Talk:Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses

Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: April 14, 2025. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 27 March 2025 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the closure of five University of Wisconsin branch campuses (one pictured) has called into question the future of the Wisconsin Idea?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2025/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Tarlby talk 17:16, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(

Comment or view
Article history

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University of Wisconsin–Platteville Richland campus, which was closed in 2023

... that five University of Wisconsin branch campuses have closed since UW–Platteville Richland closed on July 1, 2023?

Source: "UW system officials have closed or announced plans to close five other two-year branch campuses around the state since 2023, including UW-Oshkosh’s campus in Fond du Lac. " [1]

ALT1: ... that five University of Wisconsin branch campuses have closed since July 1, 2023? Source: "UW system officials have closed or announced plans to close five other two-year branch campuses around the state since 2023, including UW-Oshkosh’s campus in Fond du Lac. " [2]
Reviewed:

Moved to mainspace by JackFromWisconsin (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 01:54, 6 March 2025 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited:
Interesting: - I'm inclined to say these don't really clear WP:DYKINT, since they aren't what I would personally call intriguing or something that prompts readers to want to know more and read more of the article itself, although I can see a case for 5 University campuses being close in less than 2 years being unusual.

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: The article itself is fine and meets the criteria, my main concern is whether this meets WP:DYKINT, as mentioned above. If we can't come up with anything else, and if someone else agrees I would be, fine, with promoting these, but I think there's likely a bit of room to try something else, I think likely from Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses#Reactions and aftermath. --PixDeVl (T | C | G) 04:11, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your review. I will try to come up with something else for the hook. --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 05:01, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ALT2: ... that the closure of five University of Wisconsin branch campuses has called into question the future of the Wisconsin Idea? "We lose that, the future of the UW System statewide is truly in critical condition and the Wisconsin Idea itself is in jeopardy. That is no exaggeration." [3], “But it’s disappointing nonetheless,” Schoemann said. “The old Wisconsin Idea of the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state, it’s on life support, at best with this governor’s administration.” [4] --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 05:14, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me, although it may draw more traffic to the non-bold linked article ironically. With ALT2 and per Tenpop and WikiOriginal's support of ALT1, I'd say this is fine to send down to prep. --PixDeVl (T | C | G) 15:14, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, I think ALT1 is interesting. I clicked on the article to see why they closed. Five in a few years is quite a lot. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- I concur! Tenpop421 (talk) 14:28, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

Passed. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 05:51, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:Closures of the University of Wisconsin branch campuses/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: JackFromWisconsin (talk · contribs) 16:49, 9 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk · contribs) 05:32, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! I will be reviewing this :) I have had a quick skim and it looks really interesting - well done! I will be reviewing this properly later today/tomorrow so I will post my comments here after reading. There is one issue that I see though - there are several refs in the lead - can these be moved down to the main article? I am looking forward to reading this properly and helping you get it to GA! :) DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 05:32, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done Moved the citations from the lead. Most of them were duplicated already so not a problem. Thanks for the review. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 17:38, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, apologies for the lateness! I have just reviewed it. Honestly, well done on this article - it is very well researched and very informative and I found it extremely interesting. I do have some comments below:

Lead:

1.) "The UW System, in an internal briefing on September 19, 2023, recommended that its universities "reduce the physical footprints of the remaining eight campuses and negotiate contractual exits where appropriate." " - Can you please paraphrase this?

2.) I think that the lead can be expanded upon a bit, it would strengthen the article.

Done Paraphrased and expanded the lead a bit. -Jack

Background:

1.) "mainly in rural areas far from a larger University of Wisconsin school" - What does this mean? Can you please clarify?

2.) Can you please briefly explain what the Wisconsin Idea is?

3.) "assigning the rest to nearby UW campuses as branch campuses" - Can you please clarify?

4.) "using its saved dollars to support the rest of the smaller UW centers" - I think changing it to "using its saved money" would be better wording.

5.) "Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman has asked for $855 million in the 2025–26 state budget." - Can this be reworded to say when he asked this?

6.) "He states that if the UWs get the money asked for, there will be no tuition increases for the next two years and no further branch campuses would be closed" - Can this be reworded? E.g. "He believed that no further branches would be closed if the UWs got the money they asked for" or something like that?

7.) I reordered the "Tuition freeze and funding cuts" section slightly - if you could please make sure that it still makes sense that would be great :)

8.) "campuses with seven of the four-year campuses of the University of Wisconsin System." - What are four-year campuses?

9.) "At times it has been suggested by UW System leaders" - Can you please be more specific and change it to past tense?

Done Reworded/expanded/checked all 9 points. -Jack

Closures:

1.) "Initially the plan was to transition the Richland campus to be fully online" - Clarify (e.g. "Initially, there was a plan to make its classes be taught fully online" or something).

2.) "Many point to the decision" - Who are "many"?

3.) "move of international students to UW–Platteville" - What does this mean?

4.) "Additionally, UW–Platteville charged both Richland and its Baraboo campus a fee for administrative services, a model not used by most other UW campuses." - This seems a bit out of place - What is the purpose of this? Are there sources saying that this contributed to the closure?

Yes there is a source for it, I moved it to the end of the sentence and added that it was an "assumed reason". I can remove it if it still doesn't fit.

5.) "The campus officially ceased instruction" - Can you clarify what this means?

6.) "The Fond du Lac campus is being reused for a variety of county-uses" - Can you make this more time specific e.g. "The campus has since been reused..." or "As of xyz" etc.

7.) "It would lay off its 32 tenured faculty, made possible by a Scott Walker policy in 2016 that removed guarantees to tenured faculty" - Can you please clarify this? And perhaps change it to a policy made by Scott Walker.

Done rewrote/clarified -Jack

Changes to existing campuses:

1.) "UW–Green Bay explains" - Please change to past tense.

2.) "There has been some effort to hand over some unused buildings to the city for its services, but no decision has been made" - Can you please explain/expand?

3.) "In early 2024, the county has agreed to cover all maintenance costs going forward" - Can this be clarified time wise e.g. "In early 2024, the county agreed"?

Done -Jack

Reactions and aftermath:

1.) "Closure, a 2024 documentary by Wisconsin filmmaker Ken Brosky, examines the closing of the former UW colleges" - Can this be expanded upon a bit?

2.) "In a bill passed in 2024, local communities are eligible to receive $2 million for redevelopment of a closed UW campus. This program is managed by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, and per the law Richland is entitled to receive money first before other grants can be awarded" - Please correct the tense

3.) "Critics argue" and "Others have expressed" - Can you please be more specific e.g. "X from Y argued..."

4.) I think this section could do with a bit of expansion, especially from other points of views/reactions etc.

~~Partly done~~ Still need to work on #4 -Jack (now should be finished)

Other: 1.) Some websites (e.g. USA Today) are not linked - can you please link them?

2.) I have merged some of the paragraphs together as they were very short but I think a few more could be

3.) I have mentioned this before but there are many phrases which are time sensitive (e.g. talking about things in the present) that can become outdated, so please try to use past tense (e.g. "in XYZ it was announced that" etc)

4.) Some phrases sound a bit promotional, so please do be wary of that.

Once these have all been addressed, I will do a further check and source check and hopefully pass it. I know it is a lot - I am not trying to nit-pick, I am just trying to help make the article the best it can be and help you get it to GA quality! Please do take your time and if it takes longer than 7 days, that is okay - I am patient. Please do not hesitate to ask me if you need any help or have any questions at all. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 03:10, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All done with my edits, I'm ready for the further check when you have time. --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 17:44, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, well done for the changes! You have done really well and I am satisfied with them :) I am going to do a source check now. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 02:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was doing a source check and I noticed that Source #3 does not support the statement at the end of the sentence - can this be fixed? Also, several websites etc of the sources (e.g. The Badger Herald and Inside Higher Ed) are not linked - can you please link them? DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 02:31, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DaniloDaysOfOurLives Yes, I found another source that supports the statement better. I also wikilinked the sources I missed. JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 03:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecked Sources #5, #15, #33, #50 and #86. I did change a sentence relating to Source #15 as I did not think that it directly correlated to the sentence, but I did not spot any major issues. I am hence going to pass this. Well done! :) If you need any other GAs reviewed let me know as I found this one very interesting. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 05:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.