Minutes Approved 3-26-04, 2004
ACADEMIC STAFF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (ASEC)
8:30-11:00 am
Friday, 12 March 2004
67 Bascom Hall
Present: Bruce Beck, Frank Kooistra, Read Gilgen, Donna Cole, Belinda
Velazquez, Tori Richardson, Robin Kurtz, Karen Schwarz
Excused: Linda Newman
Guests: Ann Wallace, Peter Spear, Mara McDonald
Meeting called to order by chair Bruce Beck at 8:35 am.
AUTOMATIC CONSENT BUSINESS
Minutes of the 5 March 2004 meeting were approved as amended.
PROVOST REPORT: PETER SPEAR
The provost attended the first search and screen committee meeting for
the UW System president. A search consulting firm will help recruit qualified
candidates and facilitate some of the meetings.
The administration is concerned with the rising costs of startup packages for faculty. With large staffing and equipment costs, mostly in the sciences, our campus cannot afford to bring in new faculty without using WARF funds. A task force will begin to look at the problem.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Bruce provided a list of the 18-member System president search and screen
committee.
The next proposed recipient of an ASEC commendation is the School of Nursing CASI. Read will identify the individual/s to be named.
STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS
Compensation and Economic Benefits Committee - Greg Iaccarino, by email
The next CEBC benefits workshop will focus on part-time (mostly instructional)
staff. It will be held at Union South from 11:00-1:00 on April 19.
Personnel Policies and Procedures Committee - Ann Wallace
Ann announced that the latest round of changes (approved by the Assembly
on March 8) was turned over to Steve Lund, who will send them on to John
Dowling of campus legal services.
A heading change suggested by Assembly representative (District 155) Simon Anderson was considered by the committee.
Professional Development and Recognition Committee - Read Gilgen
Read reported that the committee called some of the strong candidates
for excellence awards who were not winners this year to encourage them
to apply again. The fallout that resulted will keep the committee from
following this route next year.
There were no candidates from the Madison academic staff for either the Alliant/Underkofler or the Regents Teaching Excellence awards. The Madison applicant this year did not receive the Regents Service Excellence award.
The PRDC made a policy that emeritus professors would not be considered for academic staff excellence awards. They will work with System to make that distinction clear in the call for nominations.
Lisa Jansen is working with Don Schutt of Human Resource Development
to design a customized entry for academic staff to promote professional
development opportunities using the My UW portal.
GENERAL REPORTS
ASEC Chair: Bruce Beck
Bruce received case study information from Meg Meyer and Read Gilgen on
their degree committee experiences. Jackie Hank may also have some related
cases for this issue.
SECRETARY: Colleen McCabe
Ann Groves Lloyd needs to step down from the Nominating Committee at the
end of June to take on added responsibilities, so ASEC will have to identify
an additional nominee.
ASEC will meet on April 9 - Good Friday.
University Academic Planning Council - Robin Kurtz
The UAPC continues to try to sort out what decisions need to be made by
the council, in view of what they have just been rubber stamping. Jocelyn
Milner gave the committee information on the number of programs that haven't
had their 10-year review. It turns out that there are only 10 of the low
enrollment programs left to do, and the reviews have been scheduled.
Criteria need to be established for post-baccalaureate degrees in the professional health sciences areas. With the new advanced degree requirement in some of these fields, such as pharmacy, public health, and audiology, there is a question as to how faculty will be reviewed for tenure. The UAPC will revisit this issue with the deans.
GUESTS: Committee on Women in the University - Jeff Hamm and Nancy Mathews
Jeff and Nancy went through some of the significant statistics from the
CoW's annual report. Of particular note were the discrepancies in salaries
for academic staff women and the slow road to tenure for faculty women.
The committee plans to work with the CEBC to do more peer analysis within
titles of academic staff. Jeff described position papers that CoW is currently
working on that will be presented to the provost. One will recommend a
web site with resources on various worklife issues. The other is in support
of domestic partner benefits. The CoW is aware of the childcare facility
crunch on campus. Waiting lists are long, and the excellent care comes
at a premium price.
OLD BUSINESS
Performance reviews - Associate Vice Chancellor Bernice Durand
Bernice came to discuss how ASEC might forward the cause of having supervisors'
evaluations include input from those supervised. She was aware of the
new amendment to ASPP requiring such input when the supervisor is academic
staff and was invited to discuss the possibility of extending this concept
to the review of faculty supervisors.
She believes it is rare for faculty to solicit input from any staff whom they supervise during faculty reviews. Faculty Policies and Procedures (FPP) does not require it, though the separate policy on post-tenure review does require that faculty get feedback from students and others who work with the person. Putting academic staff in the feedback loop could be accomplished by a change to FPP, which could be divisive and would have to be done carefully. One approach might be to further discuss it with the provost and the University Committee as an issue of climate. Then, possibly, the provost might take it to the deans for discussion. Perhaps departments that do include supervisees in reviews could be allies.
Bernice also thought that the concept might be worked into the March 30 joint WISELI-Provost's Office new workshop for department chairs, and the August day-long workshop for new chairs. Something about fair performance reviews could be inserted into the presentation. WISELI has developed a survey for all department members, if chairs sign on to work on improving department climate. Chairs would discuss the results and try to improve problem areas, one of which might well be the disenfranchisement of staff.
NEW BUSINESS
Committee appointments:
ASEC suggested potential candidates to run on the Nominating Committee
slate. Colleen will contact them to see if they are willing.
ASEC reappointed Bradley Hughes to the Memorial Library Committee, Jim Cooley to the Student Non-Academic Misconduct Hearing Panel, Gretchen Viney to the Access and Accommodation in Instruction Committee, and John Staley to the Recreational Sports Board. These are all for three-year terms.
ASEC members recommended three members for the Appeals Committee. The addition of the three members to be appointed by the chancellor will increase the Appeals Committee to 12 members.
ASEC agenda for March 26 - finalized
Meeting adjourned at 11:15 am
Submitted by Secretary of the Academic Staff
Colleen McCabe