Minutes Approved 2-13-04, 2004
ACADEMIC STAFF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (ASEC)
8:30-11:00 am
Friday, 6 February 2004
67 Bascom Hall
Present: Bruce Beck, Karen Schwarz, Frank Kooistra, Read Gilgen, Donna
Cole, Tori Richardson, Robin Kurtz
Excused: Linda Newman, Belinda Velazquez
Guests: Ann Wallace, Bill Steffenhagen, Steve Lund, Peter Spear
Meeting called to order by chair Bruce Beck at 8:35 am.
AUTOMATIC CONSENT BUSINESS
Minutes of the 30 January 2004 meeting were approved as amended.
PROVOST REPORT: PETER SPEAR
Peter mentioned Katharine Lyall's retirement announcement and said that
it was not entirely unexpected. He felt that the System enjoyed her style
and direction over her 12-year tenure as president. She has been a friend
to the UW-Madison, granting campus administration the autonomy to make
critical decisions. The search will likely go quickly with use of a professional
search firm and a screening committee that the Regents will put together.
The strategic planning exercise involving System chancellors and others will have their reports in by June. However, budget planning for the next biennium has started, with budget requests due before June. Funding for new initiatives will have to be supported by preliminary recommendations from the various strategic planning committees.
STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee
Bill Steffenhagen reported that a mandatory promotion reporting system
will be piloted this month when the Academic Personnel Office (APO) sends
information to school, college and division human resource offices. When
it goes into effect next year, employing units will be provided a list
of academic staff members who have held an entry level title prefix more
than three years and academic staff members who have held a title one
step above entry level for more than eight years. Based upon time in service
these employees are eligible for promotion within their title series.
Units that decide not promote an eligible academic staff member will be
required to give a valid reason for the decision. The reason is subject
to review by school, college and division human resource offices.
The CEBC met with Dick Laufenberg and Kathleen O'Rourke-Benjamin, Employee
Compensation and Benefits Services, to discuss fringe benefits. The CEBC
will work with UW System Fringe Benefit Advisory Committee to change University
of Wisconsin System Rules to provide restoration of earned sick leave
after a gap in state service of five years or less. Currently, academic
staff members receive restoration of sick leave credits if a gap in state
service is three years or less.
Professional Development and Recognition Committee
Read Gilgen reported that the professional development grant-writing workshop
held on February 3 at Memorial Union was well attended. The number of
Excellence Award applications was down this year. The PDRC will look at
possible causes to see if they can boost the numbers next year.
GENERAL REPORTS
ASEC Chair: Bruce Beck
Bruce and Robin Kurtz will meet with the student advisory group on February
17 to discuss the elimination of instructor codes from the Timetable.
The provost will also attend. Bruce will provide data he found on the
ASM web site from fall 2002 student evaluations. His sampling shows that
the codes are not a good indicator of instructor quality. In preparing
this data, Bruce also found that the Timetable codes as listed are not
always accurate.
SECRETARY: Colleen McCabe
Colleen confirmed with ASEC that the date for the next CASI brown bag
discussion will be April 23 at noon. She will send an email to CASI reps
to let them know.
Tori Richardson and Sandra Arfa will be the academic staff members of the L&S dean's search committee. John Shaffer, of the Music School faculty, will be chair.
Karen Schwarz is willing to be a second ASEC member on the interview team for the Athletic Board position.
CALS CASI: Robin Kurtz
Peter Bloch organized a meeting of six CALS CASI members to brainstorm
how to find out which academic staff members in CALS are doing teaching
along with advising. A proper survey done by the UW Survey Center priced
out at $3500, an amount the dean was not willing to fund. The group then
approached Bernice Durand about possible Sloan Foundation money to support
their plan. Bernice was excited about the project and is willing to use
Sloan money to fund the survey as well as possible initiatives to help
resolve issues that may be outcomes of the survey results. Bernice will
meet with Peter's group on Monday, along with representatives from the
WISELI project. The CALS survey has the potential to be a pilot for a
larger survey for the campus.
Two of the issues identified as concerns are:
1. job security - no indefinite appointments and maximum of two-year rolling
horizons
2. lack of participation in curriculum decisions.
FACULTY SENATE: Frank Kooistra
Chancellor Wiley mentioned the concern by students over the high cost
of textbooks. He urged faculty not to change editions any more often than
necessary. The $600-$1000 per year cost of books poses a hardship for
many students.
The Campus Transportation Committee gave an update related to fallout from the new hang tag permits. The CTC has devised a clear plastic sleeve with shorter permit to move between vehicles and has made new provisions for motorcycles. However, there are still faculty who want to go back to the multiple-permit system. This issue was tabled for further discussion.
A motion before the Senate to add emeritus faculty to those eligible for honorific professorial titles was amended by the University Committee to require that the person be at 50% funded by non-GPR funds. The amendment prevailed, and the motion passed.
REGENTS: Donna Cole
A leading higher education expert Alan E. Guskin, former chancellor at
UW-Parkside, spoke to the Regents saying that colleges and universities
must plan proactively to transform their institutions in response to leaner
economic times.
Guskin said sharp cutbacks in state funding for public higher education
will require changes in means of delivery for instruction. He believes
in doing away with the large undergraduate lecture courses and putting
more reliance on technology. He realizes that the initial investment in
this means of instruction will be expensive, but thinks it will save money
in the long run.
UW-Platteville's proposal to attract students from nearby Iowa and Illinois
communities by offering a tuition differential instead of the usual out-of-state
tuition was approved by the Regents. Students from these neighboring states
will be charged a flat fee of $4000 in addition to the in-state tuition
cost.
Donna sat in on the Research and Public Service strategic planning subcommittee meeting. They mentioned a need to partner with the state technical colleges and were concerned about the loss of programs for returning adults. The UW System ranks 29th behind other states in meeting the needs of older students. They also noted that there are only six online courses now being provided. There are certain advantages, but the online courses are 30% more expensive to deliver.
OLD BUSINESS
1. Academic staff on degree committees
Colleen reported that Elena Hsu in the Graduate School office said that
no more than five academic staff have been signers on warrants in the
past four years. Ann Wallace will invite Meg Meyer to a future ASEC meeting
to get her perspective. Karen Schwarz will find Medical School examples
and Robin Kurtz will look within microbial sciences to get research and
science perspectives to help build a set of case studies.
2. Collective bargaining enabling legislation
Bill Steffenhagen and Char Tortorice, Madison Academic Staff Association
(MASA) advisory board, met to review the revised collective bargaining
enabling legislation. They believe that collective bargaining may be incompatible
with shared governance. The legislation would allow faculty and academic
staff members to choose to collectively bargain in separate bargaining
units on each system campus. Because academic staff shared governance
has been effective on the Madison campus, the need for enabling legislation
may be open to question. The Academic Staff Public Representation Organization
(ASPRO), a system-wide lobbying organization for academic staff, believes
that academic staff members may lose their clout in the legislature if
academic staff members are split into separate bargaining units on each
campus.
ASEC agenda 2/13/04 - finalized
Meeting adjourned at 11:00 am
Submitted by Secretary of the Academic Staff
Colleen McCabe