Minutes for October 14, 2024

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Jones, Kendall, Li, Stein

Others present: Greg Bump, Michelle Felber, Ashley Hagen, Julie Scharm

Chair Li called the meeting to order at 12:16 pm.

The minutes from October 7, 2024, meeting were approved by automatic consent.

Bernard-Donals motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to convene in closed session pursuant to Wis. Stats. 19.85(1)(c) and (f) to discuss a committee appointments and a waiver at 12:17 pm. One tenure clock extension was approved.  

Kendall motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to reconvene in open session at 12:32 pm.

Deans Bill Karpus and Soyeon Shim, chairs of the graduate tuition task force for the new budget approach discussed their findings with the University Committee. They were tasked with identifying which behaviors would be incentivized in the budget approach. Dean Shim made the point it was difficult to incentivize behavior in traditional graduate programs because most decisions are made locally in the departments and programs from admissions to the program of study. 

Andre Phillips, Executive Director of Admissions and Recruitment, and Derek Field, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management provided an overview of enrollment for Fall 2024. They continue to have broad goals about representation geographically, more Wisconsin residents than required in the agreement with the Board of Regents, a total number of students and increase in diversity measured by Pell eligibility, first generation, Bucky’s Tuition Promise and Bucky’s Pell Pathway plus approximately 1000 transfer students. Applications continue to increase up 3.6% in the last year. First year admissions rates were 45% for the last year with a yield rate of 29%. This year’s class includes 8,516 first year students and 1,375 transfer students from 70 counties in Wisconsin, 48 states and 67 countries. There are 983 Bucky’s Pell Pathway recipients and 644 Bucky’s Tuition Promise recipients. First year underrepresented students of color percentage fell 3.7%. They have launched a College for Rural Wisconsin, which is focused on increasing college access for students living in rural Wisconsin.     

Lori Reesor, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, shared that they are conducting first round interviews for a student support person to support students impacted by world conflicts. They are making information about prayer/reflection spaces on campus available through the Center for Interfaith Dialogue and have held a few Badger Dialogues this semester so far.

During the summer, a group of around 100 faculty signed a petition asking for a meeting. Dean of Students Olstad provided information via email. The group came back in late summer requesting a meeting of Vice Chancellor Reesor. Lori and John Zumbrunnen met with the group and invited Li Chiao-Ping to attend. The meeting occurred last week and included criticism of the student conduct process. Vice Chancellor Reesor explained the procedure. The group indicated they wanted to put together an ad hoc committee to look at the expressive activities guidelines.   

Provost Charles Isbell discussed the importance of nominating faculty for awards like the National Academies. He plans to task the new Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff affairs to head up a process to nominate faculty members more systematically.

Li adjourned the meeting at 2:20 pm.