Members Present: Bruno Browning; Donna Cole; Aaron Crandall; Jenny Dahlberg; Beth Giles; 

Mallory Musolf; Kevin Niemi, chair; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron

Guests: Michael Bernard-Donals, Casey Nagy, Jake Smith

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

The minutes of September 27, 2018, were approved with a correction.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that the Faculty Senate had a first reading of both the resolution regarding tenure for UW-Extension faculty and the resolution endorsing the Consensual Relationships Policy.  There were no objections raised to either one.  

The Shared Governance Reception went well.  Attendance was down a bit from last year, but there were still over 100 people.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC chair, reported that he, Mallory and Heather met with Patrick Sheehan and Mark Walters from the Office of Human Resources. He asked for standard job descriptions and was told that he would receive them at the next meeting. He attended the Division of Continuing Studies lunch on international efforts, both for credit and non-credit students. 

Jenny Dahlberg reported that the Veterinary Medicine CASI held a forum on VOIP with more than 30 in attendance.

Casey provided an update on activities regarding UW-Extension.  There was a comment offered on tenure at Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting expressing support. The resolution will advance to the November Faculty Senate meeting for a vote.

On Monday, Casey will meet with the Steering Team to get reports that will form a matrix for Cooperative Extension and Public Media. The full plan should be available by January. This is the same process he used for the Conference Centers transition.

Casey also met with representatives from participating IT groups. They are still trying to bring closure to the Conference Center and Mailing Services transition for IT four months post-transition. 

•UW-Madison/UW-Extension Academic Staff Policy Differences Summary

Kevin and Deb Shapiro presented the summary of policy differences that were found when comparing UW-Madison and UW-Extension academic staff governance policies and procedures concerning human resources. Of particular note are notice periods for layoff and non-renewal, which can be as long as 24 months in UW-Extension, even with no additional job security, and filing time allowed for a grievance, which is 1-2 additional months for UW-Extension academic staff. UW-Extension Academic Staff Council will be putting forward requests to Deans of the UW-Extension units to address some of these issues.

•Topics for Provost

US News and World Report Rankings

Board of Regents meeting 

ASEC asked Michael Bernard-Donals about the possibility of communication plans for central compensation funds being collected centrally.  Michael indicated that this was not currently part of the process, and he felt that there would be resistance to this idea.  

Michael discussed the Target of Opportunity Program. UW-Madison has put additional funds into the program and changed a couple things. The program is designed to attract under-represented faculty members.  

Under the old guidelines, the university contributed central funds for 80% of the salary during the first year; 50% of the salary during the second year and after that provided no salary support.  Now the university will contribute up to $90,000 for either 6 years for an Assistant Professor or 5 years for an Associate or Full Professor.  After that period, the university will continue to pay half the amount in perpetuity.  

There have been a lot of questions about who is considered under-represented.  The program would include women in STEM, historically under-represented race and ethnicity as well as men in nursing.  The department is able to make the argument about who would count as under-represented is based on the field.  

So far the program has generated a tremendous amount of interest and demand.  The intent of the program is to create a critical mass and be intentional about creating community.  Michael asked ASEC to think about what a similar program might look like for staff.

Meeting adjourned at 4:05p.m.