Interview with Timothy Opgenorth

LEH: All right. Okay. Today is, let's see, July 2, 2020. I'm here with Tim Opgenorth? Is that how it's pronounced?

TO:Perfect.

LEH:Okay. For the UW System restructuring project. It's part of the UW Campus Voices project. All right, Tim, could you say your name and then spell out your last name?

TO: Name is Tim, T-i-m. Last name is Opgenorth, O-p-g-e-n-o-r-t-h.

LEH: All right. Looks like the audio is good. So why don't we start with your background? So what is your background in higher education, and what brought you to the UW System?

TO:I started working in admissions/financial aid at Carroll University in 1990. Worked there for about eleven years. And left in 2001. At that time of leaving, I was the director of financial aid at Carroll University. Then I worked at American University for about a year and a half in Washington, DC as associate director. Then I worked for about five years at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania as a director of financial aid. Then I worked for the University of Illinois, Chicago, for about eight and a half years as the director of financial aid. And then my wife was transferred once again. So my wife was transferred from Milwaukee to DC, and then back to Chicago and then back to Milwaukee. Hence my job moving around. Wife was transferred back to Milwaukee. So have been at UW Milwaukee now for about five years as the director of financial aid. So I've been involved in higher ed for about thirty years, mostly in financial aid.

LEH:All right. And so, could you sort of speak more about what you do in your capacity as financial aid director?

TO:No day's ever the same. I think most everything that happens in a financial aid office is regulated in some way by the federal or state government. So you're very dependent upon reviewing regulations, making sure the office has the appropriate policy procedures in place. Tweaking things accordingly when we get new guidance. And for example, with this Covid-19, guidance has been changing almost daily. So it's been a very busy spring and summer, and it will 00:03:00continue to be in the fall. But reviewing regulations, dealing with auditors. Basically just try to help out the staff. We're doing paperwork, etcetera. So just kind of jump around from day to day. But more or less responsible for making sure that we are basically being good, good stewards of the taxpayer's money. Because the majority of the money that we deal with is federal and state funds. So last year we probably had about 250 million dollars of funds go through our office. So just making sure that we have procedures in place and we're good stewards of the taxpayer's dollars.

LEH:All right. So sort of pivoting into restructuring. How long did you hold your position before restructuring started? And how have your duties changed at all due to restructuring?

TO:Well, the restructuring, I think back, I think it started to really pick up in January of 2018, I believe, was when we started to form committees. So I was asked to lead the financial aid subcommittee for UW System. Which consisted of basically the financial aid director of all the seven impacted campuses, as well as the two additional people that helped out as resources. But was asked to lead that group. We started meeting in January of '18. We met generally on a monthly basis. Being the lead of that restructuring committee also meant I needed to go to other meetings. So pretty much the, basically January of '18 through probably August of '18, I was probably in Madison for some committee meeting with restructuring probably two days a week. Likewise would have other meetings during the day. So I would say during that six to seven months, restructuring probably became about half my job. Whether it was dealing with the committee side of it or dealing with what was happening on the campus and going from there.

I would say after that seven months, it's kind of died down a little bit. But the Department of Education actually did not approve everything until, the last school approved was Oshkosh in September of '19. So basically I still was very much involved with making sure all those schools had their approvals and stuff like that.

So even today, little things come up occasionally, like the 00:06:00department with allocations and questions here and there. But at this point, there's really not much restructuring type work that I do anymore. But it was very time-consuming between January of '18 and I'd say August of '18.

LEH:Mm hmm. So could you expand on the work done on that subcommittee? Sort of how that work coincides with other areas of the project?

TO:Well, because pretty much everything like I said financial aid does is regulated in some way. So when there were discussions about kind of the timeframe, when students would actually become the receiving campus' students, we had to make sure that it was okay with the Department of Education. So there were a lot of things with calendars, when the actual process occurred, getting approvals, who would process financial aid, how accounts would be transferred. So we very much, we probably intertwined more with the register's working group, Dave and his group. So a lot of what we did was very connected with the register's. Also some of the finance stuff. But financial aid pretty much impacts most parts of the campus. So there were meetings I was at just to be there just in case there was something that I needed to be aware of. But a lot of times I would maybe go to meetings for other groups, but it was more or less as just making sure that what they're doing is not going to impact financial aid in any way. So a lot of times it was just basically just to be there. Offer guidance and assistance and say, "Well, this is the regulations. This is what we have to do. This is what the department said we have to do." And in the end, the department was kind of the one driving some of the timeframes.

LEH:The Department of Education?

TO:Correct.

LEH:Yeah. So could you expand on that, sort of the process of communicating with the Department of Education and what sort of that funding looks like?

TO:Well, you know, I think for the entire UW System, this just isn't the seven impacted schools. But I think the entire UW System, I think at one point when I looked at it processed over a billion dollars of federal and state financial aid. So there's a lot of money at stake for our students. And I think 00:09:00roughly 66% of the students in the entire system receive some type of financial aid. So it's a very impactful, and allows students to attend campuses. So a lot of that money comes from the federal government. Therefore, they have a say in things you can do. So for example, originally at one point through the restructuring, people were feeling that, as an example, that Milwaukee would have to start processing financial aid as of July 1 of '18. Which was impossible because Milwaukee, for example, was not approved by the Department of Education until, to offer associate level financial aid. Likewise we did not have the approvals from the department to offer financial aid at Waukesha or Washington Counties.

And how the process works with the department is that first you have to have the accreditor approval. So accreditor approval did not happen until, I think, June thirtieth or July first. So it would be virtually impossible for the campus to start processing on July first. Because even after HLC approves it, then you have to submit your application. The Department of Education reviews it. And that takes up to six to eight months.

So there was basically an understanding between the UW System and Department of Education that yes, HLC approved it on July one of '18. But the actual receiving campuses would not be able to process financial aid till July one of '19. Therefore, UW Colleges would have to continue processing financial aid for one year, even though technically they weren't their students anymore.

So that's an example where the department kind of drilled the timeline, said this is what you can do and how you have to do it. And the seven campuses had to kind of work through that.

LEH:Yeah. I guess I'm wondering, so what does that sort of look like from a student perspective? Yeah.

TO:Well, and actually in reality, the students didn't notice anything. The only thing that really changed was that now when they went, for example, UW Waukesha, the name was changed to UW Milwaukee. But the back end processing of financial aid for that between July one of '18 and June thirtieth of '19 looked the same. Even though the building had UW Milwaukee's name on it, they still submitted their financial aid paperwork as if they were going to UW Waukesha. UW Colleges in Madison continued to process the financial aid. They still applied 00:12:00to UW Colleges because, they had to apply to UW Colleges because that was the place of record, because that's where the financial aid was through. So in essence, that first year, things looked no different on the back end as far as processing for the student. It was exactly the same. The only difference was the name on the building might have been different. And maybe they were now being referred to as UW Milwaukee students. But the processing was still being done by UW Colleges for that first year.

Now as of July one of '19, then all the recording of the financial aid paper and stuff like that did go through the receiving institutions. So, in essence we've only been processing it for a year, even though the merger happened two years ago.

LEH:Hmm. Yeah, so, could you expand on that a little? Has that process been different? I don't know. Yeah.

TO:Well, I think the complicating part initially was, this really gets into financial aid weeds here. But on the FAFSA form, which is the application students fill out for financial aid, they have to list the school they want the application sent to. It was very confusing to students that they were still technically going to the same building, but they had to now put a different school to receive the application. So, for example, if they put UW Colleges on the FAFSA, we at Milwaukee could not access that. We didn't have the correct, we weren't given the permission to access that. So what we didn't notice for that first year, which was the '19-'20 year, so we started processing July 1 of '19, the application for the FAFSA became available October 1 of '18. So students could actually fill out the application roughly eight, nine months before we could start processing. And what we saw a lot of students doing was still putting down UW Colleges code. Which is where they were going. But (unclear) had to be Milwaukee. So we did see a lot of confusion during the changeover. So we did have a lot of confusion with students about you know, you put the wrong school on. Please update your form and put Oshkosh on or put Green Bay on. So we did have a lot of issues with that initially. But once we discovered the problem and identified who the students were, we worked with them and we eventually got all of them to put the right code on. But there was a little bit of hiccups, as with any restructuring you're always going to have something. And that was one of the problems initially.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. I could see where that might be a little, yeah. 00:15:00Sometimes it's like it's the things that like--

TO:And that's what happened with that FAFSA form, is if you put down UW Colleges on your form, UW Colleges stays on there. So for a student, they were going to the same building. They didn't see a reason to change the code. But it was more on the back end where they had to change the code for us to have access to it. So they don't have to re-put schools on there. So for them, they would just re-fill out the application. Oh, UW Colleges is on there. I don't need to change anything. So we worked through it, and I think we got through it.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm wondering, you talked a little bit about sort of financial aid funding. But I'm wondering from your perspective as someone working at a place that has multiple branch campuses, so I was wondering if you could expand on sort of the difference between how like financial aid is distributed, like when you have those branch campuses? Yeah.

TO:Yeah. And actually it's not as different as most people would think. Whether a student goes to a two-year school or a four-year school, for the most part they are eligible for the same types of financial aid. The only difference is that their costs, their tuition costs are probably half. So for example, the students at Waukesha are paying half the tuition of the students at Milwaukee. But in reality, they would qualify for the same federal Pell grant, the same Wisconsin grant, the same student loans. The only difference is, their costs are less. So in all likelihood, students at the two-year campus would need to borrow less money because their tuition is half the price. But as far as financial eligibility, it's exactly the same. They're not going to qualify, they're not going to qualify for any more or less federal or state grants because they're at one or the other; it will be the same.

LEH:Hmm. So--

TO:It would just be that they could apply for more loans at Milwaukee, compared to Waukesha.

LEH:So, I guess sort of going back to sort of that beginning and financial aid team part of the restructuring process, what sort of questions did you find that you were getting from people? Either from other staff members, 00:18:00community members? Yeah.

TO:Well you know, I think originally when the merger was announced, UW System formed different committees, which was probably the right thing to do. You know, that first meeting that we had in January of '18, it was basically the seven financial aid directors from the receiving campuses as well as, I think at that first meeting, we all brought another staff member with us. We also had Vice President Rob Cramer who came to the meeting and kind of explained to us the context of the merger, kind of what was expected of the committee. So he provided us, this is kind of the framework and this is where we need you to be a year from now, a year and a half from now, etcetera. So it was helpful that he came and provided us some of the background information. But really that first meeting, what we did is we talked to, get the Department of Education join us for an hour via the phone. Talked through some things.

We also consulted with Ron Day, who was from Georgia, Kennesaw State. They had recently went through a very similar type of merger. And they had just completed it. So we talked to Ron for about an hour and a half. Asked him to provide us his perspective. What we had to keep in mind, what some of the pitfalls they had. We asked lots of questions of both individuals. So really that first meeting was more or less just about collecting information. What did we need to be aware of? What did we need to think about? And then after, just subsequent meetings it was more a matter of then developing a timeline, kind of goals. What are the things we needed to keep in mind?

But I would say throughout the entire process, you know, it was new to all of us. None of us had ever gone through restructuring. So things we hadn't thought about were like oh, we hadn't thought about that. So it was a learning experience for all seven of the financial aid directors. And we got through it and we got the approvals. But if we had to go back and do things, we probably would do some things differently. Some things we would not do differently. But it was a learning experience. And we had a lot of questions from other people on campus, from students and parents, from legislators in what was happening. And we gave the information the best we could at the time.

LEH:What, so could you expand on what some of those questions were?

TO:Well you know, I think the questions from, always the main 00:21:00question was who's processing financial aid? Why is UW Colleges processing financial aid, it doesn't make sense. And we had to explain to them that it really was the Department of Education telling us that's the way it had to be. Explain the timeline. Parents and students were confused why somebody else was processing it, even though they're at Milwaukee. So it was more or less just trying to clarify some of the things I already had mentioned. Because if you didn't work with it day to day, you don't understand the context of it. And a lot of it was just trying to explain to people, this is why we're doing this, and it's because the Department of Education says we're doing it. So it's just more or less providing information to different stakeholders.

LEH:What were legislators, what were their questions?

TO:I think the big one they had was they wanted to make sure that in no way students would be impacted by the change. We had to reassure them that yes, we're working with the Department of Education and that we are following protocol. Likewise we had a few inquiries from legislators in Madison. And once again, we had to assure them that we were working with the Higher Education Aids Board, that they were aware of the process and we were working with them. So it was more or less just they wanted to make sure that in no way students were harmed. And we just had to assure them that yes, we're working with the federal and state authorities and making sure that wasn't going to happen anyway. (truck noises)

LEH:Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't know. Can you hear the--sorry, I feel like this always happens when I'm interviewing someone. There's like a garbage truck outside. (laughs)

TO:That's okay.

LEH:I'm so sorry. (laughs)

TO:That's okay.

LEH:I hope you can't hear it. Can you?

TO:I heard something. But I had no idea what it was.

LEH:Okay. (laughs) Oh, sorry about that.

TO:That's okay.

LEH:All right.

TO:And likewise, you know, being (unclear), in any way, those are very much the same questions the chancellors and the provost have. Just wanted to make sure that in no way students would be harmed. So that was probably the biggest thing along the way is just reassurance that we were making sure that students or parents weren't in any way harmed or disenfranchised or missed deadlines, stuff like that.

LEH:Right. Yeah, yeah. So while you were working with this team, do you find that there were any things that were specific? I noticed that you mentioned that one of the campuses, the Department of Education approval sort of came in over a longer period of time. Did you find that there were sort of differing needs or issues between campuses at all?

TO:Well, you know, I think, like I said, none of us really knew how this process would go. And really what ended up happening was, we all submitted our applications to the Department of Education right after HLC approved it. So we, HLC approved it the last week of June of '18. We all had applications in June of '18. We all thought that our approvals would come much quicker than they did. What ended up happening was, as we learned now is because the Department of Education actually delayed all the approvals until the summer of '19. And they were doing that just because what happens is when they turn off things in their system, it makes it very difficult for people at UW Colleges to do their work. So for example, this gets in the financial aid weeds again, an academic year's fall, spring and summer. So the summer of '19, UW Colleges was still processing financial aid for the students at their locations. What happens is once they made the changeover, for example, Eau Claire was the first one that was approved. So what happened with Eau Claire is once they flipped the switch changing Barron from UW Colleges to Eau Claire, UW Colleges could no longer process financial aid for those students for the summer term. That's a problem, because they still had to be able to access the government system. So the Department of Education actually delayed all these approvals until the summer of '19 to try to least impact students who were still on those campuses receiving financial aid. So they looked at each of the campuses to see where the least amount of students were impacted. So they did Eau Claire first. I think they did Platteville second. I think they did Point, Milwaukee. But basically every three weeks, they did one of the campuses. They did it one by one, rather than all at once.

And what ended up happening was because of that timeframe and because of how the government did it, is UW Oshkosh actually did not get their approvals until like the first week of September of '19. The problem with that was that they started classes already. But because the education department did not approve it, they actually could not disperse financial aid to students. So they actually, Oshkosh probably had to delay their disbursements to students at their 00:27:00locations probably for about a week because Department of Education was kind of slowing that process. But in hindsight, I understand why they did it. I just wish they would have done it a little bit quicker, that Oshkosh wasn't impacted by that week.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah.

TO:So basically for one week Oshkosh had to not disburse money to the students on their new two-year campus locations, because technically they weren't eligible. So they had to delay it (down?). They didn't feel that really impacted students. Now when I say they had to delay it a week, I'll put that in context. Schools are allowed to disburse money ten days prior to school starting. Most of the four-year campuses do that. So for example at Milwaukee, if we start out September fourth, we can disburse money on August twenty-fifth. UW Colleges, which oversaw the two-year campuses, they had always had a policy of not disbursing money until ten days after school starts. So their policy was wait until the end of the add/drop period. And so in that sense, there was a twenty-day difference between when most schools did it and UW Colleges did it. So even by Oshkosh being delayed by a week, it still was sooner than they used to do it.

LEH:Huh. Yeah.

TO:So in essence, we didn't really think the students were hurt that much, because they weren't used to us disbursing earlier anyways.

LEH:Hmm. Yeah. I think that brings up two kind of like, the thing on like the policy being different at the UW Colleges, did you guys run across that in other ways that like the policy is just different because they were two-year schools?

TO:You know, the biggest policy difference is that disbursement, the one I just referenced, where most of the four-year schools disbursed ten days prior. Most two-year schools, and it's not just UW Colleges, it's pretty common across the country, wait until ten days after school starts, because you have more of a transient population who registers late. They add and drop and they change their minds. So that was probably the biggest policy difference. Now, for example, the Waukesha and Washington County campuses with Milwaukee, our feeling was we weren't going to have different policies for different campuses. That they were now part of Milwaukee. So pretty much all three campuses have the same policies and procedures. So they, students at those campuses now get the benefit that we're disbursing money sooner than they used to have it.

There were a couple other small policy changes. Satisfactory progress 00:30:00is where the government says you have to make sure students are progressing towards graduation. Some of those policies that Colleges had was different than those four-year campuses. So there were some small tweaks there, too. Not major tweaks. But those are probably the two areas, disbursement and satisfactory progress, where there were policy differences. In my mind, they were pretty minor. But we still had to address them and let the students know that we were changing things.

LEH:Yeah. So is satisfactory progress, is that just, could you expand on that, what that means?

TO:Yeah. So basically what satisfactory progress is the government says you have to make sure students are progressing towards graduation. And you have two ways of measuring it. You have to measure that by looking at their GPA. So they have to have a 2.0 GPA at certain points. After they attend a year, they have to have a GPA of, say, 1.5 or 1.7. But if the ultimate goal is a 2.0 to graduate, you need to make sure they're progressing towards that. Likewise, you have to make sure they're completing a certain percentage of the classes. Generally that's about 67%. So every semester you have to monitor that to make sure they have a GPA and they have a pace which will get them to graduation at a certain point. And if at any point you find out a student does not have a GPA or is not passing courses at an appropriate pace, then you actually have to cut them off from federal financial aid. So it's basically the government's way of monitoring that you're not going to be a fulltime student the rest of your life.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, let's see. Oh, one of my other questions was about sort of, so I was wondering if you could expand on if there are any differences between sort of scholarships and I know we kind of already talked about overall financial aid resources being pretty much the same. But were there any differences that you found with scholarships of the colleges? Yeah.

TO:Scholarships are interesting because the majority of the scholarships actually come from, are basically from donors or come through foundations. So, for example, Milwaukee's example, we have a foundation with the Milwaukee campus. Waukesha has their own foundation for Waukesha. Washington 00:33:00County has their own foundation for Washington County. These are not actually part of the UW System. They're separate entities. So even though the three campuses are now under the UW Milwaukee umbrella, we still actually have three separate foundations. We have a foundation for Milwaukee, a foundation for Waukesha and a foundation for Washington County. So even though the campuses merged, those did not merge. So they're separate entities. So we actually have to work with three different foundations. They raise the money. So for example, Washington County, we can only give those funds to students from Washington County. Likewise the same for Waukesha.

Now in many ways, those foundations actually select the students. They just tell us who they're giving it to. But generally when you're talking scholarships, the amounts are a little bit lower at the two-year schools, because tuition is lower. So we've had to work through working with multiple foundations rather than one foundation. And other campuses have experienced the same thing.

LEH:Yeah. Can you expand on that? I know that because the colleges are owned by the counties, that those foundations can sometimes have a large role.

TO:Well you know, the foundations are, they're in the county. They have an interest in making sure that the students from that county are successful. So we had no problem with them remaining as they are. I think for us it was a matter of saying okay, this is how we process scholarship at our foundation. Can you at Washington do this? Or do you do it differently? So it really was a matter of trying to work with the foundation saying, "These are our processes. We'd prefer to have one process. But if you're not able to or not interested, we will try to accommodate you."

So for example, Waukesha's foundation more or less is processing the same way as we do for the Milwaukee foundation. Whereas the Washington County foundation wanted to do things the way they currently were doing, and they did not want to change the Milwaukee way. So we actually have two of the three foundations that do things one way, and then the third foundation that does things a totally different way. Which is fine. I think for us it was a matter of saying okay, how can we accommodate? In the end, we want them to raise the money. We're just trying to make sure the students get the money. So it was just working through some of those processes.

LEH:Yeah. Could you expand on Washington County, why they wanted to 00:36:00keep things the same?

TO:Yeah. They actually had just invested in some software with how to process it. So they had just committed certain funds to do things their way. So they didn't want to switch over to our software. So they had just made a major commitment that they were planning on using the software for so many years. And they just didn't want to change software multiple years in a row. So their feeling was, we just got the software. We think it's working well. Let's use this. Let's figure out some other way we can get you the information. So, it was a very understandable reason and you know, like I said, we want them to raise the money. We just want to try to accommodate the best we could. We walked through it. We understood both sides. They understood our side. We understood their side. And just came to a mutual agreement that okay, let's keep things the way they are for now. And we'll have to revisit in three or four years and see where we are.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Let's see. We've talked about sort of the challenges. Let's see. I guess do you have any other thoughts about sort of the timeline that was set by the steering committee? Yeah.

TO:Yeah. You know, originally when the timeline was announced, a lot of us thought it was a very aggressive timeline. And President Cross even said, "It's an aggressive timeline. But we need to do it in this timeframe." It would have been nice for the timeline to be a little bit longer. But on the other hand, I think by having the timeline they developed, it actually forced things to move very quickly. So in the end, we got it all done. But I will say at first when we heard the timeline, we were like, how's that possible? And even when we talked to like I said Ron Day from Kennesaw State, their timeline was probably like two and a half years. You know, our timeline was pretty much six to eight months where we had to do a lot of things. So even talking to people who'd gone through it, they kind of said wow, that's an aggressive timeline.

So I think the timeline was aggressive. It created challenges at some point. But I will say, it kept the process moving. And that's why, like I said, probably the first six to eight months, I was in Madison two days a week doing a lot of my, a lot of my work was restructuring. And at that point, I had things on Milwaukee's campus I had to do. But restructuring was top priority. So it worked in the end and it was an aggressive timeline. And I think looking back, I think it was probably the right timeline. Initially I didn't think so. But 00:39:00now, looking back, it probably was the perfect timeline.

LEH:Yeah. I guess that's sort of goes a little bit with some of these questions that are, I probably should have asked in the beginning. But they're sort of related. Of like just the beginning of this process. How you became aware of it. And maybe what your initial reactions were versus how you feel now.

TO:Well I think a lot of us heard about it the same way. I think in October and November there was some-- actually, I first came across it, I think it was mid-October, probably, of '17, when I read an article in the Journal that this was being discussed. So I think that's probably the first I heard about it. Soon after that, then, UW System came out and announced it and provided parameters and kind of their timeframe. So I think I first heard about it in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. And as it progressed, we got more information from everybody, whether it was our chancellor, provost or UW System.

You know, initially it was like okay, I've never done this before. We really didn't know, myself and my staff really didn't know what we were getting into or what the process would be. So I think a lot of it was like okay, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and we weren't getting additional resources to do it. So somehow we have to accomplish this. And like I said, it wasn't easy. But we ended up getting it done.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Okay.

TO:And one of the more complicated things, too, one of the more complicating things, this isn't my area, but it affected us. Greatly affects, all the different committees it affected immensely. But you know, you have all the computer data in Colleges' system. You had to get all that information transferred over to, you know, they had their software system. You had to get all that data transferred over to Milwaukee, for example, for our students. But you needed to parse all the Colleges' information seven different ways. So you had to take students and make sure Oshkosh got their student, make sure Green Bay got their students, make sure Milwaukee had their student. Because in the end, if the students weren't in our computer system, we couldn't do anything. So that was probably the biggest thing. And I was not involved in that. 00:42:00But I will say that was probably the one thing that we had to wait on is getting all the data transferred.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. Because, yeah, it's essentially dismantling a central organization. Yeah.

TO:And this restructuring was very different than most other restructurings. Even talking with the Department of Education, the restructurings that they were used to or the mergers that they were used to were generally one school to one school. It was generally one to one. Whereas in this case, we were taking one school, technically, and dividing it seven different ways. So it really complicated things for many people, including the Department of Education, just because it was something they had not done before. Generally it's one to one. One to seven created some problems for them.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So was that sort of, you mentioned talking with this other, with Kennesaw State. Had they done a similar sort of restructuring?

TO:They were one school to one school. So they were very different. But they were the most recent school that I was aware that had done any kind of merger. So we felt he was the most appropriate person to talk to. But his restructuring was much easier, because it was one to one, whereas ours was one to seven. But he, pretty much the framework and questions that he answered at least gave us some insight. So it was, and Ron throughout the process would eventually, you know, he'd answer questions as we went along. So even though we talked to him back in January for an hour and a half or so, throughout the process we'd ask questions and he'd provide us answers.

So I think one thing, financial aid is very different than most professions is that colleagues are very helpful other areas. Admissions--this isn't a cut on admissions folks, but admissions are more keeping things to themselves and don't share information, where financial aid is just the opposite.

LEH:Could you expand on that? Is that talking with different departments or different organizations or different schools or both?

TO:I think financial aid pretty much whether it's organizations, other schools, you know, in the end we all follow the same rules and regulations. It's a group that doesn't mind sharing information. You know, this is how I did it. Financial aid is not a trade secret. Whereas admission, a lot of 00:45:00stuff is trade secrets. This is how we recruit students. I'm not going to tell you how I do it. Financial aid people are much more sharing, because it's more about the regulations rather than trade secrets.

LEH:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Let's see. Okay. So I think sort of the only question we haven't covered is sort of, well, I mean, you sort of just covered it. But if you have any other thoughts about the kind of conversations you were having with coworkers throughout this project. And, yeah.

TO:Well you know, I think in addition to the committees that UW System formed, there were also similar committees on each of the campuses. So, for example, Milwaukee had an enrollment management committee which dealt with restructuring. So I think on a daily basis, we always would look at things and say oh, we haven't thought about that. How are we going to address this? You know, once we start mapping things out, it actually, originally the thought was this is going to be complicated. But actually, after we started mapping it out, it was more complicated than I could even have imagined. I mean, you have to think of every little thing, like registration, orientation, how are we going to change that? How are we going to support the students there, or do things similar? So it was just a lot of conversations. A lot of in depth putting things on a white board and saying okay, this is how we're going to transition things. And always having an open mind. Things could change the next day. But trying to look at everything and trying to address everything. There are some things that I will say that we didn't think about.

I'll give you an example of that. Each school is allocated a certain amount of money by the federal government. So for example, UW Colleges receiving, I don't know the exact number, but roughly $900,000 in federal work study and federal SEOG funds. And we had basically provided them how we wanted that money divided up between the seven campuses. And basically what we do is we looked at the percentage of students who were Pell eligible. And each campus had a certain percentage. So we asked the department to divide that up. And they actually did that fine for the '19-'20 year. They did not complete that until roughly September of '19 after all the mergers were complete. But then they divided the money up, just like we'd asked them. Now when all the school receive their 2021 allocations in January of '20, the department did not divide that 00:48:00money up. They more or less didn't give us the $900,000. It had disappeared. We had never thought to think the department wouldn't honor that for subsequent years.

So, January, February, March, I did have to go back to them multiple times and say, "Hey, this was our money. Now where is it?" So we eventually got it worked out where now they gave us the money again. But it was something, I guess, I had never thought about, that you wouldn't honor it for subsequent years. In the end, it worked out okay. But it was more headaches and working through things.

LEH:Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

TO:So are you interviewing all the different restructuring groups? Or who are you all interviewing for this?

LEH:Yeah. So I've reached out to and interviewed people from the Colleges, the receiving institutions, System. I've been trying to sort of hit every possible area of expertise. Yeah. Yeah.

TO:And then once you collect all this information, what are you doing with it?

LEH:Oh, so the project, and you can choose. So I'm going to send you a permission form.

TO:Okay.

LEH:And the, so you can choose a date. If you choose to restrict your interview, you can choose to have it published online after a certain date. You can also choose to have it published immediately. So, immediately being after the project is finished, which will be sometime, sometime probably the beginning of September. So what happens is that the interviews are processed and then they go to UW Digital Collections. And then they're put in, online in the collection. So anyone can access it online. But you can also choose to restrict it to just the reading room so it's solely in-person access until after a certain date. Yeah, yeah. So, we're also transcribing all these interviews. So once yours is transcribed, if you want to--you don't have to, sometimes people get freaked out when they hear their own voices. But you can choose to look through your transcript and correct things if you want.

TO:That's okay. I feel comfortable. Let's go with what we got.

LEH:Okay. (laughs)

TO:So it sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of yourself in the next couple of months.

LEH:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a really interesting project. I've really enjoyed doing this project. Yeah. So, all right. Before I let you go, do you have anything else you would like to add?

TO:No. I think I'm good with that. And if you have more questions as you come along, or if you talk to another committee and they reference something that you need to check back with me, feel free.

LEH:All right. All right. Okay.

TO:You have a good day, and a good Fourth of July weekend.

LEH:You, too. All right. Bye.

End of Interview Session.