Academic Staff Assembly (ASA) Minutes
Approved 3-14-05
MINUTES
ACADEMIC STAFF ASSEMBLY
Monday, 14 February 2005
272 Bascom Hall (3:30-5:00 pm)
Provost Peter Spear called the meeting to order at 3:30 pm.
Memorial Resolution for Thomas L. W. Johnson - Presented by Joanne Berg
AUTOMATIC CONSENT BUSINESS
The minutes of the 12/13/2004 Academic Staff Assembly meeting were approved
as corrected.
Committee Reports
Academic Staff Executive Committee (ASEC) - Bruce Beck, chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/asec.html
Bruce mentioned the cover letter to the Assembly resolution on minimizing
employee contributions toward health insurance costs that was sent to
the governor. He announced that the cost of the statues presented to winners
of the academic staff excellence awards will be covered by the provost's
office. Thanks also to MASA, which will provide the engraving. Charlene
Krembs is replacing Anne Gunther as chair of the Districting and Representation
Committee.
There are three spring events that Assembly reps should note:
1. A teach-in on the proposed Wisconsin constitutional amendment that
would prohibit lesbian and gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships
will be held on Tuesday, March 1, starting at 6:30 in Memorial Union.
It is sponsored by the UW's Faculty-Senate Committee on LGBT Issues. http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/doc/glbtrpt.htm
2. An Academic Staff Issues Forum at 11:45 on March 29 at Memorial Union - register through the OHRD web site, http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/.
3. The Academic Staff Institute hosted by WISCAPE on April 7. You can sign up at http://www.wiscape.wisc.edu/calendar/details.asp?id=333.
Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee (CEBC) - Bill Steffenhagen,
chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/cebc/index2.htm
Districting and Representation Committee (DRC) - Charlene Krembs, chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/comopp/drc.html
Nominating Committee - Mary Ray, chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/comopp/nc.html
Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee (PPPC) - Ann Wallace, chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/pppc/index.htm
Professional Development and Recognition Committee (PDRC) http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/pdrc/index.html
Wisconsin Union Committee on Academic Staff Issues - Robin Schmoldt
The Union's 43 academic staff members are invited to a meeting with the
Union director each fall and spring. Attendance is about 70%. The director
and other Union staff provide updates on current issues. An academic staff
resource group works on issues directly affecting academic staff and makes
recommendations to the Union leadership team. The Union holds annual performance-based
merit reviews and has a form for evaluating academic staff. Action items
have included issues of salary compression and work schedules. The CASI's
five-year review is coming up soon.
Campus Diversity Oversight Committee - Bernice Durand, co-chair
Bernice provided a handout with a condensed version of the committee's
annual report. The committee is large with four academic staff members:
Ann Pham, Bruno Browning, Kelly Burton, Bill Steffenhagen, Susan Nossal,
Elton Crim, and Aaron Bird Bear. The size has been a problem for the committee
chairs, so the committee has six subcommittees that will report to the
whole committee, but the process is still not completely workable. The
committee participated in 2002-03, 2003-04, and Fall 2004 in shaping Phase
II of Plan 2008, now submitted. Legal issues related to race-based affirmative
action in admissions have been a subject of a Supreme Court case. This
year's committee's theme is retention. Since the pipeline for minority
students remains thin, it is important to continue to provide resources
for the PEOPLE program. Statistics have shown that the Freshman Interest
Groups have been key in the academic success of students who might otherwise
feel isolated on this large campus.
Bernice will be looking at all the units and organizations with diversity issues committees to identify redundancies and gaps, then bring groups together to discuss mutual concerns. Once there are clearly defined expectations, better reporting methods can be put in place to measure progress.
GUEST: Don Schutt, Office of Human Resource Development (OHRD)
ASEC invited Don to the Assembly to describe the new cultural linguistics
program. By having bilingual staff for Spanish, Hmong, and other employees,
it can help create a more welcoming and safe environment. His office will
have native speakers on all three shifts to give ESL employees an opportunity
to ask questions. Don is also looking into simultaneous translation equipment
for the campus. See the OHRD website http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/ for more
information on the bilingual program.
New Business
Resolution on mandatory reviews for promotion - Bill Steffenhagen for
CEBC
Bill presented a motion to approve a draft of CEBC's resolution for mandatory
promotion reviews. A handout prepared by Margaret Harrigan and Kyung Ae
Jun of the Office of Academic Planning and Analysis showed the numbers
of academic staff in various categories that would be affected by this
proposal.
Under the provisions of this resolution, the Academic Personnel Office (APO) would send out a notice each year to units listing academic staff who have remained at the associate level for more than three years and those at the no-prefix level for more than eight years. Since these timeframes indicate a normal promotion progression, a form will be sent to the department listing the "outlier" employees. There will be codes on the form where the employer can indicate that a promotion has been granted, or, if not, why not. This will at least guarantee that a review for promotion has occurred. Once the reports have been turned back in to APO, CEBC will review them and turn the information over to the CASIs for possible follow-up.
Bill thanked ASEC for its discussion and review of the resolution. He also and defended the resolution against some possible negative arguments that were mentioned on the listserv. In the ensuing open discussion, several representatives argued that only the units with a history of outliers should be subject to this provision. Others wanted more data on the numbers of academic staff that could come into the outlier category in the next five years.
Alan Ng moved to amend the resolution to change the last sentence to read, ". . . establishing an oversight process regarding promotion . . .." The motion was seconded, but did not pass.
More discussion on why promotions were not granted in a timely fashion related to the lack of annual performance reviews, administrators and supervisors not properly trained, and employees' choice not to take on the implied additional responsibilities.
Barry Robinson moved to postpone the vote until the March Assembly meeting to get additional information. Seconded and passed.
PROVOST Report: Peter Spear
The provost talked about the effect of the governor's Feb 12 proposal
for the state's next biennial operating budget. For the UW System, the
governor proposed budget changes totaling $ 215M during the 2005-07 biennium.
These would be funded from $50M increased GPR, $100M increased tuition
revenue, and $65M from reallocations within the UW. Of the amount from
reallocation, $35M would be obtained by eliminating 200 positions in administrative
functions. All of the above numbers are for the UW System. UW-Madison's
share can only be estimated at this point in the budget process: perhaps
about 40 percent, approximately.
Yet to be determined are the capital budget and the unclassified pay plan. Stay tuned.
Meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Submitted by Colleen McCabe
Secretary of the Academic Staff