Approved 8-24-17


Members Present:  Bruno Browning; Mallory Musolf; Kevin Niemi, Chair; Jim Rogers; Deb Shapiro

Guests: Rebecca Blank, Laurent Heller, Michael Lenn, Sarah Mangelsdorf, Jake Smith

The meeting was called to order at 1:32 p.m.

The minutes of July 25, 2017, and July 27, 2017, were approved.

Guest: Michael Lenn, Director of Federal Relations
Michael Lenn shared his background with ASEC.  He worked for Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Representative in Congress.  He most recently worked as a legislative strategist for a financial institution.  He returned to campus once a month for two-four days.  He is primarily working with Wisconsin’s congressional delegation.  Current issues are mostly research related including F&A costs, fetal tissue research and NIH funding.  He also works with colleagues at other universities.

General Reports
Chair Kevin Niemi reported that he, Bruno and Heather met with Mark Walters and Patrick Sheehan, Office of Human Resources.  They discussed academic staff concerns regarding the Title and Total Compensation (TTC) Study.  He reported that the ASPRO board met last Friday and are considering a tiered membership structure for those who do not do payroll deduction.  

Secretary of the Academic Staff Heather Daniels shared this year’s Academic Staff Chats with ASEC.  The notice will be sent to academic staff three weeks before the first chat.  Each chat will be opened to registration three weeks before it is scheduled in an effort to reduce no-shows.  She and Jake have been working on statistics for the Professional Development grants in an effort to secure additional funding for this program.  She will share the document that has been developed after it is shared with PDRC.  ASEC will be asked to provide nominees for the TTC functional teams as well as an ad hoc committee on instructional titles that is being formed by the University Committee.  ASEC agreed that Heather and Kevin can talk with Michael Bernard-Donals about including language in the Discretionary Compensation Fund memo allowing academic staff and university staff to ask supervisors for an explanation if they do not receive an adjustment through this fund.  Heather will follow up with Steve Cramer about an ad hoc committee looking at syllabi that doesn’t contain any academic staff members on it.

Guest: Sarah Mangelsdorf, Provost
Provost Mangelsdorf reported that work was progressing on the TTC study.  There will be a draft job family framework that will be shared at fall forums.  UW-Madison recently received a draft Regent policy from UW System on IT use.  There are several concerns about this policy especially that is can’t be supplemented by institutional policies.  She expects a memo regarding compensation will be sent out sometime this fall.

Guest: Laurent Heller, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration
Vice Chancellor Heller reported that the state budget hasn’t move much since his last report.  Bills regarding Foxconn have been moving through the Assembly.
In regards to the Academic Benchmarking Consortium, his office is close to having some data that will be helpful.  They are at a point where they need to have meetings with subject experts to make sure that the division of staff worked correctly.  He estimates they will have good data to look at in the next 4-6 weeks.  Once this first round of data from 2013-14 is correct, they will be able to add two more years of data quickly.  This data will also eventually allow for school/college comparisons.

Guest: Rebecca Blank, Chancellor
Chancellor Blank reported that the campus’ entrepreneurial efforts are starting to pay off.  If the state budget passes in its present form, then there will not be a state pay plan this year.  There would be a pay plan in the second year of the biennium.  She expects that UW-Madison will be able to offer DCF funding again for the coming year.  She will be making announcements about compensation and faculty hiring at the Academic Leadership Summit in a couple weeks.  In addition, she anticipates being able to launch the Badger Promise program will begin this year, providing tuition grants to transfer in state students who are either first generation and/or Pell grant eligible. 

Business
•    Benefits Fair
ASEC agreed to have a table at the Benefits Fair on October 17.
•    September Assembly Agenda
ASEC reviewed the September Assembly agenda.  They asked Heather to invite Mary Luther to present to the group on TTC.  There will be a vote on a new ASEC member.  In addition, Madison Academic Staff Network and ASPRO have been invited to do a brief 5-minute overview of their organizations.  Jenny Dahlberg and Jim Rogers will also give an update to the Assembly on Assembly Engagement.
•    Assembly Orientation Plan
Heather and Jake reported that the plans for Assembly Orientation are the same as last year.  There will be a brief 90 minute session for all new representatives or alternates.  ASEC members are welcome to attend.  There will be a panel of current or former representatives as part of that session.  There will also be an orientation prior to the September Assembly meeting to orient new members to the room.  A skills workshop will be held in late September. 

Meeting adjourned at 4:01 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff