Members Present: Bruno Browning; Beth Giles; Mallory Musolf; Kevin Niemi, chair; Jim Rogers; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron

Guest: Sophia Calzavara, Ron Harris, Laurent Heller, Shane Hubbard, Mary Luther, Heather McFadden, Megan Spurgeon

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

The minutes of February 8, 2018, were approved.

ASEC Chair Kevin Niemi reported that Bruno, Heather and he attended the Leadership Breakfast.  Chancellor Blank gave a state of the university talk.  Norm Drinkwater, Laurent Heller, Sarah Mangelsdorf and Charlie Hoslet also spoke.  The new Budget in Brief booklet is out.  Statistics were shared regarding applications for undergraduate admission.  Out of state applications are up about 30% and in state applications are up as well.  Laurent reported that revenue continued to grow during the past fiscal year.  

Secretary of the Academic Staff Heather Daniels reported that the Ad Hoc Shared Governance Extension/Madison Workgroup met for the second time.  It still doesn’t seem to be clear to those participating what the purpose or goal of the meetings is.  A new pool of professional development money, $12,500, will be given to academic staff wishing to take courses from the Division of Continuing Studies and the Office of Learning and Talent Development.  The Secretary of the Academic Staff office has been tasked with figuring out a mechanism to distribute the funds.  Heather met with a student doing a class project to create a shared governance website.

Mary Luther indicated that she appreciated the feedback from the TTC resolution passed by the Academic Staff Assembly and that Human Resources has no objections to them.  Mary plans to provide a letter to ASEC stating agreement to the suggestions and also providing the Assembly with more information on what they are working on in regards to the suggestions.  

The change to the outreach family description has already been made.  There is another request from Outreach family to move youth programming back to Outreach.  They are open to changing the multifunctional name, but do not have another option at this point.  

The plan is to have employees and managers work on job descriptions in June and July.  Instructional staff would do this in the fall.  The Job Family Functional Teams will look at the generic job descriptions before they are finalized.  

Vice Chancellor Heller shared the final version of the VCFA Strategic Plan.  He suggested that he could talk about one or two of the project charters when he comes to visit ASEC next.  

VCFA Heller explained the IT project among units reporting to him.  A subset of his Directors, led by Bobby Burrow of AIMS, reviewed IT activities and issued a report regarding ways to realize service improvements, cost improvements and rationalization of the model. The VCFA spends approximately $19 million per year on IT.  The report recommended having a VCFA IT governance group and better integration of service offerings.  The conversation regarding this project is starting.

•Shared Governance Ad Hoc Committee

The chair of the University Committee has asked with the ASEC chair or designee to serve on this committee, which will document shared governance practices on campus.  Beth Giles agreed to serve on this committee.  

•March Assembly Agenda

Due to the new timeline for the TTC study, ASEC plans to ask Elizabeth Schrimpf, the new career counselor for employees on campus if she can speak at the March Assembly meeting.  Lindsey Stoddard Cameron will ask if the annual reports from the Campus Diversity and Climate Committee (CDCC) and Committee for GLBTQ People in the University can be presented.  Heather will approach the Transportation Committee for their annual report.

Megan and Shane shared the committee’s report with ASEC.  The study had two parts: external data and internal data.  The external data subcommittee looked at 20 peer institutions and how they handle Ph.D. scientist titling.  All of these institutions, but two (UW-Madison and Indiana University) have a Research Professor title.  In addition 80% of those institutions grant PI status automatically to those in Research Professor positions.  All institutions had this title as non-tenure track faculty.  

The internal data subcommittee looked at internal data and also interviewed several directors/associate directors of research centers and institutes on campus.  

The committee agreed to unanimously recommend creation of the Research Professor title.  The criteria for the appointment would parallel tenure-track research qualifications and include a Ph.D.  The committee recommends that some level of salary support be provided to academic staff in this title so they can apply for grants.  Research Professors would also be eligible for intramural research funds. 

Meeting adjourned at 4:42 p.m.