The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has approved UWM’s plan to merge eight schools and colleges at the university into four new colleges.

Regents considered the plan at their board meeting Friday. The proposal called for the process of realigning current schools and colleges to begin immediately, with new colleges in place by July 1, 2023.

The new colleges to be formed out of the mergers:

College of the Arts and Architecture

• To be comprised of the School of Architecture and the Peck School of the Arts.
• Schools would maintain their own identities within the college.
• The Department of Urban Planning, currently housed in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, would move to the new College of Community Engagement and Professions. (May 13 update: This plan has changed – the departments of Architecture and Urban Planning are going to remain together as the School of Architecture and Urban Planning in the new College of Architecture and the Arts.)

College of Community Engagement and Professions

• To be comprised of the School of Education, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare and School of Information Studies. (July 21 update: Plans initially called for the merged college to be known as the College of Applied Social Sciences. The Faculty Senate approved the new name in May.)
• The three schools would retain current names and structures, with Education and Social Welfare still structured by department, and Information Studies remaining non-departmentalized.

Programs from UWM’s three current health-related colleges or schools will be realigned into two colleges.

Joseph J. Zilber College of Public Health

• To be comprised of the Zilber School of Public Health and the following College of Health Sciences departments or programs:
  • Kinesiology department and Nutrition program
  • Health Informatics faculty and associate programs
• Programs in the new college focus on population health.
• The new college will not be organized into schools because such a structure is not recognized in the accreditation requirements by the Council on Education for Public Health.

College of Health Professions and Sciences

• To be comprised of the School of Nursing, School of Biomedical Sciences and School of Rehabilitation Sciences and Technology. The latter two schools would be formed out of departments currently in the College of Health Sciences.
• Programs in the new college would focus on health care.

The realignment plan resulted from the work of a team of faculty, staff and administrators that followed up on recommendations in the 2030 report released in March 2021

According to the proposal, realignment is not intended as a means to reduce staffing. It would, however, reduce administrative layers and produce a still-to-be-determined amount of cost savings and efficiencies, and allow for better coordination of student services like advising.

The plan calls for course offerings and programs to remain the same in the new structure, while there would be no impact on student matriculation, progress or graduation.

Also, regents approved UWM’s request to create a new Bachelor of Science program in data analytics, and a new Master of Science degree program in data science.