A century and a half-plus of excellence: Fall classes begin at UW-Platteville
Thousands of students began fall classes at UW-Platteville on Wednesday, continuing the university's proud 160-year tradition of educating engineers, teachers, agricultural leaders and other professionals.
Complete enrollment numbers won't be available until later this month, but Chancellor Tammy Evetovich said the students already have re-energized the campus after a quiet summer.
"There's something about the start of a new academic year," Evetovich said in her video welcome address. "Our campus is filled with new energy, fresh opportunities and the excitement of what's ahead."
Fall athletes have been on campus for several weeks already preparing for their seasons. First-year students moved in Saturday and spent the last few days acclimating, walking class schedules, figuring out dining hall hours and joining in icebreaker activities, including petting therapy dogs, seminars on how to develop study and time management skills, and even an outdoor showing of the movie "Step Brothers."
"It's a nice campus. There's some good people around," Devon Kaszubski, an 18-year-old freshman from Verona, Wisconsin, said after churning a smoothie blender by furiously pedaling a stationary bike at the Be Well Bash in Williams Fieldhouse on Monday.
Kaszubski said he wants to pursue mechanical engineering and chose UW-Platteville over UW-Madison because it was cheaper and "I heard all the engineers in Wisconsin go here."
Ella Pulvermacher, a freshman from Berlin, Wisconsin, and her roommate, Katie Scharff, another freshman from Oshkosh, took turns at the bash petting Link, a 2-year-old corgi therapy dog.
Like Kaszubski, Scharff wants to become a mechanical engineer. She said she was drawn to UW-Platteville because the school has a reputation for producing top-notch engineers and "I just liked the smaller school."
Pulvermacher wants to study animal science and biology.
"I like the campus," she said. "It's not too far from home, but it's far enough that I feel independent."
The institution that would eventually become UW-Platteville was founded in 1866 as the Platteville Normal School, Wisconsin's first college devoted entirely to training teachers. It was renamed the Platteville State Teachers College in 1926 and the Wisconsin State College, Platteville in 1951. The school merged with the Wisconsin Institute of Technology in 1959, becoming the Wisconsin State College and Institute of Technology at Platteville. The name changed again in 1966 to the Wisconsin State University-Platteville after gaining university status and again in 1971 as the University of Wisconsin-Platteville after all public institutions of higher education in the state merged into the University of Wisconsin System.
More than 1,000 students graduated from UW-Platteville this past May. A 2025 economic impact study conducted by UW-Whitewater Fiscal and Economic Research Center found that the average income of a UW-Platteville graduate from the classes of 1982 to 2015 is about $98,000, far eclipsing the $46,208 income of 25-54-year-olds with only a high school degree. An estimated 21,600 UW-Platteville alumni live and work in the tri-state region of Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa, generating an additional $660 million in economic activity annually across multiple industries.
The new academic year begins as southwestern Wisconsin grapples with a measles outbreak. No cases have been reported on campus so far, but at the recommendation of state health officials, UW-Platteville is asking all students and employees to voluntarily upload their vaccination status into a new request system to help university and health officials prepare in the event of an outbreak. Uploads will be treated as confidential health data. No one is required to supply any information, but the data is key to the university's preparedness plan. The system is accessible here: https://go.uwplatt.edu/vsrs.
"Higher education continues to evolve and the world around us is changing quickly," Evetovich said in her welcome address. "But one thing remains constant at UW-Platteville -- our commitment to student success and our mission of providing exceptional hands-on education that transforms lives."