Student housing remains a problem

BY BRADLEY WOOTEN

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee needs to improve its quality, not the quantity of students enrolled, officials said.

“I’m interested in increasing the quality of the university not necessarily the quantity,” said Third District Alderman Michael D’Amato. “They cannot grow this university in this neighborhood any longer.”

D’Amato said home ownership has seen a considerable drop in his district and that the city spends an "inordinate amount of time" cleaning up after bad landlords and problem students.

“If UWM wants to grow its numbers, they’re going to have to begin planning a secondary campus somewhere in the city,” he said.

He cited UW-Waukesha serving as a satellite campus, downtown Milwaukee, Park East and the Central Side as options.

The lack of power in decision making is one factor D'Amato points to as a cause of the housing crunch.

“The UW System is perhaps the most difficult bureaucracy to work with,” he said. “It’s hard to get to a decision maker. Even the chancellor doesn't have the authority to make decisions for his own institution."

D'Amato said it is not a knock on Chancellor Carlos Santiago, but referred to the fact that funding, building and major planning decisions are made in Madison, not locally.

"The off-campus behavior policy is the perfect example. Even though the Chancellor, police, city and neighbors agree that it should be extended to some off-campus behavior, we have waited at least five years to have it work its way through lawyers and UW bureaucracy," he said.

Santiago said that in the early 1980s enrollment at UWM topped 30,000 students.

"A lot of people forget that," Santiago said.

Today, it is about 28,000 students.

UWM was able to accommodate the additional 2,000 students as it was largely a commuter school.

Now that enrollment is growing and the university has the goal of becoming a premier urban research institution, UWM can’t afford to wait for opportunities and must create its own, Santiago said.

The chancellor said he sees prolific student housing as the galvanizing force behind centralizing the university and raising its overall profile.

The chancellor's efforts are seen in UWM’s Kenilworth Apartments, which adds housing for 370 upperclassmen and graduate students.

D'Amato approves of the Kenilworth initiative.

"The city took the bonding authority to make it happen," D'Amato said.

UWM broke ground on North and Humboldt avenues July 27. The site will add housing for an additional 470 freshmen students. Upon completion, UWM will have 3,540 beds available on and near the campus.

Creative initiatives like Kenilworth and the North and Humboldt avenues housing students are something the university needs to do more often, D'Amato said.

“Very few people understand there are 28,000 students at this university and 5,000 faculty and staff in a very quiet, single-family neighborhood. The negative effects of the university are beginning to be felt.”