Minutes for November 02, 2024

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin called the meeting to order at 3:30 p.m. with 176 voting members present (108 needed for quorum). Memorial resolutions were offered for Professor Emeritus Julius Adler (Faculty Document 3182), Professor Emerita Sally Banes (Faculty Document 3183), Professor Carl A. Duley (Faculty Document 3184), Professor Emeritus Edward George Lovell (Faculty Document 3185), and Professor Emeritus Glenn A. Sather (Faculty Document 3186).

Professor Li Chiao-Ping, University Committee chair, encouraged everyone to remind their students to vote on election day, November 5, 2024, and shared that UW-Madison policy UW-856 asks instructors to provide flexibility to their students who may need to be tardy or absent the day of an election. Faculty and instructors may not tell students who to vote for or share their opinions or preferences, but can support the right to vote, ensure a culture of respect for faculty, staff, and students, and make space for diversity, which includes differences politically.

November is Native November, the National American Indian Heritage Month, recognizing and honoring the culture, history, and accomplishments of Native and Indigenous people. 

For departments hiring under the RISE Initiative, the University Committee would like to know how colleagues are thinking about tenure and promotion guidelines; please share your thoughts while working through this. There is a new Excellence in Mentoring Initiative, which has replaced the TOP program, with the goal of recruiting outstanding faculty who, in addition to their demonstrated excellence or strong potential in research and teaching, have demonstrated the ability and commitment to mentor at-risk, first-generation or underrepresented undergraduate or graduate students to help them achieve academic success. There is an expectation that the job description will include these skills and abilities.

The University Committee met with several campus leaders over the past month to listen and learn about topics such as the Institutional and Public Position Statements policy, the Graduate Tuition Task Force for the new budget approach, admissions data, a new Student Affairs position to support students impacted by world conflicts, concerns about the student conduct process, Workday, sustainability, the Entrepreneurship Initiative report, and the Black Community Experience Report.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin shared that for election day, there are nine polling places on campus, including one at the UW Arboretum and one at an agricultural research station.

The chancellor shared that the university enrolled over 8,500 new freshmen for fall 2024, which is the second largest class in the universitys history, and around 1,400 new transfer students. These students were selected from a record 70,000 applicants across freshman and transfer students, which is 2,000 more applicants than one year ago. About 1,200 of the new in-state students are having their full tuition, and in most cases the full cost attendance, covered by financial aid programs, such as Buckys Tuition Promise or Buckys Pell Pathway, and the number of Pell grant recipients in the freshman class increased this year. Following the Supreme Court decision prohibiting the consideration of race in admissions, underrepresented students of color in the freshman class dropped to about 14% this year, which is a decrease of a little bit more than 3% from last year. The university is working to expand its outreach and recruitment locally, nationally and internationally; diversity of all kinds is essential to pluralistic excellence.

Regarding the commitments made as part of the agreement made with the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) last spring, one of the requests was to facilitate meetings between students and relevant decision makers at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (WFAA) and the Board of Regents. Five SJP representatives met with the Board of Regents representatives on September 16, 2024, and SJP representatives plus a faculty and a staff representative met with the WFAA on November 4, 2024. The International Division and Student Affairs are making progress on ways to provide greater support to scholars and students impacted by war, violence, occupation and displacement. In the student conduct processes, the agreement has been taken into account as a favorable mitigating factor.

Pluralism, free expression and a sense of belonging are important on campus, even when engaging in different points of view. There is a need to safeguard free expression while ensuring conditions for thoughtful and productive exchanges of ideas. There is a new free expression course required of all incoming students this year and employees are welcome to take the course as well, available on the free expression website. There is a new expressive activity policy primarily designed to make the existing policies more understandable with practical examples. There is a new Institutional and Public Position Statements policy, for times when campus leaders make statements about local, national or international events. Faculty, staff and governance can and should speak publicly, especially to share their knowledge, perspective and expertise. The goal is to create more space for dialogue, debate, civil engagement and intellectual pluralism.

The ad hoc study group on the Black Community Experience, created by the chancellor, and co-chaired by Professor Angela Byars-Winston and the Rev. Dr. Alex Gee, with students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members, created a final report on the Black community experience including recommendations. Chancellor Mnookin has asked Vice Chancellor for Inclusive Excellence LaVar Charleston to take the lead in reviewing the study groups recommendations and with a small working group, look at both short-term and long-term actions.

The working group on entrepreneurship, commissioned by the chancellor, and co-chaired by Professor Jon Eckhardt, created a final report regarding the future of entrepreneurship at the university, with recommendations. Professor Eckhardt is now serving as a special advisor to the chancellor for the entrepreneurial initiative. The initiative partly came about due to the chancellors survey in her first year about what was working well and where there was the potential to do something more or something different at the university. 

While there are operations and thought leader teams working on the RISE Initiative, it is also meant to be organic, to reflect the interest and expertise of individuals and departments. RISE builds on current strengths, to connect people in growing the universitys research success. The WARF Board has committed an additional $15 million to support RISE AI, which is one piece of the nearly $160 million in research support they have provided starting in the 2024-2025 academic year. 

The Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub received $49 million in phase 2 federal funding. The university is one of several members of the Biohealth Tech Hub consortium. Across the state, work has begun on five interconnected projects of the hub related topersonalized medicine. One project based at the university is developing a cybersecure hub for health data that will help speed better information to support communities and new therapies.

The university received $56 million in federal research funding from two federal appropriation bills last spring. This supports an array of research, including traumatic brain injury prevention, small dairy business support, and establishment of regional center to address the fentanyl crisis, with more to come.

The new state budget cycle is underway. The regents have submitted their budget to the governor. The governor signaled that he intends to make the Universities of Wisconsin a major priority in his budget; that budget is released in February. The legislature will consider this and create their budget in the spring/early summer.

The regents budget includes increased state support. Overall, our four-year university system is, per capita of the state, 43 out of 50 in terms of state investment. At UWMadison, less than 15% of the budget comes from the state. The regents are asking for an increase in resources to lead us to the median of other states. The regents budget also includes investments in infrastructure. UWMadison currently has $2.2 billion in deferred maintenance, urgently needs additional housing for students and would like to find a pathway for departments in the Humanities Building to move to new facilities. The budget request also includes funding for new spaces for the Department of Art and the Mead Witter School of Music.

The university is pursuing program revenue bonding; the university is about the only flagship in the country that doesnt have some mechanism for borrowing money for facilities projects without going through the full legislative process.

A $75 million gift, the largest single gift in the College of Engineering history, from brothers and UWMadison alumni Marvin and Jeffrey Levy to honor their late brother, will support construction of the Phillip A. Levy Engineering Center, which will be the new centerpiece of the College of Engineering campus. The new Morgridge Hall will be the home of the School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences opening next summer. There was a groundbreaking ceremony in spring on the new Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall, which will be the future home for the humanities. There is progress on replacing the Shell and on the McClain Center, with a state-of-the-art indoor athletic practice and training facility.

In athletics, there is an upcoming legal settlement that provides the opportunity and expectations to share revenues with student athletes. The terms currently under consideration include a provision where participating schools and colleges will be able to share approximately $22 million annually with student athletes beginning next fall. It will also lead to changes in the existing name, image and likeness structures, though there will still be ways for students to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness. The university is committed to Badger Athletics and to both the student and athletic success of the universitys athletes.

There are a number of new leaders on campus this year including Dorota Brzezinska,  vice chancellor for research; Craig Thompson, vice chancellor for university relations; Marcelle Haddix,  dean of the School of Education; and Jon Levine,   dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine. Searches for the School of Medicine and Public Health dean, the College of Engineering dean and the vice provost for information technology are underway.

During the question period, a faculty senator asked about the Legislative Council Study Committee on the Future of the University of Wisconsin System recommendation for splitting UWMadison from UW System and how the chancellor plans to connect with faculty to gather feedback on a response. Chancellor Mnookin shared that the committee had five meetings, covered a lot of potential ground and took votes on many proposals. The chancellor spoke to some committee members but did not testify before the committee. There is no legislation coming out of the committee, but their work might inform some of what legislators would like to consider in the future. A A faculty senator expressed disappointment from colleagues on the lack of meaningful opportunities for input into decision-making on the new budget model and asked what the opportunities there will be for faculty input on its development and evaluation of its impact. The chancellor shared that tasks forces have been providing input but agreed that there will need to be more input during the shadow system process on what is working and what needs further revision. While the budget approach will make some changes, it is not a whole new budget model but is modifying and bringing more transparency to some things  already being done.

The minutes of the Faculty Senate Minutes 2024-10-07 meeting were approved by consent. The proposal to amend Faculty Policies & Procedures 6.57 to change the name of the Advisory Committee to the Office of the Dean of Students to the Dean of Students Advisory Committee (Faculty Document 3187) was approved by consent.

Professor John Hall (History, district 60) presented the Office Education Committee annual report for 2021-2024 (Faculty Document 3168). Professor Nathan Sherer (Oncology, district 93) presented the Recreation and Wellbeing Advisory Board annual report for 2022-2024 (Faculty Document 3169). Professor Gopal Iyer (Human Oncology, district 85) presented the University Curriculum Committee annual report for 2023-2024 (Faculty Document 3189). Professor Bikash Pattnaik (Pediatrics, district 96) presented the Immigration and International Issues Committee annual report for 2023-2024 (Faculty Document 3188).A faculty senator asked if the Immigration and International Issues Committee has approached students from war-torn areas regarding available funds. Professor Pattnaik shared that the committee is working on this and has reached out to registered student organizations and student shared governance to discuss the issue.

Taking up a motion regarding the May Senate minutes that was deferred at the October 7, 2024 Faculty Senate meeting, Professor Keith Woodward (Geography, district 57) made a request to modify his amendment to the minutes of the Faculty Senate Minutes 2024-05-06 Senate meeting. Following automatic consent of the modification and some discussion of the modified motion, Professor Chad Goldberg (Sociology, district 71) moved to call the question, which was seconded and approved. The modification to the May 6, 2024, minutes was approved.

Professor James Stein, University Committee member, moved approval to amend Faculty Policies and Procedures 7.04 to increase the maximum prior service that can be applied to the maximum probationary period from three to four years (Faculty Document 3181). The motion was approved.

Professor Michael Bernard-Donals, University Committee member, presented a first reading of a proposal to amend Facult Policies and Procedures 6.41 to update the Committee on Honorary Degrees functions and to clarify procedures to match current processes and timelines (Faculty Document 3190). A vote on this item is anticipated at the December Faculty Senate meeting.

Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin adjourned the meeting at 5:02 p.m.