Academic Staff Communications Committee

Meeting Minutes for December 10, 2010

11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

302 Teacher Education Building (conference room just outside the main entrance to the MERIT Library at the top of the stairs).

Present: Alice Pulvermacher, Mark Lilleleht, Greg Iaccarino, Renee Meiller, Dick Geier, Bob Ash, Brian Rust (notes)

1. Reviewed and approved minutes from November 12, 2010 meeting.

2. We briefly discussed progress on the proposal we sent to ASEC. No response yet. We also talked about the forum on union representation, held at the Red Gym several weeks ago.

3. Greg reported that Brian Deith of the Districting and Representation Committee (DRC) has set up new district e-mail listserves. Uses WiscList Custom. Joint training session of reps will be held either at the February 2011 Academic Staff Assembly meeting or a future meeting.

4. Greg reported that Donna and Heather have a proposal from DoIT for converting the AS web to WiscWeb CMS. No word on acceptance yet.

5. We inquired about a communications protocol for Assembly Reps to distribute information to their districts. It is distributed unevenly now. Perhaps make that part of our communications plan (requirement?) going forward.

6. We discussed two new things for next year's communications plan. One is to add a "5 Questions with an Academic Staff" interview format to prompt easier access to infomation about academic staff. We also recommend a monthly note from Donna be produced and emailed to all Academic Staff.

Communications Plan is at:

Communications Committee

7. There was also discussion about the current format and structure of Academic Staff Assembly meetings. The Ad Hoc Communications Committee (which preceded our standing committee) focused on strategies to evaluate, improve, and make suggestions for the structure of the meeting, as well as ways for Assembly Reps to communicate and network with each other in a more informal fashion.

Greg shared that at that time, there were Assembly Rep brown bags and listening sessions that occurred in 260 Bascom (conference room on same floor as 272 Bascom (Assembly Meeting room). At these sessions, Assembly reps informally talked about topics and issues in more of a two-way format of conversation. ASEC members were also at these meetings and they were also a part of the small group disucssions. The small groups talked about topics of mutual interest, best practices of communicating with their districts, and also talked about certain issues that would be later discussed and voted upon at the Assembly Meeting that same day. In addition, there were repositories created of sample messages that were sent by Assembly Representatives to their district members. These repositories served as helpful resource guides for Representatives seeking ideas and techniques for communicating with their districts. All in all, this process helped create more of a sense of community and engagement, as well as a chance for Representatives, ASEC members and other committee members to more openly and informally connect with their fellow colleagues.

Next steps are for us to further think about these concepts and develop possible proposals to ASEC and the Assembly to incorporate these techniques. This may also help the Assembly representatives better communicate with their districts and also obtain better input from district members on what issues are on their mind (as an additional aspect to the survey that we sent out to academic staff in May of 2010).

8. Spring semester schedule of meetings will stay on the second Friday of the month from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. until further notice. Next meet: Friday, January 7, 11:30-1.