Members Present: Donna Cole; Aaron Crandall; Jenny Dahlberg; Tim Dalby; Mallory Musolf; Kevin Niemi, chair; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron

Guests: Rebecca Blank, Diane Blaskowski, Ron Harris, Carol Hulland, Cathy Middlecamp, 

Missy Nergard, Meghan Owens, Jake Smith, Shana Ullsvik, Carol Van Hulle, Mark Walters 

The meeting was called to order at 2:04 p.m.

The minutes of February 7, 2019, were approved.

Cathy thanked ASEC and the Academic Staff Assembly for the sustainability resolution. Cathy and Missy shared information on the STARS program, which is the national metric for sustainability in higher education. There are four different areas where the campus is rated: Academics, Engagement, Operations and Planning & Administration. They are putting together a steering committee that should be stood up in the next week or so. They are looking for members who can readily get data for the report.  There are several areas of campus that are out of scope for the STARS project including UW Hospital, Agriculture Experimental Stations and Research Park.

Chancellor Blank provided ASEC with an update on the state budget, accessibility of UW-Madison for students, and expanded academic offerings. UW System’s request for additional funds includes 25% that would be distributed through performance metrics and 75% for high demand programs. They also asked for 3% salary increases in both years of the biennium that are fully funded by the state due to the continuing tuition freeze that would typically cover 30% of the increase. They also asked for an increase in student financial aid. 

In regards to the capital budget, there was one biennium in the last several years that didn’t include any maintenance money. In addition, there is a huge backlog of deferred maintenance on campus.  The Board of Regents discussed this issue at their recent meeting. The Veterinary Medicine renovation and addition is the first priority for campus. UW System is also asking for greater flexibility around doing capital projects. 

About 1,000 students are part of the Bucky’s Tuition Promise and Badger Tuition Promise. Bucky’s Tuition Promise didn’t have any effect on this year’s freshman applications since it wasn’t announced until after the application deadline. UW-Madison is working on getting the word out to community groups, counselors and families. The fundraising campaign is coming to a close. Fundraising efforts will be focused on student scholarships for the remaining period. They have raised money for close to 4,000 scholarships to far. 

Chancellor Blank also discussed ways that UW-Madison is working to diversify its academic offerings.  This includes some 3-year degree programs. Programs that are able to do this will be asked to make it more obvious how to complete their degree in three years. There are also several early start programs that allow incoming students to come to campus before their begin in the fall.  There is a program for international students, CALS, and Engineering. L&S is starting a program this year. They are also looking at gap year options for students between high school and freshman that would involve studying abroad. 

Another opportunity being worked on is creating some online only degree programs. These would allow non-traditional students to obtain a degree from UW-Madison. They plan to select 1-2 majors based on market data. Courses offered would have to include general education and advanced coursework in the major. Departments would oversee curriculum. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but there are not a lot of competitors in the upper midwest offering these types of degrees.

Mark and Diane introduced the new project manager for TTC, Shana Ullsvik.  The end of the revision process is near for the Standard Job Descriptions. Nearly 72% of reviewers have completed their reviews. They are compiling data into a spreadsheet and creating a process to look at that data.  They are going to create revision teams that will look at the feedback, revise the standard job descriptions and track what has happened to the feedback. They will also identify where new standard job descriptions are needed. The teams will be composed of two subject matter experts from UW-Madison, two from UW System and a compensation and title analyst. There are 21 job groups, some of which will be split into smaller subgroups for a total of 29 groups. 

Following the revisions, there will be a quality assurance process looking at the revised standard job descriptions and creating the new ones. The quality assurance teams will consist of 3-5 members including a subject matter expert, compensation and title analyst as well as others from the TTC committees and UW System. There could be a loop between the revision teams and quality assurance teams until the descriptions are satisfactory for both groups. Following this process, the standard job descriptions will be available for campus review. 

The timeline for this process includes a pilot group that will begin on March 4 and end on March 24. The other groups will start after March 24 with a desired completion date of May 31. After that employees and supervisors will have conversations to determine what job description best fits the employee’s job. Employees and supervisors will begin by looking at the suggested job description for that person.

Changes to the UW System TTC Advisory Council are underway as a way to better engage UW System campuses.  The previous iteration of the committee only had 1 representative for each employee group for all of UW System. The new proposal involves using the UW System governance representatives groups as members of the committee. 

They are also creating a UW-Madison TTC Advisory Group. This would allow the TTC team to engage governance in more depth. Calls have been sent out for membership. Each group has been asked to provide one at-large member as well as one member from the executive body. The secretaries will also serve on the group.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC chair, reported on the request for members to serve on the UW-Madison TTC Advisory Group. ASEC asked Heather to send out a call for the at large members to academic staff who have been involved in the TTC process through governance appointment.

Heather Daniels reported that a ballot is going to be sent out from her office to academic staff in Wisconsin Public Media regarding their preference for Assembly representation once they move to UW-Madison on July 1. There was another Big Ten Staff Advocacy teleconference that featured presentations from Purdue and Nebraska. Of note was Nebraska which has two dues paying advocacy groups that have seats on university committees. 

•March Assembly Agenda

ASEC reviewed the March Assembly agenda. Chancellor Blank will be addressing the group. The Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee will do an overview of their committee. In addition, the slates for the standing committees will be presented for additions.

•Topics for Provost and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration

Provost

Transition Issues

Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration

Infrastructure Repairs

Capital Budget

ERP Update

Meeting adjourned at 4:23 p.m.