University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire
University Senate Executive Committee
Minutes from February 5, 2008
Volume 44, Number 10
Present: Ned Beach, Jennifer Brockpahler, Mitchell Freymiller, Andrea Gapko, Susan Harrison, Robert Hooper, Rose Jadack, Robert Hollon, Brian Levin-Stankevich, Brian Mahoney, Donna Raleigh, Scott Robertson, Linda Spaeth, Steve Tallant, Chuck Tomkovick, Marty Wood
Absent:
Guests: Mary Jane Brukardt, Donald Christian, Gail Scukanec, Sheila Smith, Andrew Soll
The regular meeting of the University Senate Executive Committee was called to order by Chair Wood at 3:01 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, 2008 in the Presidents Room of Davies Center.
- Minutes of January 22, 2008 approved as distributed
- Open Forum
- Make-up of Search Committee
- Committee member was emailed a concern about how search committees are formed as some are appointed while others are elected or partially elected
- Language reflects policy and would need to go to a committee to make a change
- Executive Committee would be an appropriate place to start
- Last changes were in consultation with the Shared Governance Group
- Review of tentative agenda for February 12, 2008 meeting of University Senate
- Addition of Motion to eliminate Comprehensive Major in Music Therapy
- Approved as distributed with minor editorial changes and corrections as stated
- Consideration of Shared Governance statement
- Controversial due to language
- Currently approved by over half of faculty
- Looks like it will be adopted however language will need to be clarified
- Not intended to take the place of shared governance that’s already in place
- Strong complaint about the 6th paragraph that starts with “In normal situations, shared governance business will be carried out through UW System Faculty Representatives Advisory Council and Academic Staff Representatives Council meetings.”
- red flag because nobody knows what is meant by shared governance business much less a what constitutes normal situations
- what it is supposed to mean is that when something is far too urgent to go through all the senate’s on all the campuses
- for example: during the summer when a legislative committee mandates a report
- Senate Executive Committee at UWEC can stand in place if such a thing were to arise but not all campuses would have this in place
- offering any type of loophole that appears to cut out most of the shared governance systems is troublesome and needs to be clarified before all of the bodies will sign on without any asterisks
- Executive Committee to endorse this document in principal without it being brought to the full Senate until a revised document is received
- Suggestion to highlight a sentence or two in the 6th paragraph as it is not currently defined
- The gain is the promise to include us early and often in policies
- Don’t want to lose this because of our concerns about this other item
- No objections with the endorsement and will state in the Senate meeting that we appreciate in spirit what is happening here and we agree that System should include us as early and often as possible
- Discussion of Draft Strategic Plan
- Planning Committee trying to meet with groups on campus as well as public forums to see if it the Strategic Plan is liked and to see what improvements can be made
- Will meet with University Senate on Tuesday, February 12, 2007
- Discussion
- An excellent job in presenting the Strategic Plan to the campus
- Want to see the Strategic Plan move forward as a group since it is a university plan as opposed to having turf issues
- Should be university citizens, not departmental citizens as we move forward
- Turf in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing as people will always wonder how it affects “their” department
- Keep University Senate as a structure to keep away from turf issues
- Most of the processes as we go forward will still include the planning committee
- planning committee will be responsible for the creating final Strategic Plan
- Way to include academic staff and classified staff
- Planning committee was established by a rule in the handbook
- seems to be presented as all inclusive
- forums are open to all
- will be discussed in Student Senate on Monday, Fenruary11, 2008
- Departments/Units should get together as a community and have a discussion with Faculty, Academic Staff and Classified Staff to include them in the discussion
- Discussion does not need to take place with the University Planning Committee
- University Planning Committee is open to any comments from anybody in any form
- Next week will be meeting with Chairs, Deans and Directors and will emphasize to them that if they have a meeting it would be a good time to get representation from Academic and Classified Staff
- This plan seems to have energy and seems to be real
- What will keep the excitement high is that there are concrete steps that will be taken
- Time line laid out
- Will need to see incremental progress as this is an 8 year plan
- Will have long term goals, then as we set 1 year action plans we will have much more specific targets that we set for ourselves both at an institutional level as well as Departments and Units
- Might be beneficial to have a visual goal attainment as it will show early stages of success and continue momentum and realism
- 300 people from the University community turned out to discuss the Strategic Plan
- Would rather have people give input now, rather than later as we don’t want people to fear what is coming
- Mission in relation to vision
- Waiting until the end is too late and changing it in the beginning is too early
- Needs to be resolved before the Higher Learning Commissions visit
- Process is inclusive and it is an accomplishment so we need to celebrate not only what we have but how we got there
- Miscellaneous Business
- None
- Announcement
- Chancellor Levin-Stankevich announces that we will be hosting a Public-Private Collaborative Partnerships Symposium on February 28, 2008
- Chancellor and Mike Rindo have been meeting with everyone from the Eau Claire Regional Arts Council to the Convention and Visitors Bureau and Hobbs Ice Arena
- Work with the community to see what we can help with
- May not get our own of something but the community needs something and together we can get a whole lot more than we could get as a University
- Think about collaborative things so we can enhance our community and campus
- get community behind projects that we would benefit from
- Variety of areas in the community need help and we have the political clout necessary to help get funding to help them
- Mike Rindo, Convention and Visitors Bureau and private developer and City Manager went as a team to a conference on Public/Private Partnerships
- largely dominated by University Community Partnerships and University of Missouri, Kansas City and University Cincinnati each doing hundreds of millions of dollars in projects right now which are largely unfunded by their states
- A current Alumnus is in the business of putting partnerships together in California and will come back to speak to the panelists at this conference and the Community Visioning group that is working on community collaboration to try to get more brainstorming and possibilities
- A lot of collaborative things that we can think about that can enhance both the community and the campus at the same time
Meeting adjourned at 3:52 p.m.
Submitted by,
Tanya Kenney
Secretary of the University Senate
