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

Guests: Sherry Boeger, Stephanie Elkins, Susan Fuszard, Julie Karpelenia, Patrick Sheehan

The meeting was called to order at 2:32 p.m.

The minutes of May 2 were approved.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC chair, shared that he and Heather would be giving a presentation on academic staff shared governance at the next Big 10 staff advocacy conference call.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported on the virtual chat for academic staff.  The chat was aimed at academic staff working outside of Madison. It was a great chat and a lot of good information was shared. She plans to work on issues related to remote employees during the coming year. The number of academic staff working off campus will increase dramatically with the addition of Cooperative Extension academic staff.

Heather participated in a virtual information session for Cooperative Extension academic staff along with two UW-Madison academic staff who are also part of Cooperative Extension.

Tim Dalby provided an update on the Letters and Science Academic Planning Council (APC). There was a segment of academic staff (academic staff on terminal appts) not allowed to put in a nomination or vote in the APC election. This same list was also used for the CASI elections.  A reminder is being sent out about the CASI ballot, which will include the academic staff missing from the initial list. The APC has also met and clarified that while academic staff on terminal appointments are not eligible to serve due to the appointment period, they are eligible to vote.

Sherry Boeger reported that the Employee Assistance Office is adding a vendor, LifeMatters, who will start providing services on June 1. This will allow the office to operate 24/7, 365 days a year and provide services to employees not in Madison. LifeMatters will have Master’s level counselors who answer calls and also will do text and video counseling. They can also provide face-to-face counseling within 20 miles of an employee’s residence. They will do 1-5 counseling sessions and can connect employees to area resources if additional care is needed. They will come to the Assembly in the fall to present on this.

Motion to appoint continuing representatives/alternates for the Academic Staff Assembly (Dahlberg). Seconded. Approved.

Patrick Sheehan and Julie Karpelenia have co-chaired a committee to transition policies from a labor contract into new policies and procedures. The committee was formed in collaboration with ASM and TAA. Phase one was completed last spring. The policies from phase one will be finalized and posted within the next couple of weeks. Phase two was looking at only the grievance procedure. They have been working on this for the last year. RAs, trainees and fellows were taken out of the document entirely and will be added at a later date following more extensive conversations.  Their next steps include finalizing phase two, reviewing the outcome of phase one with the committee and sharing the communication plan.

Last reflections

Meeting adjourned at 4:28 p.m.