UW–Madison helps with updates to Residency and Visa Guidelines
The Residency Review Work Group (RRWG), a committee with representatives from several UW System campuses (including the Tony Pietsch of the UW–Madison Registrar’s Office), the UWS Office of Student Success, and UWS Office of General Counsel, recently released updates to the UW System Residency Determination Guidelines and Visa Guidelines (collectively, “the Residency Guidelines”), providing new clarifications and guidance for a range of residence for tuition issues.
The Residency Guidelines were originally created between 2006 and 2007 to aid in the implementation of residency law and foster cross-campus consistency. They have been revised a few times since then, including a major 2018 update that RO alumni Margo Ptacek and Sue Batt substantially influenced. The 2023 Residency Guideline revisions were intended to build on that prior work by clarifying sticky points in the UWS legal interpretation of Wisconsin Statutes 36.27(2), the state Residence for Tuition Law.
Revising the guidelines was a long-term process beginning in the Spring of 2021. At that time, UW Campuses were grappling with how to implement the then-current guidelines in light of the major changes to residency questions introduced with the refactored UWS EApp in August 2020, as well as some recent changes to the residence law and the increasing complexity of residency issues brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. By May 2023, the RRWG had identified significant problem areas and potential solutions in the Residency Guidelines, then vetted those clarifications with legal staff from UWS, UW-Milwaukee, and UW–Madison. The group released the final versions at the UWS Joint Admissions and Registrar’s Meeting on July 26th in a presentation led by Tony Pietsch (UW–Madison), Jeremy Smith (UW-Whitewater), Heidi Tuescher-Gille (UW-Platteville), and Angela Kellogg (UW System Office of Student Success). RRWG members also involved but unable to attend were Corey Sjoquist (UW-La Crosse) and Matt Lind (UWS Office of General Counsel).
While reviewing the Residency Guidelines, the goals were to provide clarity about how campuses should evaluate various criteria in a holistic residence review process and to evaluate where the lack of clarity in prior guidance had led to evaluations that were more stringent than necessary or not rigorous enough in various circumstances. The final product offers many improvements from past guidance and should provide residency staff across UW System with the tools needed to provide more efficient reviews, more flexible pathways for evaluating a student’s eligibility, and clearer guidance for students in certain specialized circumstances.