Approved 01-07-21

 

ASEC Minutes

2:00 – 4:30 p.m. Thursday, December 10, 2020

https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/93921129494

Members Present: Donna Cole; Jenny Dahlberg, chair; Tim Dalby; Stephanie Elkins; Mallory Musolf; Leslie Petty; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron; Bill Tishler

Guests: Diane Blaskowski, Lesley Fisher, Alyson Kim, Beth Meyerand, Mark Walters

The meeting was called to order at 2:01 p.m.

The minutes of December 3 were approved with one correction.

General Reports

Jenny Dahlberg, ASEC chair, reported on recent meetings with Beth Meyerand and Mark Walters, the topics of which will be discussed later in the ASEC meeting. The meeting of the chiefs of staff, chairs, and secretaries was cancelled on Tuesday, but the meeting on Friday will go forward. Any questions should be provided to her or Jake.

Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that he was working with OHR to continue to support the Research Professionals Conference, and a small planning group is looking at when and how the conference might take place in 2021. Some of the email lists managed by the office have converted to Google Groups, and those that haven’t yet will in the near future. Jake, Lesley, and Jenny met with the CALS CASI to go over the essential functions of a CASI. Jake will meet with them further to assist with the group’s strategic plan.

Liaison Reports

Mallory Musolf reported on the recent meeting of the UW System Reps. The meeting was originally supposed to include updates regarding TTC and the employee value proposition, but the meeting was a listening session on working with shared governance. There was discussion about the acknowledgment of the importance of governance from the System level.

Bill Tishler reported that the University Committee discussed draft changes to FPP regarding promotion to full professor. The DCS CASI is holding a session with the associate dean for finance on return to onsite work.

Stephanie Elkins reported that the Communications Committee now has a full committee again after the appointment of Kelly Loughlin. The committee is still doing its inventory of the existing academic staff website (in service of work on a new site) and will work on the academic staff newsletter after that.

Tim Dalby reported that the Mentoring Committee will be holding an event for its Mentor Match Program next Wednesday. The PPPC has all but finished looking at revisions to ASPP Chapter 14, and they will also be looking at a potential change to the Assembly schedule in terms of the January meeting. At ASM, resolutions on the telecommuting policy for international students and pass/fail grading were voted on.

Deb Shapiro attended the recent Librarians Assembly Steering Committee meeting. They were contacted by the Office of Sustainability for updates on its efforts, similar to the ones that ASEC will be receiving later in January.

Motion to Convene in Closed Session Pursuant to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) and (f) to Discuss Nominations to the Chief Diversity Officer Search and Screen Committee and the Distinguished Prefix Review Committee (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

Motion to Reconvene in Open Session (Dalby). Seconded. Approved.

Business

·         Nominations – for vote

Motion to nominate James Drews and Joy Kirkpatrick to the Distinguished Prefix Review Committee (Cole). Seconded. Approved.

Motion to nominate Kacie Lucchini Butcher, Douachong Lee, José Madera, and Mari Magler to the Chief Diversity Officer Search and Screen Committee (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

Guests: Mark Walters, Chief Human Resources Officer, and Diane Blaskowski, Director of Talent Rewards, Office of Human Resources

Mark discussed the issues with international telecommuting and student hourly employees. OHR did a full review of provisions in June and looked at numerous risks and liabilities associated with this. It was decided that due to the risks involved, campus would only allow those in ongoing positions to work outside the country. They let the HR community know that new appointments should be paused or not started, which created concerns with partners in ASM. HR met with ASM on several occasions. They looked at the ASM positions again a couple of days ago, and granted an exception for ASM positions for 3 to 5 individuals.

On the topic of ALRA banking, there have been several discussions about expanding ability of employees to bank leave to provide some relief to the big banks of vacation that have been building up. The debate is between flexibility to build leave vs. fiscal liability of having to pay out those hours. There is also advocacy for people taking the vacation that they need to avoid burnout. A possible solution involves enabling those employees with less than 10 years of service to do a one-time bank of up to 40 hours and continuing to roll over hours otherwise. The hope is to have a final decision on this by the end of the calendar year.

Regarding vaccine administration, there are still decisions being made as how that plays out on campus. There have been discussions about whether to mandate or strongly encourage taking the vaccine, and no decisions have been made yet. Healthcare providers are in Tier 1A. Tier 1B includes residential life and other essential workers. UW Health will be a hub for the vaccine, and decisions are still being made on whether UW will be an active administrator of the vaccine.

Diane discussed the progress of the single payroll initiative. OHR is working with UW System and UW-Madison’s Office of Strategic Consulting to build a project plan and charter for this. They are identifying all of the areas that will be impacted and designing the plan around those impacts. On Monday, a group met with leadership of all functional areas that will be impacted and asked that they assign subject matter experts and leads on a core team scheduled to kickoff next week. Another team is looking at HRS to determine what development needs to happen, and another group is working on other change management issues. There will be live forums for employees to get answers to questions, as well as financial and budgeting seminars, and a call center to get questions answered by a live person. July 18 is the date for implementation. Paying 9-month appointees over 12 months (“9-over-12”) isn’t in scope for this project, and pre-pays for benefits are also out of scope. ASEC asked that shared governance be more involved in these efforts as they get underway.

Guest: Beth Meyerand, Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Affairs

Vice Provost Meyerand discussed how her office would be working with the Campus Committee on Diversity Education and Training. She is hoping that the committee will complete its work by the end of the spring semester. The vision for the group is that they will develop a scaffolding for the training in the form of outlines, but not the curriculum itself. The committee is also charged to do the important work of discussing values and shared goals about diversity, equity, and inclusion for our campus. There is also a question of how many types of curriculum outlines are needed (e.g. the notion of a baseline curriculum followed by other courses depending on work area, employee category, or other factors. There are groups looking at training that already exists for students, as well as existing training for employees on this campus and at peer institutions. The next meeting of the committee will hopefully before winter break to talk about shared values. There are 22 members on the committee, and they are a very engaged membership. The committee will likely meet on a biweekly basis for the next 6 months. The University Committee also reached out to Beth to work on a task force for faculty and family care. There is the question of how to engage these issues with academic staff as well. ASEC suggested that any group that was put together on this issue should have academic and university staff membership in addition to faculty. There was also the discussion of whether it made sense to have distinct groups for each employee category. It was also recommended that this be discussed further by the Committee on Women in the University. ASEC also discussed the progress of the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic and University Staff Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and how further partnership with Vice Provost Meyerand’s office might happen in the future.

Business

·         January Assembly Agenda

ASEC discussed a possible agenda for a January meeting if one is held.

·         Athletic Board Selection Discussion

There will be a mid-term vacancy toward the end of the spring semester on the Athletic Board. ASEC discussed how the process worked earlier in the year and agreed that the process worked well.

·         Topics for Guests

Provost: mental health for students

OHR: COVID leave and what happens when it runs out

Meeting adjourned at 4:25 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Jake Smith, Secretary of the Academic Staff