UC members present: Halverson, Masters, Sandgren (chair), Tejedo-Herrero, Thibeault

Others present besides those listed below: Michaela Aust, Michael Bernard-Donals, Rebecca Blank, Jeff Buhrandt, Greg Bump, Gideon Elliott, Michelle Felber, Lesley Fisher, Jack Jablonski,
Jack O’Meara, Jane Richard, Jake Smith, Dean Stensberg

Chair Sandgren called the meeting to order at 1:01.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Faculty, provided an update on the academic calendar and religious observances. An academic calendar will be approved each year so there will always be a 5-year view available. In addition, an outlook calendar will have academic calendar and religious observances dates. Finally, a small committee will review and advise the Office of the Secretary of the Faculty on the academic calendar and religious observances.

The minutes of the meeting of November 22, 2021, were approved by consent.

Lois Brooks, CIO, and Tamara Walker, Director of User Services, discussed the need to manage endpoint devices to help with security of the network. Ideally, each device connected to the network would have updated patches. A major challenge is the large number of non-UW devices.

They also discussed Box and Google storage limits. Google will start charging for storage.

Beth Larson, committee co-chair, and Lindsey Stoddard Cameron presented the annual report for the Committee for Women in the University. The committee conducted a survey identifying the top challenges for women employees: were childcare (72%), compensation (70%), and gender climate (60%). For those with toddlers/infants, childcare rose to 89% and for those with children under 18, childcare rose to 83%. The survey found intersectionality between childcare and many other challenges. Subcommittees will look at areas identified in the survey.

Jordan Rosemblum, chair of the University Lectures Committee, presented the committee’s annual report. The committee will raise the upper limit of the honorarium to $1000, up from $600.

John Zumbrunnen said that the spring semester looking similar to a spring semester before the pandemic. They continue to encourage faculty to be supportive and flexible with students who need to miss class due to health reasons, and recognize the tension between attendance policies and the directive to students to miss class if they have symptoms.

The Center for Teaching, Learning and Mentoring is working to build a shared culture. They continue to provide individual consultation, media development, and, soon, professional development.

A new budget landscape project has been launched to better understand spending for teaching and learning, including software. It is difficult to get data from departments or employees who are spending personal money. Zumbrunnen will also begin looking at data-empowered educational practices.

Charlie Hoslet, Vice Chancellor for University Relations, reviewed various bills in the legislature. The legislative session will end in March 2022. One bill would allow short-term investments of cash balances, and another would give tuition reciprocity to the UW System rather than Higher Education Aids Board, requiring tuition to stay with the campus. Another third bill would provide planning funding for the new engineering building, and a fourth would provide an exception to the School of Pharmacy for the fall start date.

There is also quite a bit happening at the federal level, including the Build Back Better Act, US Innovation Competition Act, and a Fusion Triangle proposal.

Workshops on best practices in communications and diversity have had over 400 attendees so far. He reported that the results of the 2020 Study on National Engagement and Voting has been released and UW-Madison’s voting rate was over 72%, 6.8% above the national average.

Tommy Thompson, Interim President of UW System, discussed what he has done to emphasize UW System institutions in solving the problems of the state of Wisconsin. One example is campuses being community testing sites for COVID-19. He spoke of the need to convince the legislature that UW System is a problem solver. He believes UW System is the best asset the state has, behind the people of Wisconsin. He discussed the labor shortages that the state is facing and believes UW System can help meet these needs.

Chair Sandgren adjourned the meeting at 3:08.