Minutes for November 20, 2023

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

Others present: Michelle Felber, Lesley Fisher, Julie Scharm, and Jen Young

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

The minutes from November 13, 2023, were approved by automatic consent.

Vice Chancellor Rob Cramer reported on his meeting with the Budget Committee. He believes members of the committee would add value to the groups they anticipate forming. His office has been doing a lot of background work before the project gets underway. They are still looking to use a shadow system next fiscal year.

In regards to sustainability, the plans are to have five priorities that flow from where the institution currently is. There will be opportunities in several areas for faculty participation and engagement. There is a current sustainability advisory committee.

Former chair of the Information Technology Committee, C. Shawn Green provided their annual report for the past year. They worked on a policy on policies for IT. The previous policy was from 2017 and out of date. It also didn’t address some issues like how to deal with policies coming from UW System. The other main area of committee business was looking at cloud storage. Storage programs are now scaling back the amount of storage allowed for free. UW-Madison has been scaling back at the same time and providing individual support to super users to scale back their usage.

Jack O’Meara and Michelle Felber, PROFS, said the deadline for filings for the Supreme Court case between Governor Evers and the legislature is this week. PROFS has been discussing the possibility of weighing in as a petitioner if the court takes up the case. In regards to DEI, both the Law and Business Schools would lose their accreditation if all DEI positions were removed from campus.

In the legislature, the Seante did approve some Board of Regents appointments last week, but not all of them. There are concerns about limits placed in a bill on literacy about what a student becoming a licensed teacher in Wisconsin can be taught, and how to change these limits so they don’t cause issues. This bill has already been signed into law.

J.J. Andrews and Steve Young, co-chairs of the Committee on Undergraduate Recruitment, Admissions and Financial Aid, shared the main issues the committee has worked on during the last year. They collaborated with others to bring forward a white paper on a tuition waiver for First Nation Students. The committee discussed the dearth of competitive financial aid scholarships/grants compared to our peers, how over enrollment has been handled and student placement scores and academic readiness for students affected by the pandemic.

Provost Charles Isbell discussed department chairs and how the current model at UW-Madison works. He has been hearing a lot of complaints about chairs. UW-Madison selects chairs differently than most of our Big Ten peers except Northwestern.

The first town hall on switching the reporting line for the Dean of the Graduate School was uneventful with about 27 people attending and one question about funding of the graduate school. 

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 waivers at 2:59 pm. One tenure clock extension was approved.

Jones motioned to reconvene in open session at 3:06 pm. It was seconded and approved.

Thibeault adjourned the meeting at 3:22 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, Secretary of the Faculty