Faculty Senate Minutes 2025-12-01
Minutes for December 1, 2025
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m. with 164 voting members present (105 needed for quorum). Memorial resolutions were offered for Professor Emeritus I. Martin Isaacs (Faculty Document 3270), Professor Emeritus Richard Newman Ringler (Faculty Document 3271), Professor Emeritus Bert Newton Adams (Faculty Document 3272), Professor Emeritus Joseph Walter Elder (Faculty Document 3273) and Professor Emeritus William Franklin Dove (Faculty Document 3274).
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin shared that Dean Emerita Linda D. Scott, who served as the eighth dean of the UW–Madison School of Nursing and was a nationally recognized leader in nursing education, research and policy, passed away on November 17, 2025. Susan Zahner, emerita associate dean for faculty affairs and Vilas Distinguished Achievement professor in the School of Nursing, is serving as the interim dean. The search for the next permanent dean is underway.
The new Wisconsin Exchange recently launched, which aims to help students, faculty and staff engage, live, and lead in a polarized world. The exchange will include a speaker series, grant program, and a future postdoctoral fellowship.
Regarding Act 15, the Board of Regents approved Regent policy document 20-25 regarding the teaching workload and Regent policy 4-23 regarding the core general education requirements. In terms of the general education requirement, there is ongoing work on creating a UW System policy, which UW–Madison will then need to implement. Campus leadership is working to ensure that while the legislative imperatives are recognized, that the way the policy is developed and enforced at UW–Madison does not lead to an unnecessary degree of changes that don't feel linked to the structures of what has been required. In terms of teaching workload, the policy requires faculty and instructional staff to teach a minimum of 12 credits each academic year, at least one course per semester, plus three summer credits, for those with 12-month instructional appointments. The legislation allows the Board of Regents to submit a policy with guidelines for exceptions and course buyouts to the Joint Committee on Employment Relations by December 1, 2025, which is what the Board of Regents has just put forward. The board has created an approach to this that, if accepted by the Joint Committee on Employment Relations, will permit and require UW–Madison to develop internal approaches to these rules. Every department will need to have a standard teaching load, which in most cases will probably be what it is right now. If that workload is below 12 credits, there will be the opportunities to use equivalencies to make the difference. Some categories were also deemed exempt under this policy, including clinicians in the health sciences and extension employees.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) is having its 100-year anniversary and is providing $206 million in total research support to the university and the Morgridge Institute for Research in FY26. WARF is transferring their ownership in the discovery building to the Morgridge Institute and the university and WARF has transferred funds to help support the expected building maintenance for the next 20 years. WARF support has been valuable for the university, from investing in innovations that become spinoff companies, to creating pathways for promising new cancer treatments, to providing annual support to the university.
The restructuring of the School of Computer, Data, & Information Sciences, currently housed in the College of Letters and Science, into a new College of Computing and Artificial Intelligence is going to the Board of Regents for consideration at their meeting on December 4, 2025. Upon approval, there will be further internal governance steps to create the new college.
The provost search launched and the 15-member search committee is being chaired by Professor Russ Castronovo in the Department of English.
Professor Annie Jones, University Committee chair, shared that national surveys from Trellis Strategies indicate that roughly 45% of students experience food insecurity. The Hope Center's 2023-2024 student basic needs survey found that 59% of students experienced at least one form of basic needs insecurity, housing instability or both. The UW–Madison basic needs spring 2025 survey report, which will be published soon, mirrors this national picture. The university has a basic needs website that will soon include links for supporting students during the winter break and the Office of Student Financial Aid Basic Needs Team is available to meet with students. There are programs like Swipe Out Hunger, where donated meal swipes go back to students, Open Seat, the student-supported food pantry, Purposity, which allows students to request specific basic needs items that donors can provide, and BadgerFARE, which adds funds to student Wiscards to help them purchase food on campus.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Lori Reesor shared that Student Affairs includes health and wellbeing, university health services, student success and belonging, student advocacy, and student leadership and community engagement. A lot of the work focuses on helping students be successful and ensuring that they receive needed support on campus. This summer, it was decided that university housing, which reported to vice chancellor for finance administration, will have a dual report to both the vice chancellor for finance administration and vice chancellor for student affairs. The residence life component will now be under student affairs to provide more holistic support to students. Student Affairs thinks about supporting students to be successful through graduation in three ways: 1) well-being, which includes physical and mental health, 2) involvement and 3) belonging. There are generational differences in students to consider, such as the impact of COVID and the influence of social media and its effect on interpersonal skills.
The largest Pell Grant class occurred this fall, with almost 25% of students on Pell Grant and support services. Chancellor Blank created Bucky’s Tuition Promise in 2018. Chancellor Mnookin created Bucky's Pell Pathway in 2023 and the Tribal Education Promise in 2024, which provide additional support for students. A new office for first generation, limited income students will open this January.
The Healthy Minds Survey results from spring 2025 show significant mental health needs that remain, though there has been some recent improvement. The data for LGBTQ+ students and students of color still show that mental health concerns are at higher levels. Resources for instructors include an online suicide prevention training program, a mental health first aid program, embedded mental health providers, the Office of Student Assistance and Support, a student-of-concern referral process and a 24/7 campus help line. There has been an over 58% increase in students with disabilities over the last four years. The growth is largely in psychological disability, such as ADHD.
As far as student engagement, 35,400 students are members of a student organization. 7,500 students play intramural sports, and last year, there were 1.9 million visits to the Nicholas Recreation Center, Bakke Recreation & Wellbeing Center and Nielsen Tennis Center.
During the question period, faculty senators asked questions about the teaching workload policy and how broadly the clinical teaching exception will be considered, what influence the university and shared governance have on the policy, and why this was included in Act 15. The chancellor shared that the Board of Regents policy relates clinical teaching to health-related fields and the UW System language is pending. UW–Madison may be able to address other types of clinical teaching in equivalencies. Regarding policy, UW–Madison was able to participate in the workgroups that influenced the Board of Regents policy and established a campus workgroup to discuss issues. The priority was to push for mechanisms that would record and respect the great diversity of ways that UW–Madison faculty and instructional academic staff contribute to student learning, and to push for approaches that give the flexibility that is essential. There will be opportunities to contribute to campus, school/college and departmental policies. In regards to why this was included, that is not fully known by campus leadership, but in the late stages of the budget negotiations, the governor was interested in providing some additional resources to the Universities of Wisconsin and the legislative leadership was more skeptical about going down that path. In order to provide additional resources, the compromise they reached legislated in spaces where there were concerns about how the universities operate including ease of transfer credits and faculty workload. Through this process and engagement around it, we've reached an approach that builds in a reasonable degree of flexibility that gives a variety of ways of showing how we're making contributions.
A faculty senator expressed sadness regarding the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) suspension for a semester—that the review committee thought the group should not be suspended with minimal action and that the Dean of Students decided that a suspension was warranted, and a hope that Student Affairs might consider SJP as a student club that has nothing to do with the overall pressures around the world. The vice chancellor for student affairs indicated that the conduct process is that the review committee makes a recommendation and the dean of students representative did not feel like the proposed sanctions matched the violations. The decision did not pertain to content, values or beliefs but about following the expressive policy and what is allowed and not allowed.
The minutes of the November 3, 2025, meeting were approved by consent.
Chancellor Mnookin postponed the Campus Planning Committee annual report for 2024-2025, the University Academic Planning Council annual report for 2024-2025 and the PROFS annual report for 2024-2025 to a future meeting due to time constraints, with no objection.
Professor Eric Hoyt (Communication Arts, district 49) presented the Information Technology Committee annual report for 2024-2025 (Faculty Document 3277). Professor Mindi Thompson (Counseling Psychology, district 32) presented the Kemper K. Knapp Bequest Committee Annual Report for 2024-2025 (Faculty Document 3254). Professor Mary Halloran (Integrative Biology, district 77) presented the proposal to establish the Department of Biology, effective in summer 2026 (Faculty Document 3279). A faculty senator provided a comment on the establishment of the Department of Biology, about the biology subject matter crossing many schools/colleges, the abundance of biology on campus and whether the historical structure is still appropriate or whether a restructuring should be considered. Interim Provost John Zumbrunnen and Chancellor Mnookin provided support for the spirit of the comment and future consideration for greater collaboration.
Professor Nancy Kendall, University Committee member, moved approval to amend Faculty Policies & Procedures 3.06 Meetings of the Graduate Faculty and 3.07 Graduate Faculty Executive Committee to indicate whether deadlines are calculated using calendar days or business days, to update and clarify language to match current practice, and to set the number of faculty elected to the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee to a maximum of eight representing any single school or college (Faculty Document 3266). The latter change allows for a greater balance in school/college membership while maintaining faculty divisional representation amongst the sixteen total faculty seats. The motion was approved.
Professor Joe Salmons (Language Sciences, district 72) moved approval of the Resolution Concerning any Potential Agreement between the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Federal Government (Faculty Document 3267). The motion was seconded and approved.
Professor Natalia de Leon, University Committee member, moved approval of the Resolution Regarding Regents Policy on General Education Requirements (Faculty Document 3268). The motion was approved.
Professor Aireale Rodgers (Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, district 28) moved approval of the Resolution Reaffirming UW–Madison’s Commitment to the Ethnic Studies Requirement and Shared Governance (Faculty Document 3269). The motion was seconded and approved.
Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin adjourned the meeting at 5:06 p.m.
Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Faculty