Academic Staff Assembly Minutes 09-17-18

Provost Sarah Mangelsdorf called the meeting to order at 3:33 p.m.  

Memorial Roll Call: Provost Sarah Mangelsdorf read the Memorial Roll Call.

Automatic Consent: The Academic Staff Assembly minutes of Monday, May 14, 2018, were approved. 

Emily gave an update on the Madison Academic Staff Network to inform members of Assembly about the organization. The Madison Academic Staff Network promotes academic staff connecting to one another and engaging them with the UW-Madison Community. Emily gave a review of this semester’s events. 

Mallory Musolf, Vice Chair of ASEC, made announcements and gave a report of ASEC’s activities over the summer. The application for Professional Development Grants is open and there will be two brown bags. Academic Staff Chats will begin in late October. Registration for each event will open 3 weeks prior to the event. The Shared Governance Reception will take place on Tuesday, October 2 from 3:30-5:00 pm in Varsity Hall, Union South. ASEC was very busy this summer. They met with Casey Nagy to get updates on the transition of UW-Extension to UW-Madison. They met with Norman Drinkwater about the searches going on within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education as well as UW2020 and simplification of contract negotiations. ASEC met with Provost Mangelsdorf to discuss Bucky’s Tuition Promise. In August, ASEC met with chairs of the standing committees to discuss the upcoming year. ASEC also met with Russell Dimond, who is a member of the Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee and has been evaluating the worklife survey. They also had a meeting with Cathy Trueba, who is part of the committee working on the new consensual relationships policy.

Jenny Dahlberg gave an update on ASPRO (Academic Staff Professionals Representation Organization). She asked that Assembly members consider joining the organization and thanked current members. ASPRO gives academic staff a voice at the legislative level. The fees pay a lobbyist to represent academic staff issues at the capitol. 

Mallory Musolf gave a report on Assembly business from 2017-18. She highlighted the Assembly’s endorsement of the UW-Madison Policy on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence, to align it with the Board of Regents, state and federal laws. The Assembly passed a resolution to maintain the distinguished prefix in the Title and Total Compensation Study. The Assembly opposed the revision of the Board of Regents Policy on Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression. This revision mandated student punishment. Two other resolutions passed by the Assembly included one endorsing the job family and level framework of the Title and Total Compensation Study and one endorsing the recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee on Research Scientist Titles.  

The Office of Human Resources has already completed the job families/groups and levels guides. The standard job descriptions took about 3-4 months to develop. They will be linking these to pay and benefits (market analysis and then figuring out total compensation). They are looking at elongating time frames. The previous timelines were very aggressive, and the team wants to make sure that the project is done well. 

There have been over 700 standard job descriptions written. They will begin to vet these over the next several months, with functional teams helping with the review. In the development of pay ranges, they will look at benchmarking jobs against market data. If there are not market data available for a position, they will look at internal equity benchmarks. 

They are working with Mercer to look at the current benefits structure and also at what competitors and peers are offering. There will be no changes to the Wisconsin Retirement System (WRS) or State Group Health Insurance as a result of the project. They are looking at other benefits where there is a gap with peers and competitors, such as family leave. In late November, the employee benefits preference survey will be launched and available for all employees who are benefit eligible.   

Items they are working on through January 2019 includes updating the communications and change management strategy, the benefits survey, subject matter experts vetting the standard job descriptions, and working on strategies for changing HRS. The next steps in 2019 will be to develop the salary structure and map positions to standard job descriptions, begin standard job description training for managers and employees, and begin employee/manager conversations regarding standard job descriptions in the summer of 2019. Employees can help the Title and Total Compensation Project by first becoming knowledgeable about the study, asking questions, providing ideas on how to better engage the campus community on the project, and by encouraging participation in the benefits survey. 

Lindsey Stoddard Cameron (ASEC) moved the Academic Staff Assembly approve the resolution. Seconded. Motion approved.

The Provost said that the Title and Total Compensation Project is a very large project. It runs the risk of disappointing people by showing them that they are paid less than at other institutions. The administration needs data to develop an action plan to address pay issues. There are very robust data from American Association of University Professors (AAUP) on faculty salaries. They aspire to be above the median of the public universities in the country. 

Central funds for compensation are being provided this year in the same amount as last year, $4 million for staff plus $4 million for bonuses. Last year a total of $11.5 million was provided centrally and schools/colleges/divisions gave out $21 million in additional compensation adjustments. 

There are a few new leadership hires this year. There is a new Vice Provost for Libraries, Lisa Carter. Lori Reesor has joined UW-Madison in a new role as Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs. Units that will report to her include the Dean of Students office, University Health Services, Recreational Sports and the Union. There is also a new CIO, Lois Brooks. 

There are two new searches for this year, one for the Dean of the School of Business and one for the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education.

The Provost mentioned the Board of Regents resolution in June 2018 that directed UW System to modify human resources policies regarding substantiated sexual harassment reports. There was a concern about employees accused of sexual harassment moving from one campus to another without their work history following them. There will now be reference checks that need to include questions about sexual harassment, and all sexual harassment policy violations must be included in personnel files. In addition, UW System institutions now need to share personnel files with other UW System schools and state agencies at the date of hire of a new employee. UW System has requested policy drafts for UW System and UW-Madison to go to the Board of Regents in October. UW-Madison will have its own policy that will be implemented by January 2019.

Provost Mangelsdorf then discussed the Board of Regents draft policy on Program Productivity Monitoring. It has been proposed that this would be monitored annually. Programs identified as falling below the metrics indicated would need to have a remediation plan or an exemption. If not, the program would have to end. A draft policy had proposed some minimums for doctoral programs, but this has been removed. UW-Madison has been sending back changes on the draft policy to UW System.  

Adjourned at 4:57 pm.