Academic Staff Executive Committee Minutes 05-23-19

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

Guests: Diane Blaskowski, Stephanie Elkins, Ron Harris, Sarah Mangelsdorf, Casey Nagy, Jake Smith, Bill Tishler, Shana Ullsvik, Mark Walters, Jun Wang

The meeting was called to order at 2:02 p.m.

The minutes of May 9, 2019 were approved.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC chair, shared that he and Heather gave a presentation on academic staff shared governance during the Big 10 staff advocacy conference call. The way UW-Madison is set up is quite different than any of the other campuses we have heard from. They do not have shared governance.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff, met with Jim Henderson, who will be Interim Provost for June and July. He is looking forward to meeting ASEC at the end of June. She discussed ongoing issues with him such as the professor titles. Heather shared with ASEC two issues that she read about in the minutes of the University Staff Congress. One is the idea of academic staff and faculty receiving biweekly paychecks rather than monthly. This is one way to solve the issue of benefits coming from only one paycheck for university staff. Another issue is years of service of university staff who switch to academic staff. This really only affects layoff and non-renewals, and the time periods listed in the policy are minimums.

The west campus CASIs (SMPH, Vet Med, Nursing and Pharmacy) are planning an event for May 2020. SMPH CASI is continuing to map out what they want to do in the future, including outreach to departments about the CASI and the purpose they serve.

Provost Mangelsdorf expressed that she believes ASEC will enjoy working with Jim Henderson. She encouraged ASEC to bring topics to him that they would bring to her during his time as interim. Karl Scholz will begin as Provost on the first Monday in August. The Office of Human Resources is putting together committees to write the first draft of guidelines for the new professor titles.

Employees will have both standard job descriptions and position descriptions, where the more unique aspects of the employees’ jobs will be captured. There will also be a task list included in JEMS. 

They are working on drafting a compensation philosophy for campus. They have also formed a policy committee that is working on developing salary administrative guidelines. The TTC team is building the salary structure and career paths. They continue to work on enhancing communications to employees. 

Every two weeks they are doing a go/no-go check.  So far sequences are taking place as planned. They are on target to transition employees the last week of June. There will be some carryover functions into July, mostly in the fiscal area. A primary area of concern is IT. They are working with DoIT about the 11 services that need to transition and have identified people responsible for each service. They will be mobilizing tiger teams again for immediate response to issues during the transition. 

They are working on integrating facilities into Facilities Planning and Management (FPM) including capital projects. They have retained a subject matter expert on the ongoing capital projects.

The Academic Planning Council is progressing. There will be three academic staff serving on it, and the composition will be consistent with others on campus.

•Appointments

Motion to appoint Charity Gent and Rachael Willits to the Committee on Women in the University. (Dahlberg). Seconded. Approved.

Motion to appoint Kevin Niemi to the University Research Council. (Stoddard Cameron). Seconded. Approved.

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

•ASEC Chair and Vice Chair

First vote: 3-Jenny Dahlberg, 3-Tim Dalby, 2-Deb Shapiro, 1-absention

Runoff for tie: 4-Jenny Dahlberg, 4-Tim Dalby, 1-abstention

Voice vote for Mallory Musolf for vice chair

Tim and Jenny agreed to serve as co-chairs of ASEC with details to be worked out at a meeting following the next ASEC meeting.

•Topics for VCFA

Academic staff salary increases

Graduate student fees

Office reorganization

Administrative Transformation Project update

Meeting adjourned at 4:47 p.m.