Academic Staff Executive Committee Minutes 12-10-20
Approved 01-07-21
ASEC Minutes
2:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/93921129494
Members
Present: Donna Cole; Jenny
Dahlberg, chair; Tim Dalby; Stephanie Elkins; Mallory Musolf;
Leslie Petty; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron; Bill Tishler
Guests:
Diane Blaskowski,
Lesley Fisher, Alyson Kim, Beth Meyerand, Mark Walters
The meeting was called to order at 2:01 p.m.
The minutes of December 3 were approved with
one correction.
General Reports
Jenny Dahlberg, ASEC chair, reported on recent
meetings with Beth Meyerand and Mark Walters, the topics of which will be
discussed later in the ASEC meeting. The meeting of the chiefs of staff,
chairs, and secretaries was cancelled on Tuesday, but the meeting on Friday
will go forward. Any questions should be provided to her or Jake.
Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported
that he was working with OHR to continue to support the Research Professionals
Conference, and a small planning group is looking at when and how the
conference might take place in 2021. Some of the email lists managed by the
office have converted to Google Groups, and those that haven’t
yet will in the near future. Jake, Lesley, and Jenny met with the CALS CASI to
go over the essential functions of a CASI. Jake will meet with them further to
assist with the group’s strategic plan.
Liaison Reports
Mallory Musolf
reported on the recent meeting of the UW System Reps. The meeting was
originally supposed to include updates regarding TTC and the employee value
proposition, but the meeting was a listening session on working with shared
governance. There was discussion about the acknowledgment of the importance of
governance from the System level.
Bill Tishler
reported that the University Committee discussed draft changes to FPP regarding
promotion to full professor. The DCS CASI is holding a session with the
associate dean for finance on return to onsite work.
Stephanie Elkins reported that the
Communications Committee now has a full committee again after the appointment
of Kelly Loughlin. The committee is still doing its inventory of the existing
academic staff website (in service of work on a new site) and will work on the
academic staff newsletter after that.
Tim Dalby reported that the Mentoring
Committee will be holding an event for its Mentor Match Program next Wednesday.
The PPPC has all but finished looking at revisions to ASPP Chapter 14, and they
will also be looking at a potential change to the Assembly schedule in terms of
the January meeting. At ASM, resolutions on the telecommuting policy for
international students and pass/fail grading were voted on.
Deb Shapiro attended the recent Librarians
Assembly Steering Committee meeting. They were contacted by the Office of
Sustainability for updates on its efforts, similar to
the ones that ASEC will be receiving later in January.
Motion to Convene in Closed Session Pursuant
to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) and (f) to Discuss Nominations to the Chief
Diversity Officer Search and Screen Committee and the Distinguished Prefix
Review Committee (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.
Motion to Reconvene in Open Session (Dalby).
Seconded. Approved.
Business
·
Nominations – for vote
Motion to nominate James Drews and Joy
Kirkpatrick to the Distinguished Prefix Review Committee (Cole). Seconded.
Approved.
Motion
to nominate Kacie Lucchini Butcher, Douachong Lee, José Madera, and Mari Magler
to the Chief Diversity Officer Search and Screen Committee (Stoddard Cameron).
Seconded. Approved.
Guests:
Mark Walters, Chief Human Resources Officer, and Diane Blaskowski,
Director of Talent Rewards, Office of Human Resources
Mark discussed the issues with international
telecommuting and student hourly employees. OHR did a full review of provisions
in June and looked at numerous risks and liabilities associated with this. It
was decided that due to the risks involved, campus would only allow those in
ongoing positions to work outside the country. They let the HR community know
that new appointments should be paused or not started, which created concerns
with partners in ASM. HR met with ASM on several occasions. They looked at the ASM
positions again a couple of days ago, and granted an
exception for ASM positions for 3 to 5 individuals.
On the topic of ALRA banking, there have been
several discussions about expanding ability of employees to bank leave to
provide some relief to the big banks of vacation that have been building up.
The debate is between flexibility to build leave vs. fiscal liability of having
to pay out those hours. There is also advocacy for people taking the vacation
that they need to avoid burnout. A possible solution involves enabling those
employees with less than 10 years of service to do a one-time bank of up to 40
hours and continuing to roll over hours otherwise. The hope is to have a final
decision on this by the end of the calendar year.
Regarding vaccine administration, there are
still decisions being made as how that plays out on campus. There have been
discussions about whether to mandate or strongly encourage taking the vaccine,
and no decisions have been made yet. Healthcare providers are in Tier 1A. Tier
1B includes residential life and other essential workers. UW Health will be a hub
for the vaccine, and decisions are still being made on whether UW will be an
active administrator of the vaccine.
Diane discussed the progress of the single
payroll initiative. OHR is working with UW System and UW-Madison’s Office of
Strategic Consulting to build a project plan and charter for this. They are identifying
all of the areas that will be impacted and designing the plan around those
impacts. On Monday, a group met with leadership of all functional areas that
will be impacted and asked that they assign subject matter experts and leads on
a core team scheduled to kickoff next week. Another team is looking at HRS to
determine what development needs to happen, and another group is working on
other change management issues. There will be live forums for employees to get
answers to questions, as well as financial and budgeting seminars, and a call
center to get questions answered by a live person. July 18 is the date for
implementation. Paying 9-month appointees over 12 months (“9-over-12”) isn’t in
scope for this project, and pre-pays for benefits are also out of scope. ASEC
asked that shared governance be more involved in these efforts as they get
underway.
Guest:
Beth Meyerand, Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Affairs
Vice Provost Meyerand discussed how her office
would be working with the Campus Committee on Diversity Education and Training.
She is hoping that the committee will complete its work by the end of the
spring semester. The vision for the group is that they will develop a
scaffolding for the training in the form of outlines, but not the curriculum
itself. The committee is also charged to do the important work of discussing
values and shared goals about diversity, equity, and inclusion for our campus.
There is also a question of how many types of curriculum outlines are needed (e.g.
the notion of a baseline curriculum followed by other courses depending on work
area, employee category, or other factors. There are groups looking at training
that already exists for students, as well as existing training for employees on
this campus and at peer institutions. The next meeting of the committee will hopefully
before winter break to talk about shared values. There are 22 members on the
committee, and they are a very engaged membership. The committee will likely
meet on a biweekly basis for the next 6 months. The University Committee also
reached out to Beth to work on a task force for faculty and family care. There
is the question of how to engage these issues with academic staff as well. ASEC
suggested that any group that was put together on this issue should have
academic and university staff membership in addition to faculty. There was also
the discussion of whether it made sense to have distinct groups for each employee
category. It was also recommended that this be discussed further by the
Committee on Women in the University. ASEC also discussed the progress of the
Ad Hoc Committee on Academic and University Staff Diversity, Equity, and
Inclusion and how further partnership with Vice Provost Meyerand’s
office might happen in the future.
Business
·
January Assembly Agenda
ASEC discussed a possible agenda for a January
meeting if one is held.
·
Athletic Board Selection Discussion
There will be a mid-term vacancy toward the
end of the spring semester on the Athletic Board. ASEC discussed how the
process worked earlier in the year and agreed that the process worked well.
·
Topics for Guests
Provost:
mental health for students
OHR: COVID leave and what happens when it runs
out
Meeting adjourned at 4:25 p.m.
Minutes
submitted by Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff