Academic Staff Executive Committee Minutes 06-06-19

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

Guests: Norman Drinkwater, Denny Hackel

The meeting was called to order at 2:00 p.m.

The minutes of May 30, 2019 were approved.

Kevin Niemi, ASEC chair, reported on the agreed-upon co-chair structure for ASEC for 2019-20. Jenny Dahlberg will serve as chair from July 1-December 31, and Tim Dalby will serve as chair from January 1-June 30. Mallory Musolf will serve as vice chair for the year. Kevin also reported on the meeting that he, Mallory and Heather had with Mark Walters and Patrick Sheehan. They discussed the pay adjustment administration guidelines that are being developed for TTC that should provide for greater consistency on campus around pay adjustments. They also discussed distinguished titles as part of TTC and emphasized the idea of making all academic staff positions eligible for the prefix. They also talked about the responsibilities vs. tasks document on the TTC website that will be used in the training process for TTC.

Jake Smith, Deputy Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that the 2019 Academic Staff Worklife Survey would be closing by the end of the day, and the number of respondents was greater than that of the 2016 survey. A working group has been formed to look at how the newly approved teaching professor title can be put into practice. Deb has been appointed to this group. A similar group is in the works for the research professor title. Jake also recommended that those ASEC members who did not attend the governance session for hostile and intimidating behavior prevention training should register to attend one of the summer or fall sessions. Jake will send a link once the courses are listed in the Learning and Talent Development catalog. 

Deb reported that the new UW-Madison TTC Advisory Committee convened for the first time last Friday. They discussed logistics for the committee and reviewed the same slide deck that was presented at the May Assembly meeting. Deb will send the charge language for the committee to ASEC.

Vice Chancellor Drinkwater mentioned that the search for the new VCRGE will be restarted in the fall. The committee will consist of some members of the previous committee as well as some new members.

Norman reported that the research professor title is one of the most important developments in the last academic year and should help with gaps in funding and the peer review process. Putting the new title into practice requires appropriate HR criteria as well as individual school/college/division criteria for appointment, review, and promotion for each stage of the title series. Some schools and colleges have already started looking at these criteria, and Norman will be heading a working group to come up with campus guidelines. There are still questions about how those with permanent PI status and honorific titles might move into this series, as well as how OVCRGE will provide funding to assistant research professors and the ability of those in the title series to serve as primary advisors for graduate students.

He also informed ASEC that there would be three centers up for review in the next academic year: the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center, the Laboratory of Cell & Molecular Biology, and the Institute for Molecular Virology.

Regarding the UW2020 competition, the fifth round of reviews just finished. Grants will start on July 1 and will run for 2 years. Campus has seen $82 million in extramural funding as a result of UW 2020. The total investment across the first 4 rounds was $25 million, so there has been more than a three-fold return. Funding has been pretty evenly split between research projects and infrastructure. The OVCRGE is currently evaluating what will come after 2020.

Norman reported on the indirect cost return policy. The key is that wherever the work takes place is where the expenditure gets booked and where the cost return goes. There is a tool that can track all of the money for a grant within any school/college/division, which also helps with rankings. There are a couple of exceptions: faculty salary (since this also needs to come from tenure home) and rules about where non-dissertating graduate students should be paid from. Norman has talked to the Associate Deans for Research and is planning to bring the policy to the Deans Council with Laurent Heller in June, with the hope of implementation in the fall. 

Norman also announced that Jan Greenberg will be retiring in August. Nora Cate Schaffer will be serving as the Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Social Sciences. 

•Nomination-for vote

Motion to nominate Kelli Hughes for appointment to the Area Review Committee – Administration/Student Services/Library (Cole). Seconded. Approved.

•Topics for Interim Provost

Ways UW-Madison and UW System can better work together within the scope of the UW Reps group

Role in onboarding of new provost in August

Initiatives while in interim role

Meeting adjourned at 3:21 p.m.