UW-River Falls Chancellor Maria Gallo presents to the UW System Board of Regents Thursday in the University Center as UWRF hosted their October meeting. Gallo told Regents UW-River Falls is poised to lead a future that combines student learning and building the regional and state economy. Sam Silver photo.

 

UW-River Falls positioned to be university of the future, chancellor tells Regents

Focus on students, affordability, proximity to Twin Cities key to future growth

Oct. 5, 2023 - Founded in 1874 as a site to educate teachers, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls is poised to lead a future that combines student learning and building the regional and state economy, Chancellor Maria Gallo told the UW System Board of Regents Thursday in the University Center on campus. 

During her presentation to Regents, Gallo said UWRF’s commitment to students, its relative affordability, its strong outcomes in student success and its proximity to the Twin Cities position the university as a leader in growing jobs and the jobs sector. 

Numerous publications list UW-River Falls as among the most affordable universities in the Midwest, she said. Publications such as the U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review’s Annual Best Colleges list rank UWRF as among the best public universities in the Midwest.

Likewise, survey results show that 99.3% of UWRF graduates are either employed or in graduate school, with 86% in a job related to their major. Most graduates remain in the Midwest, and their average starting salary is $53,000.

“Students at UW-River Falls get a small, private school experience at a public school price,” Gallo told Regents. “It is clear that our price point, plus our student career success rate, translates into an astounding value of a UW-River Falls education.”

The high-level education UW-River Falls students receive is visible while they are in school, Gallo said. She cited how students regularly win national awards over much larger and Ivy League schools. For example, students from the university’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) garnered multiple first-place awards at national competitions last spring, and another group of students placed first nationally by creating a dairy-based food that not only tastes good but eases people’s anxiety. Similarly, student journalists won numerous statewide awards last spring. 

Gallo praised UW-River Falls faculty for their commitment to student learning and said the Wuethrich Family/Grassland Dairy Center of Excellence, where students, faculty and businesses will collaborate to produce dairy products, and the Science and Technology Innovation Center (SciTech) scheduled to open in 2026 represent opportunities for even more hands-on learning opportunities that will involve businesses and grow the regional and state economy.
 
As examples of faculty creating high-impact, innovative programs, Gallo cited Kateri Carver, director of UWRF's Montessori Studies Program, who oversees the nation’s only doctoral Montessori program; Kurt Vogel, animal science associate professor who oversees the nation’s only Humane Handling Institute that trains meat processors to butcher animals humanely; and Karl Peterson, chemistry professor and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who described the SciTech building and business partnerships with the university. 

Those facilities will further a national trend of universities and businesses working more closely together to spur innovation and boost the economy, the chancellor said. Being close to Minneapolis-St. Paul, and with nearly half of its students from Minnesota, UW-River Falls is geographically positioned to attract and retain students while adding to the workforce and increasing economic development, she said. 

“It is not only the students that we want in our area,” Gallo said. “We want the businesses here too, so that the university can build significantly deeper relationships with them to retrain and upskill their workers, as well as have them work with our faculty to innovate in our University Business Collaboration Center within SciTech and invest in our technologies and academic and co-curricular programs.”

By partnering with businesses, UW-River Falls students and faculty will continue to innovate and boost the region and state in numerous ways, Gallo said. On Wednesday, one of those partnerships was highlighted when WinField United, the crop products and consulting division of Land O’Lakes, Inc, received a UW System Regents Business Partnership Award. 

UW System President Jay Rothman praised the partnership, saying such collaborations “are so absolutely vital to our being able to help our students and to help the state of Wisconsin.” Continuing to train students in ways that will drive future job creation such as those described by Gallo is key to advancing Wisconsin, Rothman told Regents. 

“Our employers need these kinds of skills to grow Wisconsin. They tell us that,” Rothman said. “That is the direction we are heading in, and it will continue to make our state a better place.”