Jocelyn Milner

Associate Provost and Director
Academic Planning and Institutional Research

150 Bascom Hall
500 Lincoln Drive
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 263-5658
jlmilner@wisc.edu

Academic Planning and Institutional Research, a sub-unit of the Office of the Provost, has two primary and interrelated roles. APIR facilitates academic planning activities, which include the approval of new academic programs (majors, degrees, certificates) and structures (departments, centers, institutes). APIR also assists members of the university community with other changes to the program array—name changes, restructuring, and discontinuations. In this context, APIR provides staff support to the University Academic Planning Council, coordinates the program review process, supports academic program assessment, attends to accreditation issues between re-accreditation cycles, and provides support and advice on various issues related to academic policy. APIR also functions as the institutional research office with an emphasis on student and personnel analysis in the context of the institution, the state, and national peer comparisons. APIR provides support and advice to a wide range of campus activities and initiatives and provides the analytical data and policy analysis needed to support academic and budgetary decisions. Recent analyses include review of cluster hiring initiative, impact of AP credit on summer enrollment, implications of high school pipeline on future recruiting and admissions, and transfer student issues. Regular products of APIR include the Data Digest, the Department Planning Profiles, the Credits-Follow-Instructor report, faculty salary reports, undergraduate admissions analyses, and degree trend analyses. APIR also works to assure the integrity of UW–Madison data sources and the reliability and accuracy of institutional reports to internal and external audiences.

Jocelyn Milner has been a staff member in APIR since 1999 and director since 2003. She received her B.S. in biological sciences and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Guelph (Canada). After a post-doc in UW–Madison's Chemistry department, Dr. Milner pursued her interests in plant-microbe interactions in research and instructional positions in Plant Pathology. Eventually she made the transition to university administration and research on higher education issues. She has a special interest in policies and practices that impact the program array, assessment of student learning, and institutional accountability systems.