UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-EAU CLAIRE

UNIVERSITY SENATE MEETING

VOL. 43, NO. 6

December 12, 2006

Members Present:

Judy Blackstone, Janice Bogstad, Jacqueline Bonneville, Don Bredle, Jennifer Brockpahler, Maria DaCosta, Patrick Day, Margaret Devine, Gary Don, Michael Dorsher, Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, Leslie Foster, Jessica Franson, Mitchell Freymiller, Warren Gallagher, Alan Gallaher, Andrea Gapko, Susan Harrison, Robert Hollon, Rose Jadack, Debra Jansen, Jennifer Johs-Artisensi, Fred Kolb, Jennifer Lee, Brian Levin-Stankevich, Tim Lippold, Bruce Lo, David Lonzarich, Steven Majstorovic, Karl Markgraf, Susan Mc Intyre, Sean McAleer, Sue Moore, Mike Morrison, Jill Prushiek, Donna Raleigh, Sherrie Serros, Mehdi Sheikholeslami, Earl Shoemaker, Nick Smiar, Laurie St. Aubin-Whelihan, Jan Stirm, Kent Syverson, Lois Taft, Steve Tallant, Max Von Klein, Sharon Westphal, Scott Whitfield, Michael Wick, Marty Wood, Deborah Wright, Rebecca Wurzer

Members Absent:

Robin Baker, Rose Battalio, Marcia Bollinger, Paul Butrymowicz, Barbara Davis, Jeff Erger, Ann Hoffman, Larry Honl, Robert Hooper, Todd Hostager, Bill Jacobsen, Harry Jol, Heather Kretz, Barbara Lozar, Tarique Niazi, Scott Robertson, Lorraine Smith, Troy Terhark, Charles Vue

Guests:

Margaret Cassidy, Donald Christian, Stephanie Jamelske, Katherine Rhoades, Andrew Soll, Bob Sutton, Christopher Wagner

The regular meeting of University Senate was called to order by Chair Harrison at 3:03 p.m. on Tuesday, December 12, 2006 in the Tamarack Room of Davies Center.

I. Minutes of November 28, 2006 University Senate meeting approved as distributed

II. Chancellor’s Remarks – Chancellor Levin-Stankevich

· Much occurred at Board of Regents meeting last week – most covered in press

· Background checks for new hires approved

· Davies renovation approved

· All student money, no state money

· Project still needs to be in governor’s budget; expect it to go through

· Pay plan recommendation of 5.23% per year for each year of biennium forwarded

· No funding to come from tuition; attempting to keep tuition hikes to rate of inflation

· Could become negotiating situation if general funds not adequate

· New policy drafted by system legal on recognizing student groups

· Addresses discrimination and funding of student organizations

· Students expressing support for goals of organization should not be prohibited from being member or officer in organization, in spite of race, creed, religion, etc.

· Attempts to deal with challenges at Madison with Knights of Columbus and group suing UW-Superior for student funding practices

· Lack of input from students on new policy questioned

· Admissions policy deferred because Representative Nass requested more public input on issue

· Rep. Nass subsequently named chair of Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee

· The New York Times ran interesting series this week on private institutions

· In many ways need to look at some of those models

· Indicated if raise tuition, get more and better applicants because people see as more desirable as become more expensive

· Seems to work for some schools and not others

· Tomorrow to talk about whether private schools really worth it

· As campus, have not responded much to President Reilly’s Growth Agenda

· Request came in summer, so responded with as much consultation as could muster in early months as chancellor

· Need to underscore quality of what we do within context of overall system growth plan

· Our proposal specifically said we will not grow freshman class

· Idea is not to simply get more students, but to seek out specific areas of opportunity and markets that have not been targeted before

· If what submitted as 10% budget reduction exercise by system administration accepted by governor, will have to show that moving to some extent on growth agenda without resources for it

· Our response hedged; said we can do this either if funded, or on program revenue in self-supporting models

· With solid state funding level, basically said we stay where we are in terms of enrollment

· Faculty and academic staff representatives indicated other institutions have submitted resolutions in support of growth agenda

· President Reilly wants chancellors to meet with chambers of commerce, economic development councils, rotary groups, and others to seek support for growth agenda and ask assistance in urging governor to exercise discretionary spending authority in direction of higher education

· Lot easier than thinking about what growth agenda means for us as a campus

· Need to figure out how it works for us

· In final stages of search for Assistant to Chancellor for Strategic Planning

· Committee contacting three finalists to bring to campus

· Working with Bob Sevier of Stamats to conduct open forum for us about strategic planning, what that means, how various people have approached it, literature, what has worked, and what has not worked

· Then will continue dialogue on how to proceed

· Headed to Washington DC Monday with Andy Phillips to lobby with local company on behalf of equipment to add to university’s resources that would also play into economic development opportunities in region

· Responses to questions and comments from floor

· No longer calling it holistic admissions – don’t really have name for it, just admissions process

· Talked to Kris Anderson before regents meeting, proposal would not be fundamental change for UW-Eau Claire

· Still puts academics first; look at difficulty of courses, grade point average, rank in class, ACT or SAT scores, and students at top will be accepted

· Simply means that in next group where we have regularly looked at variety of factors that indicate more or less motivation, direction, and ability to adapt to be successful at university level, now using a number of additional factors for making decisions

· Gives us more flexibility

· Whole discussion of Board of Regents primarily about Madison

· People in state want guarantee that children can go to Madison

· Admissions Office here has done good job of bringing in students that have been successful

· Retention rate going up

· Also want to diversify our student body – went to Milwaukee last week

· Met with two regents from that area, Danae Davis and Jesus Salas, our regent buddy

· Both very involved with Hispanic community in Milwaukee – mostly with UWM

· Denae left corporate job for nonprofit agency in inner city working with young women to get them through high school and hopefully to college

· Got some good ideas from regents on how to better connect with those communities

· Eager to have us do so because we offer different opportunities for our students than many other institutions do; things those students are thinking about before coming this far from home

· Goal is to rebuild past relationships to serve whole state and bring diversity to campus

III. Chair’s Report – Chair Harrison

· Chancellor signed off on senate action for name change in physics dual degree, engineering emphasis

· Small shared governance group met and talked about various governance issues on campus

IV. Faculty Representative’s Report – Senator Wick

· Two things from BOR meeting

· President Reilly proposed counteroffer to governor’s suggested 10% administrative reduction plan

· Essentially, don’t cut us 10% and we will add 2600 students separate from Growth Agenda

· Concern is exchanging administrative cuts for adding students in classrooms – are different areas

· Cora Marrett, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at System, resigned to take position at National Science Foundation

· President Reilly putting together search team to look for new vice president; soliciting faculty representatives for people to serve on that committee

· If have names to put forward to system, please send them to me

V. Academic Staff Representative’s Report – Senator Blackstone

· Teleconference December 14, 2007 in senate office – any academic staff welcome to attend

VI. Announcements

· Next meeting is January 30, 2007

VII. Unfinished Business and General Orders

A. Second Reading – Motion from Academic Policies Committee
New Prefix for Materials Science Courses (MSCI) and inclusion of New Prefix in GE II-F

Continued Discussion

· Favor motion as member of Physics Department

· Question raised at last meeting about whether prefix might be somewhat confusing on transcript

· Looked at other universities and found many similar designations; not uncommon

· Typically would be for students wanting jobs at undergraduate level; helpful to employers in these fields to be able to see students have courses in areas employers looking for

· Courses would still have to be approved by GE Committee to actually be in GE; any courses with this prefix approved for GE would be in category II-F

Vote on Motion 43-AP-03: Motion PASSED by University Faculty without dissention.

B. University Senate Election – Election for Spring Semester Vacancy on University Senate Executive Committee
Nominees: Sheila Smith, Adult Health Nursing
Lois Taft, Nursing Systems

· No additional nominations from floor

Elected to the University Senate Executive Committee: Lois Taft

VIII. Reports of Committees

¨ Budget Committee – Senator Whitfield

· Met last week and made recommendation on planning reserve

IX. Special Reports

A. Report on Provost Search and Screen Committee – Chair Harrison

· Co-Chair Oberly unable to join us today, but reported

· Committee continues to make good progress

· Receiving numerous applications and nominations

· Encourages each of you to continue to check website for updates and make nominations

B. Report from UWS Fringe Benefit Committee Representative – Senator Kolb

· Reporting back to senate on issue of sick leave conversion as one topic addressed by Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) audit out last month

· Sick leave conversion program has two components

· Accumulate and under certain conditions can convert sick leave into purchase of medical insurance

· Generally viewed across system as good benefit

· Cost of program, which is fully funded – money is all there – is 1.3% of payroll

· Low cost benefit that creates strong incentive for people to remain in state service

· Feel pretty safe this benefit will remain – not worried that about to lose it

· Supplemental Health Insurance Conversion Credit Program not on quite as firm footing – could disappear more easily

· Came in as effort to reduce size of state government; unions said workers couldn’t retire because couldn’t afford health care

· State came back and supplemented amount of sick leave for conversion

· Highlights from LAB report

· Committee came to conclusion that reasonable people examining data might wonder if there had been full reporting of usage of sick leave

· 77% of faculty did not use sick leave in 2005

· Quick answer was collegial coverage, but 90% of faculty had never reported use of that coverage

· Will be some concessions from system as result of these statistics

· Fringe Benefits Committee to develop response to recommendations of LAB audit; to come back to governance groups in January and February for input

· Human Resources people in Madison surveyed different peer groups about sick leave – information included in handout

· Some schools expect you to be there; if not there, assume it is reasonable absence and don’t keep track

· Have no formal reporting of sick leave

· Our system of sick leave accumulation and conversion would be viewed as one of more generous

· Other schools all over the board; but typically upon retirement, sick leave has no value

· Health insurance benefits expense either picked up by institutions, shared with employee, or paid by employee as indicated

· Sense is university system sick leave policy, 10.06.2, not widely adhered to

· Full-time employees are to designate 40-hour work week

· If no written agreement with supervisor, automatically becomes 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. despite fact that faculty work more than 40 hours per week

· If not there during those 40 hours, cannot say it was made up some other time

· Argument is if can make it up, don’t need sick leave

· For some environments, sick leave makes less sense than others – we are right on edge

· Should know are non-faculty bothered by faculty use of sick leave – monitoring might go on

· For unclassified staff, there are also no vacations; so between semesters, rules continue to apply

· No reason have to be in office, but does need to be scheduled

· If going to have sick leave, then sick leave has to be used when something doesn’t happen

· Last spring did extensive training for chairs and directors on sick leave rules – should be able to talk to them with questions and concerns

· Typically very few restrictions on us

· Because we work for state agency, held to higher standard

· Just looking for somewhat regular basis over seven days

· Is accountability issue

· If going to have sick leave, has to be a way to use it; if never going to use it, then don’t need sick leave

· Some things being looked at by fringe benefit subcommittees

· Don’t need sick leave on sabbatical – that is going to go

· Hard to justify sick leave when on sabbatical because no accountability and no one declares it

· Next one that may go – collegial coverage for short periods of time

· Intended for long-term, not individual classes – will be changes

· Initial entitlement – when first start working for state, get 21 days of sick leave

· Feeling that is not good business practice – will probably go

· Some interest in going to hour for hour reporting; now report in half days

· If form not turned in, lose sick leave

· Looking at mechanisms used at different schools to get information out so there is good compliance

· Response to questions and comments from floor

· View in Madison is faculty and academic staff are good, hard-working people with sick leave benefit that involves numbers, so need to be accountable

· Changes would probably go into effect in academic year 2008-2009

· Will raise issue of how maternity leave affected at subcommittee meeting

· If collegial coverage for short-term no longer available, motivation for faculty to make advance arrangements would be to serve students

· Example of taping all lectures for use while gone for elective surgery and then not using sick leave came up at last meeting of fringe benefits committee

· Regent, who is attorney, said if he is sick and there is a trial, someone else from firm will represent client, but he will take sick leave

· Particular examples are all reasonable, but have to go back to state and say we want this benefit and will work with you

· Then at institutional level these things can be approved

· Using short term collegial coverage makes sense, but issue is if you can always prepare and have collegial coverage, then don’t need sick leave, or as least don’t need as much as currently getting

· Other problem is people use collegial coverage because miss class, but not taking sick leave for rest of day when not there

· People also not reporting using collegial coverage

· Has been reporting problem and that makes situation look worse

· Is reasonable to raise issue of hour by hour reporting

· If many employees report hour by hour and faculty get to report on half-day basis, but faculty aren’t using sick leave, maybe some absences are not being caught

· Committee trying to come back with package to take care of overall concern raised by audit

· Zero is hard number to defend, and we have essentially reported zero

· There are times when we diverge from 40-hour plan, but know will be working more hours later, so don’t take sick leave when by rules should do that

· Even though control of legislature has changed, we have to respond to LAB audit in good faith

· Feeling of committee is that should fully comply with rules

· Have no real criticisms with legislators’ use of sick leave; theirs is even fuzzier situation than ours

· Sick leave does not make sense for job like that

· Others are asking whether sick leave makes sense for university faculty

· Senators Kanavas and Darling have introduced bill to eliminate sick leave compensation for elected officials and executive officer holders in state

· Committee will try to preserve benefit for faculty and academic staff although some might go with strategy of putting that 1.3% into retirement accounts and not bother with sick leave

· Will be time in January and February to discuss issue further when committee brings back report

X. Miscellaneous Business

First Reading – Motion from Compensation Committee

Report on Comprehensive Salary Plan 2007-2009 – Vice Chair Gapko

· Issue comes up each year because committee charged with recommending salary plan outlining policies for distribution of salary adjustments for UW-Eau Claire

· Motion is 2007-2009 proposal covering next two years

· Few changes

· Adjusted promotion amounts for faculty based on same formula used in past years

· Amounts not increased last year because not called for by formula

· Increased promotion amount for academic staff to be average between two promotion levels for faculty ranks

· Have looked at how other institutions handle academic staff promotion increases; are all over the board

· Basically maintains same type of plan as past few years – both for faculty and academic staff

· Last year was first year plan was fully implemented with pay raise above 2%

· Questions for clarification

· Decisions by departments or units currently using alternate pay plans to distribute salaries based on comprehensive salary plan irreversible; cannot then go back to alternate plan

· Technically when look at plans and departments, every department now on alternate pay plan because have choice of four options

· Past survey to academic staff, with low response rate of 17%, showed some interest in moving to faculty model with rating system and each unit having its own pot of money

· Are some problems with that model; one of which is some people don’t fit in any unit

· Did survey this year to figure out if faculty liked this plan; had higher response rate

· Only based on one year because two or three years before that there was no money

· 50% of faculty responded no opinion on most questions asked

· About 25% liked plan and about 25% didn’t

· No clear cut direction from faculty

· Proposing two-year plan during which time faculty and academic staff can look at it

· If two year plan adopted, could still bring motion forward for 2008-2009 that recommends changes

· Promotion adjustment to full professor up $90; that to associate up $130; assistant professor stayed the same

Motion 43-CP-01

MOVED and seconded by Compensation Committee (5 for, 0 against) that the following plan be presented to the Chancellor as the recommended 2007-2009 Comprehensive Salary Plan.

Debate

· Compliment committee for hard work

· Speak against way post-tenure review salary adjustment dollars distributed though wildly favored last year

· Looked great until tried to implement

· Nowhere near 10% of total awards given at tier 4 level; trying to use criteria to achieve recommendation of tier 1, 2, 3, or 4 extremely difficult

· Default position was to recommend tier 4 for everyone because stakes so high – $0 to $4000 with increments in between

· In principle, agree with merit-based award for post-tenure reviews; should be higher award as merit is higher, but didn’t end up with anything like what we aimed at

· Would like to figure out way to fix on two counts

· Tiers more implementable, more realistic so that 1, 2, 3, and 4 are more readily assessable

· Or reduce number of tiers with two awards of $1500 and $2500 and no others

· Last year in senate, suggested at top tier had to be outstanding in three categories and two of those had to be teaching and scholarship

· That plan might separate things out better

· Provost indicated, having reviewed every post-tenure review salary adjustment recommendation, that was very difficult to implement

· Half of individuals receive $500 or less

· Two issues

· Trying to use criteria – have to make incredibly difficult choices between large bodies of work of people here 20 to 30 years with most of them producing at every level you could ask of them

· Difficult to separate from one another

· If could separate, some would get $500 for being a very good professor as opposed to others not much different getting $4000

· According to Dean Christian, this was one of most agonizing prioritization decision processes ever been through for reasons already stated

· Is post-tenure review, so body of work should be produced after became full professor

· First group to go through this had been here longest – this group was difficult

· Understand that last year’s cohort may have been exceptionally dazzling, but doesn’t seem procedure would change much with less dazzling group

· Don’t want process to revert to mean when I come up in few years, would like to have better system in place

· Were four or five faculty in tier 4; issue was tiers 3 and 2 – that is where progression toward mean applied

· Post-tenure review salary adjustment process approved in first place because before got basically nothing

· Zero dollars in recognition for years of service less attractive to me than what now in place

· Leery about having one shot and then throw process out – not equitable

· Might be some benefit to reducing number of tiers

· Also if no pay plan, which we have seen many times before, there is no money for compression

· This set up so when you came up for post-tenure review and ranked, there would be base funds to use to make pay raise adjustment

· Normally send out worksheets to chairs by beginning of January to start work on salary rankings, etc.

· Submit plan to system after second semester begins, but by April have to have all new salaries worked out

· Number of people undergoing post-tenure review around 22-25 annually – so possible to approve plan stripping out language on post-tenure review and refer that part back to committee

· Is two-hour Compensation Committee meeting scheduled for December 15, 2006

· People interested in Section 5.4.3 could come to that meeting

MOTION by Senator Devine to split question into two parts, one vote on everything except 5.4.3 and another vote on 5.4.3 seconded and PASSED.

MOTION by Senator Gallaher that we suspend the rules to vote on first part of motion today seconded and PASSED by two-thirds vote.

Continued Debate on Comprehensive Salary Plan 2007-2009 without Section 5.4.3

· Interesting that salary minimum for associate professor was only $2000 more than minimum for assistant professor – don’t know what to make of that, but is problem

· Associate professor typically has been here around seven years; another example of salary compression

· Historically as many as nine departments on alternate pay plans – one by one self-selected into standard plan

· Once elect to go to standard plan, cannot not go back to alternate plan

Vote on Motion 43-AP-01 minus section 5.4.3: Motion PASSED.

Continued Debate on Portion 5.4.3 of Recommended Comprehensive Salary Plan 2007-2009

· If people would like to see this section modified, would ask that they give committee advice

· Would like to suggest that in top tier, two of categories must be teaching and scholarship, can’t get in top category without those

· Problem was that thought made fair assessment of faculty member involved using these criteria

· That nomination was only one out of about 20 that wasn’t for tier 3 or 4, so my conclusion was system not working

· Only recommended one, but was in room where recommendations being made

· System didn’t work because different chairs applied standards in different ways

· Category percentages (10% in tier 4; 15% in tier 3, etc.) are average expectation over time, not for given year

· So in any given year, could be fluctuations from that

· Couple of chairs appeared to have read criteria and applied as written

· If only a few chairs do that, their faculty members are punished for supervisors following rules

· Was no agreed-upon expanded rubric for chairs to use

· Guess that chairs wanted to get everyone maximum amount they could give them

· If that is problem, will be really difficult to get everybody rated appropriately

· This is very different than regular raise in which departments get little pots to distribute

· This is pyramid scheme where decisions go from departments, to deans, to provost with hard decisions going to one office

· Inherent in pyramid scheme, everybody at bottom thinks they are doing best and deserve to move up to next tier

· Improving criteria would help, but about 50% of people getting nothing is really difficult to accept

· Post-tenure review is part of discretionary 10% of pay plan; up to 5% can be used for equity

· All available money spent on equity because were more equity requests than could be funded; left 5% for post-tenure review

· In old system prior to last four years, about two-thirds of faculty were receiving one extra merit, one outstanding teaching, or both awards

· When come into post-tenure review, half of people expected not to be in one of top three tiers; get $500 or $0

· Incongruous with what were doing before

· Believe plan is unimplementable among real human beings

· Rather than figure out reasons why, take trial as good example of something that didn’t work

· Would be simpler if stakes were lower with fewer tiers not as dramatically different

· Three tiers of $0, $1500 and $2500 with criteria worded in way that could fudge a little as in cases where departments ask people to specialize

· Don’t want to throw this out; worked too hard to get this

· If win teaching award, or excellence in scholarship award, and not doing much service or advising, are going to get $500

· Could have outstanding adviser with exemplary service and outstanding teaching and no scholarship in last ten years, they would get tier 4 and $4000

· After tenure, expect departments to have balance with people specializing

· This was wonderful attempt to do something we should be doing here – believe people did take it seriously

· Agonizing because complex and comes down to between $500 and $4000 based on what looking at here

· Certainly support looking at criteria; also support teaching and scholarship as being most highly valued

· Ask committee to consider maybe four categories with $3000, $2000, and $1000

· Still is place for $0 for few tenured faculty resting on laurels

· People can only apply for this once in five years – many people only able to apply once

· Don’t know any colleagues that are worth nothing – don’t think they would be at this institution

· Suggest three tiers at $1000, $1500, and $3500

· This year pot of money was under $50,000 with $44,000 actually given out

· On yearly basis, can get standard awards to increase salary based on what done that year because salary reviews done yearly

· This is something more meritorious that comes along every five years; will see at least two and maybe three times depending upon how long at university

· If want to keep something completely meritoriously based, this is not bad – how numbers between tiers can be adjusted, that is valid question

· Would be wary of trying to have it so automatically everyone gets something

· Post-tenure review salary adjustment plan developed to cost about $32,000 annually

· Self-supporting at just over a 2% pay increase

· Should not vary with pay plan as base funds committed to keep post-tenure review salary adjustment plan at about $32,000

· Speak against teaching and scholarship being two favored criteria

· Departments composed of people with different talents; do not believe either legislators or taxpayers prioritize scholarship for UW-Eau Claire faculty above teaching, nor above getting students through in four years, which requires excellent advising and service

MOTION by Senator Stirm to refer section 5.4.3 back to Compensation Committee to be returned to full senate next spring seconded and PASSED without dissention.

Without objection, meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.

Submitted by,

Wanda Schulner

Secretary to the University Senate