Chair Sandgren called the meeting to order at 1:30.

The minutes of the meetings of August 30 and September 8, 2021 were approved by consent. 

Lori Reesor, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, reported that overall, students are thrilled to be back. The participation in Wisconsin Welcome events was good. She has started meeting with her student leadership group. Students are craving connection, leadership, and involvement. 

Chad Goldberg, Professor, Department of Sociology, Greg Steinberger, Director of Hillel, and Roseanne Clark, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, presented a resolution for the Faculty Senate regarding the first day of classes conflicting with the second day of Rosh Hashanah. The University Committee will ask Professor Goldberg to present the resolution, while the University Committee will present an apology about the conflict. 

Eric Sandgren presented three of his priorities for UC discussion that he plans to roll out at each Faculty Senate meeting in the fall semester. The first issue for October, is administrative burden. For second area for November, is climate, which was triggered by a number of discussions Sandgren had this summer about institutional structures that were set up to be neutral but do not. In December, shared governance will be discussed and how to be more proactive, such as holding a planning session for the UC.

Rebecca Blank, Chancellor, is impressed with the enthusiasm --- and the vaccination rates – of the students. Vaccination rates continue to creep upwards with students over 90%. She highlighted events including: the grand opening of the Nick, the Saturday celebration for the 2020 graduates, and an announcement regarding the College of Computer Data and Information Science.

She has started meeting with legislators and is stressing three items: allowing investment of UW-Madison’s working capital through SWIB (UW-Madison could have $5-10 million a year in interest); progressing on a new engineering building with funding for design work; and granting UW System authority to negotiate tuition reciprocity agreements. UW schools do not receive tuition money from reciprocity, but rather some it goes to the general state coffers and some of it goes to the State of Minnesota.

Karl Scholz, Provost, reflected that the pandemic has caused permanent changes to things like work, spaces, and construction of courses, and all prompt new questions. The university has executed about 5,000 remote work agreements with an average of employee working remotely 1-2 days per week. In thinking about space considerations for new areas like the Center for Learning, Teaching and Mentoring, his team is asking what kind of space is needed if many employees now work partially at home? In courses, how do you encourage participate from those who preferred the chat function? How can you incorporate self-paced learning? How do you make large classes more impactful?

Sandgren moved to convene in closed session; it was seconded and approved at 3:02. One leave of absence, one dual role waiver and one tenure clock extension were approved. 

Sandgren moved to reconvene in open session; it was seconded and approved at 4:04.

Chair Sandgren adjourned the meeting at 4:10.