Approved 11-14-22

 

ACADEMIC STAFF ASSEMBLY MEETING MINUTES

272 Bascom Hall

Monday, October 10, 2022

3:30 to 5:00 p.m.

 

Provost Karl Scholz called the meeting to order at 3:31 p.m.

 

Memorial Resolution for Sandra Arfa (ASA #794)

Gail Ibele presented the memorial resolution for Sandra Arfa.

 

Guest: Kristen Roman, Chief of Police, UW-Madison Police Department

Chief Roman provided an overview of UWPD’s Equity Dashboard. A priority for UWPD is to engage with the community and get feedback through a variety of mechanisms. Greater engagement with students has also been a specific focus. UWPD’s website has a great deal of information to answer people’s questions, and they are working on making it more user-friendly. They are also working with campus partners so that software issues don’t impact the end user. The Equity Dashboard is the result of an 18-month engagement process that began in Summer 2020 with stakeholders across campus. This process was born out of a racial equity initiative through UWPD, and one of the goals of that initiative was the Equity Dashboard. The engagement process allowed UWPD to hear from people in various roles across the campus community during a time when people were isolated due to the pandemic and when people were looking closely at the role of police on campus in the wake of the George Floyd murder. The dashboard begins with the demographics of the department and contains data in a variety of areas, including use of force, complaints, and other information under open records law. While there are reporting requirements at state and federal levels, the Equity Dashboard also contains data that is not necessarily required but contains more finely tuned information that the community wanted to see to ensure that the department is practicing fair and equitable policing. The dashboard offers many ways to filter the data presented, with comparisons for age, race, UW affiliation, and several others. The process of putting the dashboard together stressed the importance of community input. The dashboard also serves as a tool for the UWPD to convene members of the department and community members to look for disparate impacts of policing and review was remedies might be necessary. There has been a lot of interest in other departments potentially using UWPD’s dashboard as a model.

 

Guest: Kacie Lucchini Butcher, Director, Public History Project

Kacie Lucchini Butcher reviewed the work of the UW-Madison Public History Project. In the 1920’s, there were two student organizations that bore the name of the Ku Klux Klan. In 2017, Chancellor Rebecca Blank commissioned a committee of historians and community members to study the Ku Klux Klan’s presence on campus and report their findings to the university. In the report, there are three recommendations, one which involved a question around what other histories of discrimination and resistance that were missing from this report. The Public History Project aims to recover and acknowledge the history of exclusion on campus through the voices of those who experienced and resisted it. There are two ways that make this project unique: the broad scope of history of both discrimination and resistance covered by the project, and the public products that the project has generated. In addition to a report, the project has also produced a public exhibit, a complementary website, several events and public programming, and educational tools for the institution. One of the most important aspects of the project is the focus on reckoning, which entails: 1) the process of figuring out where these instances of discrimination and resistance occurred; 2) making space for the feelings, opinions, and judgments regarding these instances; and 3) determining the ways the project informs action on campus going forward. One of the biggest products of the project is the Sifting and Reckoning exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art that runs through December 23, 2022. Everything in the gallery is also online to allow greater access and engagement, with over 300 digital assets and additional stories not seen in the gallery. The Public History Project also offers teaching guides for faculty, staff, and students, with primary source documents and recommended secondary readings. There is also a full digital event library, with many more public programs and events to come. A final report will serve as a process document for how the project accomplished its work. The project is set to end as of July 2023.

 

Automatic Consent Business

The Academic Staff Assembly minutes of Monday, September 12, 2022, were approved.

 

Reports

ASEC Chair Mallory Musolf presented the ASEC report. Mallory recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a day that honors the past, present, and future of native peoples across the United States. UW-Madison occupies ancestral Ho-Chunk land. Outside Bascom Hall, the flag of the Ho-Chunk Nation is raised, and nearby resides the Our Shared Future marker, which recognizes a shared history with the Ho-Chunk Nation and UW-Madison’s commitment to a shared future of collaboration and respect for the inherent sovereignty of the Ho-Chunk Nation and the eleven other First Nations of Wisconsin. Mallory reminded attendees that the deadline for submitting Academic Staff Professional Development Grant applications is October 24. The deadline for submitting Executive Education Grants is October 31. The Diversity Forum will take place on November 14-15. The Secretary of the Academic Staff Office will soon send out a call inviting academic staff to submit or update their interest in serving on shared governance committees. At the November 14 Assembly meeting, the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic and University Staff Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will present the committee’s report and recommendation. ASEC plans to introduce a document to endorse those recommendations at that meeting, and the report will be shared with representatives and alternates after today’s meeting to have time to review before the November 14 meeting.

 

Jenny Dahlberg presented the ASPRO report. The Academic Staff Professionals Representation Organization spans all academic staff across all UW System institutions. ASPRO strives to connect those academic staff to each other and supports the work of a lobbyist advocating on behalf of academic staff with state government. The results of the election will have significant impact on the Regents’ biennial budget proposal. Jenny encouraged anyone who hasn’t joined to sign up and is willing to answer questions that anyone might have on the organization.

 

Donna Cole presented the report on 2021-22 Academic Staff Assembly business (ASA #795). The Assembly voted on 10 resolutions and changes to Academic Staff Policies and Procedures (ASPP). The summary document provides information on the outcome of the resolutions, and the policy changes have been made to ASPP.

 

Resolution Supporting Continuation of the Public History Project (ASA #796)

Albert Muniz, ASEC Member, moved the approval of ASA Document #796, the Resolution Supporting Continuation of the Public History Project. Seconded. Approved.

 

Provost Report

Provost Scholz thanked Gideon Elliott for his service as parliamentarian for the Assembly during the fall semester. The Provost also acknowledged the raising of the Ho-Chunk flag, which is up this week for Indigenous Peoples’ Day and will be up for the whole month of November as well. Dean Guido Podesta will be retiring from his position of the Dean of the International Division at the end of the calendar year. Provost Scholz has charged a committee to conduct a national search for the next Dean of the International Division. He also thanked Jeff Russell and Jeff Novak for co-chairing the UW-Madison Partners in Giving campaign. The tenth-day enrollment figures are now out. We have our largest first year class in history, with 8,628 students chosen from over 60,000 applicants. We admitted 3,000 fewer students than last year, but our yield rate also went up significantly after several years of decline. Next year’s target is 8,100 students, so that the institution can absorb the larger number of students over the last two years. The incoming class is the most racially and ethnically diverse class in our history, with more than 31% of our students being students of color, and more than half of those from historically underrepresented groups. UW-Madison is one of the top 10 public institutions in the country for 6-year graduation rates, and our time to degree has been under four years for the fourth consecutive year. Our retention rate after freshman year is over 95%, and nearly 60% of our undergraduates graduate with no debt. This fall, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on cases that may have substantial repercussions on use of race and ethnicity in university admissions and hiring decisions. This is also a state budget year. The Regents have put forward a strong budget proposal. The highest building priority is for UW-Madison’s new Engineering Building. There is also a proposal for program revenue bonding to help us move capital projects forward, as well as a request for a fully funded pay plan of 4% in each year of the biennium. The budget proposal also includes a funding request for the Wisconsin Tuition Promise, a program for other UW System institutions modeled after Bucky’s Tuition Promise. Chancellor Mnookin is in the middle of a listening and learning process with campus stakeholders. She believes strongly in the Wisconsin Idea, the Wisconsin Experience, access through Bucky’s Tuition Promise, shared governance, and creating more spaces for collaboration. She will attend the November Assembly meeting.

 

Meeting adjourned at 4:56 pm.

 

Minutes submitted by Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff