Minutes for August 25, 2025

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Chui, de Leon, Jones, Kendall, Mathieu

Others present: Emily Beach, Annika Bereny, Greg Bump, Becky Jacobs, Genevieve Lambert, Mallory Musolf, Julie Scharm

Chair Jones called the meeting to order at 1:00 pm.

Rob Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, indicated they had been succeeded on decreasing the time needed for lab renovations. The current average is 11 months, which is similar to our peers.

Workday has been live for 2 months. They are working on fixing issues that have arisen since implementation.

The minutes from July 21, 2025, were approved with one correction, and the minutes of July 28, 2025, were approved as distributed.

A UC member brought forward an inquiry about the change in the Graduate School of dissertator credits no longer being required to be research credits and how this intersects with the instructional workload policy.

Michelle Felber and Jack O’Meara from PROFS indicated they are working on plans for PROFS to meet with members of the Board of Regents and the Joint Committee on Employment Relations once the instructional workload policy is further developed. They recently sent a survey asking for qualitative information to members regarding changes at the federal level.

In regards to legislation, UW System will be including the change in start date in the law revision package, a press conference about legislation banning guns on campus was held, and there is legislation that could make it easier to hire annuitants.

Interim Provost John Zumbrunnen announced that Janet Branchaw will be serving as the Interim Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. She has a lot of experience in mentoring and educational research. He also reiterated that he would like to think about a model for faculty leadership within DTL and its units.

Dean of Nursing, Linda Scott, will resign as dean at the end of the academic year. The Provost Office will reach out about a search process. The Wisconsin Public Media Director search will be starting soon.

They are continuing to work on policies whose creation was part of the budget process including course transfers and instructional workload. There has been work done on making CDIS into a school/college. This would need approval from the Board of Regents.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin gave an update that for the provost search, they are in the process of hiring a search firm and creating the search committee. The search will be national. Faculty will have the opportunity to share the qualities faculty would like to see in the next provost. Provosts typical tenure is 3-3.5 years, and there are likely to be a number of peers searching for provosts this year.

Chancellor Mnookin indicated she thinks there will be changes to indirect costs. They are working on contingency plans and in fact the budget cuts are a form of contingency planning. Rob Cramer served on the AAU committee that has brought forward a new indirect cost proposal. The chancellor mentioned that they plan to have wide discussion this fall about the possibility of CDIS becoming a school/college.

Ralph Grunewald, chair of the ad hoc student evaluation of teaching policy committee, brought forward recommendations for discussion from the committee. Recommendations include a set of core institutional questions, the ability of schools/colleges/departments and instructors to add additional questions from a bank of questions or developed with the school/college. Instructors would have the ability to add up to 2 qualitative questions at the end.

A UC member raised concerns about student learning being missing from this approach. Another encouraged at least one required qualitative question, and another suggested the wording of “in partnership” rather than “in consultation.” Everyone liked the unconscious basis statement as part of the tool.

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 3:39 pm. Three tenure clock extensions and three dual-role waivers were approved.

Bernard-Donals motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to reconvene in open session at 4:19 pm.

Jones adjourned the meeting at 4:31 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, secretary of the faculty.