Academic Staff Executive Committee Minutes 11-21-2019

Members Present: Donna Cole; Jenny Dahlberg, chair; Tim Dalby; Stephanie Elkins; Mallory Musolf; Leslie Petty; Deb Shapiro; Lindsey Stoddard Cameron; Bill Tishler

Guests: Diane Blaskowski, Russell Dimond, Jaimee Gilford, Rachel Jeris, Barb Lanser, Mari Magler, Matt Mayrl, Karl Scholz, Mark Walters

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

The minutes of November 7 and November 14, 2019 were approved with corrections.

The Emotional Support Animal Policy has been expanded. Previously it was applicable only to University Housing, but it is now campus-wide to ensure compliance with federal law. The Service Animal Policy is largely reflective of our responsibilities under federal law, while also updating and clarifying practices. The updates have been distributed to the various governance groups for their thoughts. Interviews are currently in progress for a full-time ADA coordinator role.

Provost Scholz announced that Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management Steve Hahn would be leaving the university in late January. There will be an academic staff majority on the search and screen committee, comprised of members of the Registrar’s Office, Admissions and Recruitment, and Financial Aid.

Provost Scholz discussed the instances of hostile and intimidating behavior in the College of Engineering that had been reported in the news recently. Engineering has taken several steps to address this behavior, including creating an Assistant Dean for Graduate Students position. There are requirements for faculty to take the Breaking the Bias Habit Training through WISELI, and there have also been conversations within units about a civil workplace. There is also an online assessment tool that graduate students are filling out once a semester, and rules are now in place that allow students to transfer to another research group without jeopardizing their funding support. Provost Scholz discussed the concept of establishing and agreeing upon norms in areas of interaction like meetings, emails, seminars, and others.

Jenny Dahlberg, ASEC chair, reported that ASEC had reached out to the University Staff Central Committee about collaborating on an ad hoc committee on staff diversity. Tim Dalby attended the public comments portion of the Central Committee’s agenda to discuss this issue and requested nominations by the end of the calendar year. Jenny also reported that she, Tim, Mallory and Heather met with Mark Walters and Diane Blaskowski regarding TTC and other OHR matters. They discussed inconsistencies in mapping between exempt and non-exempt positions. Mark and Diane indicated that they would look into these job summaries that were mapping differently.

Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Academic Staff, reported that the Assembly will be meeting in B10 Ingraham Hall for its series of spring meetings. The Worklife Survey group sent some survey data to HR to inform the TTC process, and Heather will share this with ASEC as well. Heather also reported that she had data from HR on fixed-term terminal appointments and was summarizing that data for the Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee. She also received layoff data and will present a summary of that data for ASEC. In contrast to previous years when these data were available, this data set reflects the number of people who actually lost jobs as opposed to how many received a notice of layoff.

Deb Shapiro reported that the Librarians Assembly had been considering changing their name, but they are tabling this for now.

Tim Dalby reported on the latest ASM meeting. Tim and Jenny will meet with members of ASM to discuss one of their most recent resolutions.

Stephanie Elkins reported that the Wisconsin Public Media CASI will hold elections in the first two weeks of December.

Bill Tishler reported that the Division of Continuing Studies CASI will be reconvening in 2020, and that the University Committee met with the Campus Diversity and Climate Committee and Jeff Russell.

Jenny Dahlberg met with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences CASI to give an overview of governance.

Matt reported that the current campus strategic plan goes through the end of this calendar year. The Chancellor’s Office is engaging in a process to refresh this document, and Matt shared the draft of the new plan with ASEC. The Chancellor has received feedback from executive teams and is now getting feedback from governance. The refreshed plan will be released to campus in January.

• December Assembly Agenda

ASEC reviewed the resolutions for the December agenda. Motion to approve the December Assembly agenda (Dalby). Seconded. Approved.

• January Assembly Agenda

ASEC reviewed a draft agenda for a January meeting. There are no current business items pending to indicate that a meeting should be held in January.

Diane and Mark discussed the notion of a shift to biweekly payroll cycle for faculty and academic staff. A date for this change has not been decided yet. It will depend on developments to HRS. There will be communications and financial counseling as needed. There is a group that will be convening to look at potential stumbling blocks to this shift. 

Regarding the change to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the new threshold salary level is $35,568. Divisions are looking at approximately 1500 individuals that won’t meet that threshold and determining what to do. Forums will take place in the first two weeks of December for those employees who might change from exempt to non-exempt. There will be supervisor forums as well as employee forums.

On the TTC front, mapping was due on Friday. 82% of employees are mapped to their new title/SJD. With regard to the other 18%, one full job group has been overhauled, so mapping is on hold for that group until December 6. Most of the 18% fall into this job group, though there are some stragglers as well. On December 6, there will be a mass upload of new titles/SJDs. Diane and Mark also discussed the quality assurance, which included reviews of consistency of bullet points and summaries for titles and alignment sessions with divisional HR. From Tuesday through the end of year, they will be looking at 1-title-to-1-title mapping in terms of FLSA changes, followed by 1-title-to-many-titles, and then “universal titles” (e.g. administrative program specialist. There will be an audit of 15% of titles across the board. If discrepancies are found, then more auditing will take place. Chief and director titles will all be audited. There will also be divisional alignment workshops to look at mapping consistencies and review unused titles. QA will also happen during manager/employee conversations.

Meeting adjourned at 4:48 p.m.