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Academic Staff Assembly Minutes 10-13-14

APPROVED 11-10-14

ACADEMIC STAFF ASSEMBLY MEETING MINUTES
272 Bascom Hall
Monday, October 13, 2014
3:30 to 5:00 p.m.


Provost Sarah Mangelsdorf called the meeting to order at 3:31 p.m.

Automatic Consent: The Academic Staff Assembly minutes of Monday, September 8, 2014, were approved as distributed.  

Standing Committee and Other Reports

•    ASEC – Heather McFadden announced that ASEC is currently collecting nominees for the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education Search and Screen Committee.  Work on the Diversity Framework is beginning.  The Office of the Secretary of the Academic Staff will send out information on how to participate in committees that will begin to decide how to implement the recommendations.  Since the last Assembly meeting, there was an orientation for representatives, alternates and shared governance committee members.  Jim Rogers hosted a panel with Barb Smith Simons, Scott Mellor, Drew Lokuta, and Ron Harris.  ASEC would like to hear about any changes you would like to see next year.  Lastly, the first ever shared governance reception for academic staff, classified staff, and faculty was held last week.  This hopefully will become an annual tradition.  

Heather McFadden recognized outgoing standing committee chairs including Donna Cole, Nominating Committee; Lisa Jansen, Nominating Committee; Dija Selimi, Mentoring Committee; Brenda Spychalla, Mentoring Committee; Curtis Ryals, Professional Development and Recognition Committee; Bob Ash, Communications Committee, and Peter Kleppin, Communications Committee.

A document summarizing ASEC business for the last month was distributed prior to the Assembly meeting.  Heather McFadden solicited questions pertaining to the document.  

•    Professional Development and Recognition Committee – Stephanie Kutz reported that the fall round of Professional Development grants are due on Friday, October 17.

Business
ASPP Changes Chapter 13.03 (ASA #533)-Second vote

There was a motion to approve by Jeanne Hendricks (District #458).  Seconded.  Motion approved.

Changes to ASPP Covered ASPP Chapter 13.05 (ASA #535)
There was a motion to approve by Bruno Browning (ASEC).  Seconded.  Approved.

Academic Staff Governance Priorities 2014-15 (ASA #536)/2013-14 Academic Staff Governance Priorities and Accomplishments (ASA #537)-

ASEC Chair Heather McFadden reviewed the two documents with the Assembly.

Guest: Chancellor Rebecca Blank

Chancellor Blank thanked everyone for participating in shared governance.  She also introduced Provost Mangelsdorf, who was chairing her first Assembly meeting.  She has spent a lot of time in the past year getting to know members of stakeholder communities.  

There is good news to report on current students.  There were a record number of applications last year, and this year’s class is one of largest numbers in terms of Wisconsin residents.  Undergrad retention rate was 95.3%, and the six year graduation rate was 84.8%.  Both are records.

Fund balances from tuition will have declined from 14% to 8%.  Much of the money remaining is already committed.  With no additional funding from the state, UW-Madison would need to cut approx. 4% of all state/tuition dollar programs.  The tuition freeze will be proposed to continue for another two years.  The Board of Regents are requesting an additional $95 million over the biennium.  If fully funded, it would fill nearly the entire budget gap with a ½% cut.  The Chancellor has asked schools/colleges/divisions to conduct an exercise on how to implement cuts of 2, 4 and 6%.  She intends to continue to work on tuition increases for out of state students and some professional schools.  UW-Madison should be charging the market rate.  The debate on the budget will not start until after the November elections.  The governor will put together the budget for presentation in February.  

UW-Madison did receive approval for HR Design this past spring.  This will start July 1, 2015.  People are the most important asset that the university has.  This approval provides 80% of what UW-Madison has asked for.  The remainder requires statutory changes.  The new system could benefit a lot of staff across campus.  For example, all full-time employees will be paid the Madison living wage starting July 1, 2015.  

On the issue of salaries, UW-Madison employees have received 1% pay raises the last two years.  UW-Madison has also done some targeted salary increases.  New dollars in the next couple of years will go to funding these types of targeted salary increases.  

There is no relationship between the new budget model and any budget cuts or shortfalls.  UW-Madison needs a more transparent metric to direct state and tuition funds as well as indirect funds from research grants.  The metric will never direct all dollars, but some share of the funds available.  The implementation will be done slowly.  The budget model will only apply to the way that funds are allocated to schools and colleges.

The Ad Hoc Diversity Planning Committee made 30 recommendations in May 2014.  The next steps are ready to launch.  Six working groups will be put together this fall to work on some of these recommendations.

New Business

Bill Tishler announced he would put together a meeting for members of the Assembly to meet and talk about issues being discussed by the Assembly.  Assembly representatives and alternates should watch their email for more information.

Meeting was adjourned at 4:32 p.m.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff


Keywords:
ASA Minutes 
Doc ID:
44819
Owned by:
Lesley F. in The Office of the Secretary/ Academic Staff
Created:
2014-11-12
Updated:
2020-07-13
Sites:
The Office of the Secretary/ Academic Staff