Minutes for May 19, 2025

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

Others present: Greg Bump, Michelle Chui, Michelle Felber, Lesley Fisher, John Horn, Becky Jacobs, Genevieve Lambert, Natalia de Leon

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

The minutes from May 12, 2025, were approved as distributed.

Rob Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration gave an update on the new budget approach. The Wisconsin Idea Task Force is still meeting with findings scheduled to be released in late fall. There is a Data and Tools Workgroup putting together resources. Review of available information is going slowly due to changes at the federal level. In addition, the Madison Budget Office has been meeting with some schools/colleges about the changes. Schools and colleges should be sharing additional information with departments in the fall.

At the federal level, they are continuing to collaborate with peers and higher education organizations, monitoring court decisions and watching for changes in local data like award cancellation and new award notices.

The Madison Budget Office is reviewing plans that were submitted for budget cuts. First steps regarding any budget changes would likely be announced in June.

Michelle Felber and Jack O’Meara, PROFS, indicated that there are ongoing negotiations between the governor and legislator leaders in regards to the state budget. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s latest memo indicates a large positive fiscal balance, but that revenue seems to be slowing. Recent bills include one to fund spinal cord research that PROFS registered in favor of and bills from both sides of the aisle loosening restrictions on rehiring annuitants.

Graduate School Dean Bill Karpus shared that a committee recently completed a review of all seven GRS programs. There will be a discussion on whether any changes need to be made to the programs. With NSF cutting back on graduate fellowships, he is pursuing whether there are donors who may want to sponsor UW-Madison graduate students who were given honorable mentions. The Graduate School is planning to fund 3 such fellowships. The school is also looking at other federal programs being cut and seeing if there is Graduate School funding to fill in these gaps. Philanthropic foundations are also a source for graduate student funding.

UW Police Chief Brent Plisch shared his priorities for the department. These include planning for concerts at Camp Randall; building relationships with different community groups; engaging with shared governance groups; and updating their interactions with SOAR. He is restarting the Policy Advisory Council and will be seeking a faculty appointment to the council from the University Committee. 

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 faculty employment at 2:39 pm.

Bernard-Donals motioned, and it was seconded and approved, to reconvene in open session at 3:07 pm.

The University Committee consented to moving forward with a letter asking for a delay in deploying the survey about freedom of expression and academic freedom to faculty and instructional academic staff

Li adjourned the meeting at 3:34 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, secretary of the faculty.