Minutes for February 3, 2025

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Jones, Kendall, Li, Stein, Zweibel
Others present: Greg Bump, Lesley Fisher, Michelle Felber, Becky Jacobs, Mallory Musolf, Julie Scharm, Jenny Skibba, Dom Zappia

Chair Li called the meeting to order at 1:05 pm. 

Lori Reesor, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, shared the University Committee’s concerns regarding accommodations to Mari Magler and Megan Schmid. They are continuing to work on improvements to help instructors with accommodations.

She discussed that there may be interest in forming a committee that would examine the academic calendar. This would be a continuation of the work looking at finals that was done in partnership between the Registrar’s Office and the University Committee. 

Eve Emschwiller, chair of the Lectures Committee, shared that the number of applications for lectures have rebounded to nearly as many prior to the pandemic. The number of attendees at funded lectures is the highest it has been in recent memory. 

Bernard-Donals motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to convene in closed session pursuant to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) and (f) to discuss waivers and committee appointments at 1:25 pm. One tenure clock extension was approved. 

Bernard-Donals motioned,that was seconded and approved, to reconvene in open session at 1:50 pm. 

The minutes from January 27, 2025, and January 31, 2025 meetings were approved by automatic consent.

John Zumbrunnen, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and Allison LaTarte, Vice Provost for DAPIR, came to discuss how instructional quality could be measured during the initial implementation of the new budget approach. UW-Madison already has a large number of metrics on student success including time to degree, retention, groups vs individual course section distribution, course outcomes, and attempted credits to name a few. John and Allison agreed to visit the University Committee later this spring with some measurements that could be used.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin shared that UW-Madison will be hosting the Board of Regents meeting on February 6 and 7. The visioning committee to update the strategic framework has been formed. There will be opportunities for campus feedback.

On Friday, January 31, a Rhode Island judge granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Office of Budget Management memo that froze all federal funding except funds to individuals. The White House had rescinded the memo, but said the underlying policy still holds. The TRO means federal agencies cannot pause funding obligations. They can also not issue stop orders based on the executive order alone. There is still a lot of uncertainty, and there will be an updated message going out to the research community in the next couple days. 

Li adjourned the meeting at 3:04 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, secretary of the faculty.