might be controversial aren’t vulnerable to being fired, he said. It’s not a permanent job guarantee, however, he argued.

Nixon said the current situation for the two-year campuses reflected “a failure for years to deal … with systemic issues” and would hurt “loyal dedicated employees who did no wrong.”

He added that he would vote for the plan nevertheless. “I’ve got to see what’s best for the system,” Nixon said. “Going forward, this is where we are today. It’s not where I think any of us wish we were, but it’s where we are, and that’s what I have to look at.”