Academic Staff Representatives Council Meeting
May 4, 2007
The Academic Staff and
Faculty Representatives had a joint meeting with President Reilly, Regent Spector, and Interim Senior Vice President Martin. The
following topics were discussed.
Shared Governance Principles
and Guidelines: a joint statement of the Faculty Representatives and Academic
Staff Representatives
As
you remember, both faculty and academic staff were deeply unhappy about the way
that proposed changes to personnel rules were initiated and brought to
governance in the past several years. Both groups strongly believe that
consultation means involving faculty and academic staff from the beginning in
“early, active, and wide consultation”, not coming to us at the end for input.
President Reilly and Regent Spector
replied to the joint statement in a positive manner. Three things will happen.
First, Ron Singer, Associate Vice President for Academic and Student Services
will be appointed “point person” to work with both groups and be available for
shared governance “communication/consultation”.
Secondly, Faculty and Academic Staff Representatives are encouraged to
establish an “informal working relationship with
‘their’ Regent(s)” to raise Regent awareness of the roles of both groups
in governance. In practice what this means is that the representative can call
the Regent(s) and arrange to meet with them whenever they are in the area,
instead of waiting to see if they are included when a Regent visits campus.
Third,
a small group will work with Regents and UWS administration to spell out in
detail areas where we expect consultation.
LAB Audit and Fringe Benefit
Advisory Committee
Many
of the points that were made in the UWEC Senate discussion were brought up
here. Discussion also focused on the new recommendation to eliminate colleague
coverage. Responses to this recommendation are due by Oct. 31, 2007.
UW System Administration
A
draft was shared with the group for response.
Recruitment and Retention
Fund (a.k.a. star fund)
The faculty representatives told President Reilly that this is “universally
unpopular”. Other methods to let legislators know about failed searches and
non-competitive salaries were discussed. (Only research academic staff are eligible for these funds).
Pay Plan
The
earliest that we might know about this would be the first two weeks of June
when JOCER meets. In the context of this discussion Regent Spector
indicated a willingness to look at the issue of IAS pay. It was suggested that
perhaps IAS pay could be indexed against the disciplinary average on campus,
instead of against System minima pay for faculty ranks, since that minimum
salary has not been used for years on most campuses.
Student Lending Issue
President Reilly indicated that this is the next big issue facing the System.
He talked about a possible System code of conduct for selecting who is a
preferred lender.
Judy Blackstone, Academic
Staff Representative