Minutes for October 16, 2023

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

Others present: Lesly Fisher, John Horn, Julie Scharm, Jake Smith

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

Vice Chancellor Rob Cramer reported that JCOER is meeting tomorrow, but it doesn’t appear that UW pay raises are on their agenda. They are continuing to advocate for UW System employee raises.

In regards to a new budget model for UW-Madison, he shared that budget models are statements of organizational values and models should begin with a statement of values. You can then figure out how those play into the financial space. You want to keep in mind interdisciplinary and entrepreneurial activities and how to encourage them rather than discourage them. They are moving quickly through the planning process and would like to run a shadow system in the next fiscal year with implementation in 2024-25. The University Committee urged Vice Chancellor Cramer to use the Budget Committee

The minutes from October 9, 2023, were approved by automatic consent.

Jack O’Meara from PROFS reiterated the lack of UW System employees pay raises on the JCOER agenda. Governor Evers called the legislature into a special session on a number of items not resolved in the budget bill including the engineering building and paid family leave. There was a public hearing on the bill last week, and the committee has removed the items that would have been positive for the UW System. Representative David Murphy is working on a campus speech bill. Howard Schweber agreed to give Representative Murphy some ideas  on what to include in the bill.

Dean Bill Karpus reported that moving the DGS reporting line has not elicited a lot of concerns. The main concern has been the flow of WARF funding to the Graduate School. He reported on the internship pilot program. They had six graduate students apply and take on a summer internship. The program was well received by all involved, but had fewer participants than desired. They are planning to roll out  the call for interns earlier this year and hope to get 10-12 applicants.

He has been working to put together a 5 year forward looking minimum stipend plan. They have developed projections to take into account cost of living including inflation using UW-Madison’s cost of attendance calculator. The calculator includes survey data from 1000 graduate students every year. He expects to have something for the University Committee to look at in the near future.

Elise Ahn and Lori Lopez, co-chairs of the Campus Diversity and Climate Committee, as well as Lindsey Stoddard Cameron, who provides administrative support to the committee, presented their annual report for 2022-23. Highlights include tuition support for indigenous students, looking at climate data, and supporting diversity forum and outstanding women of color awards.

They helped put together a pilot of a new survey instrument to collect school/college equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging reports that have been collected centrally since 2015. They are also expanding the report request to all administrative units in addition to schools and colleges.

The committee is currently looking at DACA issues and plan to bring people together to share with the committee the current landscape on campus. Of particular interest to the committee is Madison College’s innovative financial support model for DACA and undocumented students.

Zweibel motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to convene in closed session pursuant to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) and (f) to discuss committee appointments and waivers at 2:20 pm. One tenure clock extension was approved.

Zweibel motioned to reconvene in open session at 2:41 pm. It was seconded and approved.

Chief Diversity Officer LaVar Charleston is looking at the next diversity plan to determine what makes sense moving forward. The University Committee brought up the need to provide community information and resources for departments to use attract faculty of color to the UW-Madison and the city of Madison.

Thibeault adjourned the meeting at 3:31 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Faculty