Approved 03-23-23

ASEC Minutes

2:00 – 4:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9, 2023

53 Bascom Hall

https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/93936751067

Members Present: Donna Cole, vice chair; Tim Dalby; Stephanie Elkins; Alissa Ewer; Julie Hunt Johnson; Stephanie Jones; Albert Muniz; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron

Guests: Alisha Arnold, Lesley Fisher, Luisa Gerasimo, Jessica Karls-Ruplinger, Karl Scholz, Patrick Sheehan, Scott Wildman

The meeting was called to order at 2:00 p.m.

The minutes of March 2 were approved.

General Reports

Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that the Excellence Awards ceremony will be held on April 24. The deadline to register for events related to the Chancellor’s Investiture is March 10. The current ASEC election will close on March 15. Results will be announced at the April Assembly meeting. Deputy Secretary of the Academic Staff Lesley Fisher reported on the recent ASEC listening session. Topics raised included what was happening with data from the Staff Climate Survey, recommendation to create an award for those who mentor grad students, and questions related to allocation of grant dollars during the furloughs.

Liaison Reports

Lindsey Stoddard Cameron reported that the Campus Planning Committee heard a presentation from Facilities Planning and Management Director Cindy Torstveit and others on the capital budget planning process. The committee is also revisiting how presentations are heard regarding individual projects at the school/college/division level. Going forward, there will be one-page summaries for the committee to review for each project. The committee will hear a number of top-ranked presentations based on the committee’s evaluation of the summaries.

Stephanie Jones reported on the recent School of Education CASI meeting. The CASI discussed a community building event in early May within the School, as well as professional development grant funding within the School.

Tim Dalby reported on the International Division Dean finalist sessions. There were three finalists, and it was valuable to have a representative from the CASI at the sessions as well. The Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee met with Director of Workforce Relations Megan Dzyuba to discuss the personnel file policy and review a one-pager on the employee personnel file.

Alissa Ewer reported that the Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee has explored the notion of a pulse survey on TTC. OHR is not looking at doing this in the near term but potentially in the future. The committee is also looking at issues related to 9-month to 12-month appointment conversion, with questions of disproportionate impacts to women and caregivers, as well as looking at historical data to see what unintended impacts there may have been.

Guest: Karl Scholz, Provost

Provost Scholz discussed current COVID testing availability. Employees can still pick up antigen tests until supplies run out. Campus has not discussed further plans beyond the spring semester. We continue to watch case counts in Dane County.

Leadership and the communication team are reviewing the recent situation regarding safety concerns after threatening social media posts from a UW-Madison student. The FBI received a tip regarding threats to bring weapons to Bascom Hall. This was of particular concern in the wake of the recent Michigan State incident, and campus continues to look carefully at our communication procedures.

There hasn’t been much additional discussion of the UW System survey on free speech. Colleagues in PROFS and ASPRO held a public forum with panelists discussing the results of the survey and free speech on campus more broadly. One question that was posed at the forum related to the potential for a similar survey to be created for faculty and staff.

Communication is good between UW-Madison and UW System. Chancellor Mnookin and President Rothman meet regularly, and President Rothman is supportive of UW-Madison’s role as the System’s flagship institution.

Regarding next steps for the Staff Climate Survey findings, the Provost Office will share broad findings from qualitative responses with deans and directors and anticipates that they will identify areas to take action on. Provost Scholz will continue to raise the survey results with them and wants to work in partnership with schools/colleges/divisions to achieve progress on shared values.

Recently proposed legislation on limiting tuition increases in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) should not impact the Bucky’s Pell Pathway program. The proposed increase to tuition is less than the current CPI. The program gives greater visibility to our commitment to our students. There is work to be done on communication around Pell Grant terminology to families. ASEC also asked about specialized advising resources for students in the program, and the Provost will take that idea back for consideration.

Provost Scholz discussed the potential for a tuition waiver program for Native Nations students. Chancellor Mnookin is consulting with Native Nations leaders and is planning to meet with the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council in the near future.

There are multiple administrative searches in progress, including the International Division Dean, the Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications, and the Provost. Provost finalists will visit campus in early April.

Guests: Nick Tincher, Director of AIP, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration; and Kelly Gauthier, Transformation Readiness Lead, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration

Nick is currently serving as the Director of Administration Innovation and Planning (AIP) in the Office of the VCFA. Kelly joined Madison in her current role as of November with a primary focus on change readiness for the Administrative Transformation Program (ATP) and bringing in ancillary systems.

AIP is the newest unit in the VCFA Office, with a team of 13 people. Part of what the unit is doing is developing campus-wide engagement strategies around VCFA-sponsored initiatives. AIP aims to have a consistent experience for stakeholders for initiatives like ATP, TTC, and Procure 2 Pay; to prepare UW for future-focused administrative services with ATP; and to establish continuous improvement capabilities. In the past, Administrative Process Redesign looked at parts of processes. AIP wants to look at overall processes and ensure service delivery, knowing that technology is cloud-based for many of these processes. ATP is the driver for business process design and standardization, including data analytics and data storage, 995 ancillary systems to make sure proper integration is possible, document management (e.g. use of ImageNow for invoice and electronic personnel files, as well as student information), and business process integration and adoption.

Currently, we have a structure where UW System supports administration of PeopleSoft. We want to be intentional around how Workday is implemented and managed in the future. Workday has a methodology for implementation of the software, which carries over to ATP. We are now in the configuration and prototype stage. Customer confirmation sessions are occurring to ensure that what happened in the design phase over the last calendar year is complete and functional. After this will come testing and training in the second half of this calendar year. The ATP team is working on a training plan for employees on the Workday tool, and testing will occur both on our campus and others across UW System. There is also the question of how to capture areas that need additional attention when Workday is implemented, and the team is working to determine what levels of training different kinds of users need.

Regarding communication about ATP, each institution has a change readiness team. They are getting representatives from the schools/colleges/divisions and working on communication planning to address some of the anxieties that employees are feeling about ATP. The communications plan will be implemented in April or May, and later this month, a change readiness network will be launched. ATP had intended the customer confirmation sessions only for those involved in the design process, but they have been open to a broader audience as well. Nick’s team is working on a website as a curatorial hub to make it clear where to go for questions on ATP. The communication plan will also be fine-tuned with a third-party survey from a communications firm called CRMignite.

Guest: Patrick Sheehan, Chief Human Resources Officer

Patrick announced that Cultural Linguistic Services is in the process of rolling out second and third shift sessions on retirement benefits for English language learners, regardless of what stage they are at in their career.

Regarding accessibility of individual salary data, OHR has had discussions internally on this topic. OHR has posted clearer pay range information and how it applies to individual positions and is trying to publish that information more broadly. The Compensation Center of Excellence is also working on more information around how salaries are calculated in terms of experience within role and how that relates to salary quartiles. This also relates to work in TTC Phase 2 with competencies and knowledge/skills/abilities for specific titles, so that individuals know how to move within their titles or on to new ones. The hope is to also leverage ATP in this process, so that employees can see information on benefits as part of a total compensation package. We are continuing to work with UW System on this effort.

The Legislative Audit Bureau has been asked to perform an audit on remote work across state agencies. The scope of the audit includes review of policies, application forms, IT and facilities impacts, as well as climate impacts. There will be more information on this once the plan for implementation is known.

OHR has been working on its strategic plan over the last year. The next phase is to roll that plan out to each of the units within OHR. Eventually, the idea is to ensure that OHR’s structure is more visible to employees, so that they know what each unit’s core functions are, as well as who is on each team. OHR has recently hired a new webmaster, and Patrick is meeting with them next week to walk through a vision of a more employee-focused webpage with clear information for employees, supervisors, and HR personnel. In terms of information flowing from OHR through the schools/colleges/divisions, there is more work to be done with the HR community. There have also been discussions specifically about how ATP information will be communicated.

Maxima for salary ranges were temporarily raised in August. This increase did not change the quartiles. The compensation team will be meeting next week to discuss the market data refresh, with the hope of having an update at the end of May. The plan is to do this market refresh every two years, with specific market match data for each title. Related to titles with minima but no maxima (e.g. instructors, researchers, scientists), these titles are more aligned to faculty salary structures. OHR is looking to address these ranges using the salary administration guidelines, but there are no plans to have firm ranges.

Motion to Convene in Closed Session Pursuant to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c), and (f) to Discuss Appointment to the ASM Ginsburg Family Award Selection Committee (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

Motion to Reconvene in Open Session (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

Business

• Appointment—for vote

Motion to appoint Angela Ramos to the ASM Ginsburg Family Award Selection Committee (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

• April Assembly Meeting Agenda

The Chancellor is scheduled to attend, and Kathi Kilgore will provide an update on ASPRO activities. The Districting and Representation Committee will provide an update on the work they’ve done on districting logic related to revised TTC titles. ASEC discussed a possible resolution related to future iterations of the Staff Climate Survey.

• Topics for Guests

Provost: morale resolution feedback and partnering with him and successive leaders on moving things forward, transition, CASI communication

VCFA: West Campus District Planning, vision for professional development (follow-up from last meeting), impact of increased building costs on remodeling projects

OHR: Paid family leave strategy and communication to grad students, how will increase to maxima be communicated; question about remote work survey

Meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff