Members Present: Bruno Browning; Donna Cole; Jenny Dahlberg; Beth Giles; Mallory Musolf; Kevin Niemi, chair; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron

Guests: Sophia Calzavara, Laurent Heller, Scott Hildebrandt, David Murphy, Jake Smith, Lori Reesor

The meeting was called to order at 1:38 p.m.

The minutes of August 23, 2018, were approved with corrections.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC Chair, reported on the Office of Human Resources (OHR) meeting. Mark Walters shared information about $0 appointments and the financial impact on campus, mainly due to the Microsoft Office contract.  Kevin also shared that this year’s Discretionary Compensation Fund will be the same as last year at $11 million.  There has been a discussion on changing of job posting requirements. Currently positions above a salary of $72,418 have to post for a minimum of four weeks.  OHR would like to raise this to above $109,000.

 

The Academic Staff Assembly Orientation was last week. It went well. The Provost did a great job, and attendees really appreciated her remarks.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that she and Kevin participated in a conference call with other Big Ten staff advocacy groups.  There was agreement to collect information on all the different groups and also hold follow-up phone calls.  

•September Assembly Agenda

Heather switched the timing of reports and the Office of Human Resources guest on Title and Total Compensation Project due to the timing of a similar presentation made at the University Staff Congress the same day.  Lindsey is working on a resolution recognizing the change made by the Group Insurance Board regarding transgender health care. She will send a draft of this resolution to Heather. The resolution is intended for the September Assembly Agenda.

•Pre-Assembly Orientation

Donna and Jenny agreed to assist with this. Heather and Jake will contact an Assembly member to help.

•Topics for Provost

Topics from last time will carry over due to the Provost being unable to attend.  

Vice Chancellor Heller introduced the Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance, David Murphy. This position will help connect the different areas of finance throughout the university.

Laurent discussed the Foxconn agreement that was announced this past week. He says that this is an exciting development for the university, but that we need to wait to see how it comes together. The current agreement is not a contract but rather a letter of intent or a letter of agreement. UW-Madison began talking to Foxconn about one year ago. The agreement also includes a $100 million gift. A majority of that money will be going to a new building on the Engineering campus.  UW-Madison is developing a master memorandum of understanding for research with Foxconn.

Laurent also discussed the implementation of the policy regarding sexual harassment questions in reference checks and personnel file sharing. This policy will need to be implemented by January 2019. They are using the UW System policy as the basis for the UW-Madison policy. Governance will need to be involved with creation of this policy during the fall.

Laurent also discussed the multi-factor authentication process that will be implemented during the current academic year throughout campus. Employees will need to use this process for NetID login. 

Kevin provided an overview of academic staff governance. Lori Ressor holds a new position on campus. There are four units reporting to her including University Health Services, Recreational Sports, the Union and Dean of Students Office. She and those in her division will need to establish the differences between the Dean of Students office and the VCSA office responsibilities. She sees her role as being strategic compared to the Dean of Students office. She told ASEC that issues that used to go to the Dean of Students will continue to go to the Dean of Students office. 

One of the things Lori will be focusing on is the UHS director search. This was paused last year. They have done some focus groups within UHS and will be deciding how to move forward soon. 

One of Associate Dean of Students positions has been filled. They have also hired an interim Associate Dean of Students for a year. There are plans to begin the hiring process for a new Dean of Students starting sometime in the fall. 

Lori says she is happy to meet with ASEC regularly if that is helpful.  

ASEC recommended looking into creating a Committee on Academic Staff Issues (CASI) for VCSA. None of the units under her currently have CASIs. 

Meeting adjourned at 3:35p.m.