The University Committee met on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 in Molinaro Hall room D135.

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 3:40 p.m. by the Chair, Dennis Rome.  Also attending were committee members Herb Colston, Peggy James and Farida Khan.  Chris Evans and Greg Mayer were excused.  Gary Wood was present as Secretary of the Faculty.  Interim Chancellor Lane Earns was an invited guest.

Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the meeting of March 3, 2009 were approved as distributed.

Announcements

 

Dennis reported on his meeting with Interim Chief Information Officer (CIO) Brian Remer and John Ward, Chair of the Information Resources Committee (IRC).  Brian has proposed that the new CIO work more closely with the faculty through the IRC.

Campus Technology Services is still dealing with data storage issues.

Dennis provided a brief update on the work of the strategic planning leadership team.

Peggy provided a brief update on the work of the budget reduction task force.

Old Business

Chancellor Earns was invited to discuss several issues that have been on the agenda of recent University Committee meetings.

1.  Creation of a Faculty Ombudsman Position

The Chancellor was generally supportive of this idea but suggested that a cadre of trained mediators might be more effective than a single person acting as an ombudsman.  He has used this model successfully before.  The Secretary of the Faculty could continue to serve as the source of information for policies and procedures.  The mediators could assist in the informal resolution of problems.  The mediators would be faculty and staff members.  They would be trained and given stipends.  Peggy pointed out that Jonathan Shailor already runs a conflict resolution program on campus and is an obvious source of assistance.  Farida expressed some concern that people might feel pressured to use this informal process rather that the formal complaint or grievance procedures.  The Chancellor said that had not been his experience.

When asked if the problems he has had to deal with so far were due to poor policies, people not knowing what the policies are or policies not being followed properly he indicated that all of those had created problems and that some policies, such as those related to assigning merit scores, are very inconsistent across departments.  He suggested that the University Committee begin a review of at least the most important policies and procedures, such as those related to promotion and tenure.  He noted that in the tenure and promotion review process, very little information seems to be transmitted from the Personnel Review Committee to the Deans and Provost.

2.  Faculty Search and Screen Policies and Procedures.

Dennis explained the concern among some faculty members that administrative policy 80 does not accurately reflect the work of the ad hoc committee that former Chancellor Keating charged with creating a set of policies and procedures for faculty hiring.  The Chancellor said that he understands there are problems with some of the current recruitment, search and screen and hiring procedures.  He has been working with UW-System administration and with UW-Parkside administration to bring about some changes, including giving the Director of Human Resources a more active role in the process.  He also noted that working out the details of these changes has taken longer than he anticipated.

3.  Information Technology Issues

To help meet the budget reduction target, all non-student computer replacements scheduled for this year will be delayed for one year.  The money saved will be part of the cash giveback

The search for the new CIO is ongoing and will move forward.  Another data assessment position to work with Bill Blanchard is being examined as well.

 

4.  Budget Issues

The cash giveback is a specific dollar amount.  It cannot be taken totally from 128 (auxiliary) funds, because this would disproportionately affect students.  Most of our 128 funds are in Residence Life and parking.  Some of the cash giveback will come from salary savings.

5.  Enrollment

We have raised our admission standards a bit and applications for next year are higher than last year.  We are working to recruit more students from Illinois and asking for more funds to offer them in-state tuition.  Given the demographics of the population of Wisconsin, all campuses can expect to see a decline in the enrollment of new high school graduates.  There are simply fewer of them.  Any growth will be among older students.

 

New Business

The committee agreed to place two items on the agenda for the April 2 Faculty meeting; policies and procedures for determining merit raises and proposed changes to UWPF Chapter 3.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 5:25 p.m.

Submitted by,

Gary M. Wood,

Secretary of the Faculty