ACADEMIC STAFF ASSEMBLY
Monday, February 11, 2002
165 Bascom Hall (3:30 - 4:30)

A. PROVOST PETER SPEAR CALLED THE MEETING TO ORDER AT 3:35 P.M.

B. AUTOMATIC CONSENT BUSINESS
The minutes of the 1/14/2002 Academic Staff Assembly meeting were approved as presented.

C. PROVOST ACTIVITY REPORT: PETER SPEAR
The governor's budget proposal is making its way through the legislative process. Hearings will be held across the state, and the budget bill must be approved in both houses before becoming final. Any new version is not expected to have a different impact on the campus. Ultimately, $40 million in cuts will be permanent.

A committee is working on Wisconsin Idea projects to best use the funds provided by the Baldwin endowment.

A climate networking group has met to discuss current initiatives on campus, such as those from Plan 2008 and the Committee on Women in the University. The leaders of the various groups explained their plans and tried to identify where there may be gaps. There will soon be a web site detailing the related activities on campus.

D. Committee on Academic Staff Issues (CASI) - College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS)
CALS associate dean, Frank Kooistra and vice-chair of the CASI, Beth Holden, reported on the makeup and activities of the CALS CASI since its inception in the spring of 1999. The dean of the college is the official chair of the committee and attends the first and last meetings of the year. Kooistra is the ex officio chair and presides at the meetings. There are 13 voting members of which 10 are elected. Much of the work of the CASI is done in four standing committees.

Last year, the CASI did a climate survey that had a good response. Results are on their web site http://www.cals.wisc.edu/casi/, where they also post agendas and minutes of their meetings. The CASI worked to make performance reviews mandatory for academic staff. CASI members deliver a welcome packet to all new academic staff to provide a personal greeting.

D. COMMITTEES AND REPORTS

1. ASEC ANNOUNCEMENTS AND ACTIVITIES - Linda Newman, Chair
Thanks to Donna Cole from the Academic Staff Endowment Committee for baking cookies for today's meeting fund raiser.

ASEC ballots should be returned to the secretary's office by March 1. Results will be announced at the March Assembly meeting. ASEC is charged with preparing a slate for the Nominating Committee. Anyone interested should contact Linda or the secretary this month. A revised version of Chapter 14 will be coming back to the Assembly in March.

Wilt Sanders and Esther Olson met with interim Graduate School dean Martin Cadwallader to talk about setting up a CASI in that unit. Plans are progressing to have CASI members elected this spring.

Mary Ray and Mark Werner of the Districting and Representation Committee met with ASEC for a presentation on the hows and whys of districting for academic staff. Professor Deborah Brandt of the Campus Diversity Oversight Committee talked to ASEC about the challenges of a diverse workplace. She and Paul Barrows will be speaking to the Assembly at the March meeting. Dennis Dorn, the chair of the Campus Transportation Committee, spoke with ASEC about new directions for parking on campus with the increased demand causing a shortage in number of parking stalls. He will address these issues at the April Assembly meeting. ASEC will be asking academic staff members of campus committees to report routinely to the Assembly on the work of their committees.

Linda mentioned the professional education forums and courses offered by WISCAPE this spring and encouraged academic staff to take advantage of this great opportunity to learn more about the campus and other higher education issues.

2. Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee (CEBC) - Janice Czyscon for Ron Carda, Chair
http://cebc.engr.wisc.edu/
Committee members are still working on the problem of Category A maxima and will be bringing their findings to a future Assembly meeting. Two brown bags are being cosponsored this spring with PPPC and PDRC:

Time to move up the ladder? Academic Staff Promotions - presenter, Ann Wallace
February 18, noon, Union South
February 25, 3:30, 220 Ingraham

Building a Portfolio - presenter, Don Schutt
February 21, 3:30, 154 Education
February 26, noon, 220 Ingraham

No pre-registration required.

3. Districting and Representation Committee (DRC) - Mary Ray, Chair
http://drc.academic-staff.wisc.edu
There are two openings on the DRC committee for next year. If anyone is interested and has questions about the duties of the committee, they can contact Mary Ray.

4. Nominating Committee (NC) -Karen Carlson, Chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/comopp/nc.html

5. Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee (PPPC) - Ann Wallace, Chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/comopp/pppc/

6. Professional Development and Recognition Committee (PDRC) - Belinda Velazquez, Co-chair
http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/pdrc/index.html
Spring noon brown bags:
3/11 on Professional Development through Involvement in Professional Organizations, 220 Ingraham
4/18 on Who's Who in Administration, noon in 220 Ingraham

PDRC is delighted to announce that Linda Newman has agreed to personally contribute the funds to purchase the statues for the 2003 Excellence Awards presentation!

7. Legislative Update - Esther Olson
The Joint Finance Committee will be holding hearings on Wednesday on the governor's budget proposal. ASPRO will be working the System Administration and PROFS on whether or not to participate.

See the budget details on the web:

www.legis.state.wi.us/senate/scc/01-46953.pdf

The issue of early retirement for state employees has been proposed as a cost-savings plan. However, the legislative fiscal bureau has to run the numbers to see how much could really be saved if it were to go into effect.

OTHER BUSINESS

A. OLD BUSINESS
1. Academic Staff Institute plans - Greg Iaccarino
Invitations will be coming soon to members of the Assembly and other governance groups. The full day's agenda for April 17 at Memorial Union will help academic staff in developing tools for personal growth and better leadership. The only cost will be $10 for lunch. Other funding is being generously supplied by the provost's office.

2. Academic Staff Endowment Fund Committee - Donna Cole
The committee met recently with members of the UW Foundation. The Foundation is currently in the quiet phase of a large capital campaign to raise money for the UW System working primarily with large donors. The next phase will begin in the spring of 2003 at the local campus level. It will look like the SECC campaign in that donors can give to specific initiatives if they wish. The Foundation is looking for academic staff to work with them on the steering committee. Let the secretary know if you - or any of your district members - would be interesting in this project.

The committee will continue with its "bake sale" fundraisers for the next couple months, but is planning a "white elephant" sale in May and would like all of you to contribute an item or two to the cause, bring your "elephants" to the March or April Assembly meetings - or by May 5 to the secretary's office. If you have a suggested donation price, please include that, too.

The committee continues to struggle with possible ways to use the endowment fund to benefit academic staff and how to encourage contributions. We welcome your suggestions.

B. NEW BUSINESS
1. Instructional and research academic staff integration report - Linda Newman
A copy of the survey that the provost's office will be completing to send to System was sent to the CASIs last week. We will forward it to Assembly reps this week. This is mainly for your information, but if you have any feedback that could be useful in preparing the responses, you can email them to Linda, newman@education.wisc.edu.

Two focus groups will be meeting this spring where both research and instructional staff can talk over issues of integration at UW-Madison.

Judy Manning brought up the issue of titles in this context and mentioned that the 800 academic staff, who hold Clinical and CHS professor titles, are very will integrated into the Medical School and have been for year. They can provide a model for others who aspire to professorial titles. They are excellent academic staff, bringing in millions of research dollars to the campus.

2. Spring Town Meetings - Jane Bannerman
The town meetings will be held twice this spring:

Tuesday, April 30, at 4:00 in the Red Gym
Wednesday, May 1, at noon in Union South

Rosa Garner, ombuds for the Medical School, will facilitate these meeting with a theme of campus climate and workplace civility, but all issue are welcome to be raised during the ensuing discussion.

Meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m.

Submitted by Colleen McCabe
Secretary of the Academic Staff