Enrollment woes, free speech and guns: UW delivers its ‘state of the university’

University of Wyoming leadership focused on the positive during Tuesday’s state of the university address , but also acknowledged ongoing challenges — like a continued decline in enrollment and whether to allow concealed carry of firearms on campus.

Enrollment

Overall enrollment is down 0.8%, according to Provost Kevin Carman, with new student enrollment down 2%. While those statistics aren’t final, they suggest that this is the sixth consecutive year of declining enrollment at Wyoming’s only public university.

In 2018, the school tallied 13,047 students. This year, there are a little over 11,000, the lowest it’s been in decades.

Getting into the details, Carman noted that there are areas of growth, including a 0.7% increase among graduate students over last year, international student enrollment reaching pre-pandemic levels and a growing online enrollment.

“Although the actual numbers are modest … our online undergraduate enrollment is actually up about 10% year-over-year, due partially to nine new fully online undergraduate degree programs that we’ve launched,” he said.

Efforts to keep students at UW are also going strong, he said, with an increase in student retention.

President Ed Seidel noted that UW’s enrollment woes are not unique.

“One of the backdrops that the provost mentioned is we have enrollment challenges, as does every university in this country right now,” he said.

He highlighted particular challenges facing Western states, including a projected 11% decline in college-bound high school graduates by 2029. Community colleges, too, are seeing significant declines in enrollment nationwide, which feed into universities including UW.

“That means we’re gonna have to fight harder and harder for students, and we’re gonna have to fight harder and harder to make sure they’re successful when they’re here,” he said.

Montana State University — the largest university system between Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, it claims — has seen enrollment rebound to pre-pandemic numbers, even reaching record heights.

Still, Seidel noted other national trends, including a broad questioning of whether higher education is worth the cost. While UW’s costs are low compared to many other institutions, he said a lack of faith in institutions of higher education in general also affects Wyoming.

Ultimately, Seidel said he’s set a “modest goal” of having 12,000 students by 2029.

Free speech and DEI

Seidel made an effort to mention freedom of expression on the UW campus several times during his speech, which was followed by a video addressing the topic.

“That is something that these days is really attractive for many students, and so I think we can differentiate ourselves in that way,” Seidel said.

In the video, Seidel said that professors are “not really” allowed to “push their causes” in the classroom.

“A college class might examine a controversial or political issue,” he said. “No subject is off limits. But here, you can expect to be engaging in academic inquiry and analysis, not activism.”

UW settled a lawsuit last October with a Laramie church leader who’d protested against a transgender student. The man had sued the school on free speech grounds after being temporarily barred from tabling in the student union.

Seidel also brought up the Legislature’s decision to cut $1.7 million from UW’s biennial block grant early this year — the amount UW spent on its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Lawmakers also banned UW from using state funds on that office and DEI resources.

In response, the UW Board of Trustees adopted a definition for DEI — something lawmakers hadn’t done — to try and root out what legislators were trying to prevent: favoring certain groups over others.

In the aftermath, the university closed its DEI office while maintaining most of the programming elsewhere. That included compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title XI of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Americans with Disabilities Act — thus maintaining the University’s eligibility for federal grants.

Earlier this year, it also replaced the decades-old Office of Multicultural Affairs and its Poke Pride Center with the Pokes Center for Community Resources and a clothing and resource closet in an effort to avoid activities that may be considered DEI.

When asked whether other programs had been shuttered so far this year because they could be perceived as aligning with DEI, Seidel told WyoFile he wasn’t aware of any. However, Seidel added, several departments are reviewing their programming to make sure it doesn’t violate the new DEI requirements.

Guns

Firearms came up a few times during Tuesday’s address. The first time was during Staff Senate President Adam Comeau’s turn behind the lectern. He noted that there was a survey sent out to the UW community asking whether the university should change its regulations to allow concealed carry in campus buildings.

“In response, members of [the] staff senate drafted a resolution to encourage administration to maintain its current regulations as they are now,” he said.

While the resolution is drafted, it hasn’t passed yet, he said. Staff senators can still take feedback.

UW had issued the now-closed survey Aug. 23 for people to provide feedback about concealed carry on campus .

“If we thought we had a lot of input on diversity, equity, inclusion, we’ve broken the record, I think, for firearms on campus,” Seidel said. “We had about 3,000 responses. It’s incredible.”

The previously rejected idea was revived by Gov. Mark Gordon, Seidel said.

“With the authority already in place to address this issue at a local level, I call on school districts, community colleges, and the University to take up these difficult conversations again and establish policies that allow for the safe carry of concealed weapons within their facilities,” Gordon wrote in a March letter explaining his veto of a bill passed by the Legislature that would have banned most gun-free zones in the state.

Seidel said UW is now doing that, and public testimony will be allowed at next week’s board of trustees meeting.

“I urge you to comment,” he said. “If you want to say something, please do. We’ll take it all in before we take any actions.”

Shuttles, services and research success

Beyond the big, attention-grabbing topics, most of the state of the university address focused on the minutiae of student, staff and university governance.

That included ways the UW community is working to help students, staff and businesses.

Some notable items included student government president Kameron Murfitt saying that an ASUW-funded shuttle to and from the Denver International Airport at the start of the year was a success.

“This service was greatly appreciated by all the students who partook, and I’m excited to announce that we will be continuing the service in December to take them back to the DIA for winter break, as well as to pick them up in January,” he said.

Speakers also addressed continued efforts to bolster student and staff mental health.

Provost Carman also said the university would soon be considered among the top 156 research universities in the nation as an “R1” institution.

“UW has well over 90 PhD students per year, and about $130 million in research expenditures,” he said. “We will be an R1 university in 2025.”

And there were plenty of mentions of a major staff reorganization,  implementation of which has been delayed — for now.

To watch the entire state of the university address, go here .

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