Minutes for June 19, 2023

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Li, Tejedo-Herrero, Thibeault (chair), Zweibel

Others present: Bill Karpus, Julie Scharm, Jake Smith

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

Jack O’Meara, PROFS, reported that the UW System budget was supposed to be passed last week, but the Republicans could not come to an agreement. Speaker Vos has asked for the UW System budget to be cut by $32 million. Governor Evers has threatened to veto the entire budget if funding to UW is cut.

PROFS met with Representative Murphy and discussed free speech issues. Relatedly, Professor Kathy Cramer was on public television discussing free speech and her classroom. There was also a hearing this morning about higher education in Wisconsin in front of the Senate committee that deals with universities.

Professor Eric Sandgren discussed the UW System Representatives meetings. They discuss a range of issues, often related to instruction and other policies. The faculty meet by themselves and also meet with the other groups and UW System officials. He believes that UW System is =interested in hearing from the representatives group and indicated President Rothman regularly attends meetings. The representatives have created a document that details how the groups work that will be shared with campuses this fall. He suggests that a UW-Madison rep serve from 3-5 years.

The minutes from June 5, 2023, were approved by automatic consent.

The University Committee decided to invite Director of Strategic Initiatives Paul Seitz to a future meeting to provide updates on the west side campus planning. They also finalized the faculty shared governance briefing document for the provost.

Secretary Daniels provided updates regarding a survey being sent to department chairs about how members of a department are involved in tenure-track hiring. She also plans to bring language to an upcoming University Committee meeting that would prohibit executive committees from voting on state or federal Family and Medical Leave Act absences as long as they are approved by a school/college divisional disability representative.

The University Committee discussed how they want to review the reporting line for the dean of the Graduate School. This position currently reports to the vice chancellor for research and graduate education with a dotted line to the provost. There is a small group that is assembling to look at the administrative side of a change and the University Committee members agreed to join that group for a couple of the information gathering meetings. The University Committee looks to gather what is working and what is not working with the current reporting relationship.

Li 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 at 2:02 pm. Two tenure clock extensions and one leave of absence were approved.

Bernard-Donals motioned to reconvene in open session at 2:12pm. It was seconded and approved.

Thibeault adjourned the meeting at 2:12 pm.