Minutes for April 15, 2024

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Jones, Li, Tejedo-Herrero, Thibeault
Others present: Lesley Fisher, Betsy Jacobs, Kevin Jacobson, Julie Scharm, and Jen Young

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

Rob Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, shared that lab renovations is on his list of things he is working to improve. There has been progress over the past couple of years. Renovations that can be handled internally take on average 16 months and for those over $300,000 that need external contractors the average time is 31 months. Facilities Planning and Management has about 77 internal renovation projects right now. They have also set up a revolving loan fund for work exploration to encourage schools and colleges to explore projects earlier before there is more certainty on the project going forward. They have seen supply chain challenges in this area.

The budget approach coordinating committee has received information from the undergraduate tuition task force. The overhead allocation task force will be reporting next. A new task force on the Wisconsin Idea is being formed with dean Karl Martin as the chair. There is also a task force on graduate tuition co-chaired by deans Soyeon Shim and Bill Karpus. This task force will look at professional schools, 131 programs and graduate programs as well as the graduate school experience. 

On the west end of campus, the Biotron has been identified and slated for demolition. Funding for the demolition was included in the recent capital budget addition. They will identify priority areas for both academic and non-academic uses of the site. Recently Purdue, Ohio St, Michigan and Georgia Tech have launched public/private use facilities that allow personnel to work together. 

Michell Felber and Jack O’Meara, PROFS, provided a final update on the legislative session. In regards to the legislature, the new maps mean more Democrats are expected to be elected, but unlikely to take back either house with this first election. The new parental leave policy has been a big topic of conversation. PROFS did put out a statement regarding the UW-Milwaukee Waukesha County shut down and due process for tenured faculty. There are several new reports that UW System released about the financial health of campuses around the state prepared by Deloitte. 

The minutes from April 8, 2024, were approved by automatic consent.

The University Committee has a preliminary discussion of the report prepared by the task force on undergraduate tuition. The task force looked at the pros and cons of the two measures that would be used to quantify how to distribute tuition (CFI-courses follow instructor and PAG-primary academic group). Both measures have a large number of cons associated with them along with a long list of possible mitigation strategies and policy or processes to re-examine. The UC is interested in learning more about how decisions will be made regarding mitigation strategies, policies and processes. 

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 and committee appointments at 2:10 pm. One leave of absence was approved.

Bernard-Donals motioned to reconvene in open session at 2:15 pm. It was seconded and approved. 

Thibeault adjourned the meeting at 3:26 pm.