Welcome to Wisconsin from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the Universities of Wisconsin Office of Online and Professional Learning Resources

UW-Whitewater welcomes prospective students and their families and friends to campus for Premier Day information and tours. (UW-Whitewater photo/Craig Schreiner)

 

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is a regional comprehensive public university that was founded as a Normal School in 1868.  It has been engaged with online learning for 25 years, starting with its online MBA program in 1999.  Fully online associates, bachelors, and master’s degrees are now offered, including an MS in Instructional Design and Learning Technology. As a proud institution of access, more than 10 percent of undergraduate students use the acclaimed Center for Students with Disabilities – a priority mission since the 1970s.  It currently serves 12,000 at two campuses.  It graduates the most licensed teachers in Wisconsin and has the largest business school in Wisconsin.

Arial shot of Minneiska Springs on the North Wyman Mall, with the University Center in the background. (UW-Whitewater photo/Craig Schreiner)

UW-Whitewater’s School of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education serves nearly 1,700 graduate students, the vast majority in a fully asynchronous, online environment providing them the flexibility to advance themselves professionally and personally at a pace and time that fits a working schedule and family duties.  Even face-to-face professional programs such as Counseling, Communication Sciences & Disorders, Social Work, and School Psychology are leveraging digital tools to teach in innovative manners using synchronous remote as well as hybrid asynchronous modalities to serve career-changing students with flexibility while maintaining fidelity to core skills necessary in the human services.  Additionally, the Continuing Education unit supports several innovative degree completion programs using online modalities:  an ECE4U Early Childhood licensure program and a SPECED4U special education licensure program, both leading to bachelor’s degrees.

The Universities of Wisconsin Office of Online & Professional Learning Resources (OPLR) is committed to providing service and support to the Universities of Wisconsin Administration and all 13 UW universities in online and continuing education, teaching, learning, and workforce skills training and resources.  OPLR works in partnership with all 13 UW universities to develop and deliver online semester- and competency-based degrees and a broad array of credit and non-credit certificates, courses, and other credentials to help adult and professional learners achieve their academic and professional development goals and to develop the workforce of Wisconsin.  OPLR supports Wisconsin Online, Wisconsin Online Collaboratives, UW Flexible Option, BSN@Home and UW Independent Learning.  

UW-Whitewater and OPLR have collaborated this past year to launch a new dual enrollment opportunity for Wisconsin high school students with its Warhawk Dual Enrollment Academy.  The expert media and instructional design teams at OPLR collaborated with UW-Whitewater faculty and staff to design new versions of courses with high school students specifically in mind, thus providing college level rigor with the right instructional design supports to help them focus on learning content and not focusing on navigating a course.

Both of our teams are excited to welcome the 2025 IELOL program participants to the Universities of Wisconsin at the Madison campus’s Fluno Center.  UW-Whitewater and OPLR look forward to showcasing the innovative online and digital learning from both a regional public campus and a state system support office perspective.