MILWAUKEE — Universities of Wisconsin regents voted to lay off 32 tenured University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors on Thursday. 

UW-Milwaukee will close its Waukesha campus after the spring 2025 semester. Its Washington County campus closed at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

The UW Board of Regents voted to discontinue UW-Milwaukee’s College of General Studies, and its three academic departments, including: Arts & Humanities, Math & Natural Sciences and Social Sciences & Business. The College of General Studies was housed on the Washington and Waukesha campuses. It will close at the end of this academic year.

The 32 faculty being laid off taught at UW-Milwaukee’s Washington and Waukesha campuses in the College of General Studies.

UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone said he recommended the college be discontinued to Universities of Wisconisn President Jay Rothman and the board, citing “significant and sustained enrollment declines that substantially affected the programs’ cost-effectiveness.”

Mone said UW-Milwaukee professors being laid off will be notified starting Monday.

“I value the dedication and hard work of our CGS faculty and staff, and it is with a heavy heart that we undertake this next step. This decision in no way reflects the significant contributions you have made to your students and the academic community,” Mone said.

The lay offs were made possible via a policy adopted by the board in 2016, after then-Gov. Scott Walker “deleted tenure-related guarantees from state law and allowed tenured faculty to be laid off due to changes in university programming.”

In a joint statement by Milwaukee Aldermen Peter Burgelis, Jonathan Brostoff, DiAndre Jackson and Mark Chambers, Jr., officials called the layoffs “unprecedented,” and said it was the largest layoff of public university professors in recent history.

Their statement, in part, read:

“We could argue that this policy should not be in effect to begin with, and would certainly argue that these layoffs are to the detriment of UW-Milwaukee students and faculty both here in Milwaukee and across the region. Letting go respected, well-qualified professors only lessens the offerings available to students, and in this instance, takes away additional opportunities for students to earn two-year associate degrees and explore other specialized programs.

“We are disappointed with this decision and failure to protect these staff and the UW-Milwaukee students, and also call on the State to re-examine the funding provided to our public universities.”