Chair’s Report for October 24, 2000

 

Senate update

1.        Important links to agendas, minutes, Chair's Reports and other sites of interest are available
on the Senate web site: http://www.uwec.edu/Usenate

2.        During debates, Senators may speak only twice to any motion or amendment. Each speaking term is limited to 10 minutes. The Chair will add names of those wishing to speak to a speaker's list upon recognition.

 

Open Forum Items from Senate Executive Committee Meeting minutes

1.        Charge backs to departments and units

·         Seems time and paperwork sometimes cost more than services

·         At least adds to operating expenses of university

·         Perhaps is only way to do business

·         MDC charge backs for units and non-course presentations but not for courses

2.        Support for computer operating systems

·         Told by CNS that within one or two years campus computing will no longer support Windows NT

·         Will switch to Microsoft 2000

·         Cost to purchase computers capable of running Microsoft 2000 would be majority of many department/unit yearly operating budgets

·         Provost Satz responded to computer issue

·         Discussed at deans and directors meeting two weeks ago

·         Academic Affairs Office devising plan and strategy for computer replacements in units

·         Colleges discussing replacement cycle

·         Vice Chancellor Soll indicated decision driven by Microsoft

·         Will stop supporting Windows NT eventually

·         Currently transitioning between two systems

3.        Research conducted using recent graduates by Steve Baumgartner of Psychology Department reinforced value of out-of-class experiences for students

·         Currently ask graduates to identify most outstanding faculty

·         Perhaps should have them identify someone in nonteaching capacity

·         Coaches, advising, placement office and health services personnel, or hall directors

·         Nominations should be in check-off and perhaps narrative form to encourage writing

4.        Request from member of UWEC Commission on the Status of Women to include discussion of status of women at Senate meeting prior to required response to UW-System Report on Status of Women

·         Focus group two years ago addressed issue of status of women on campus

·         Issues were raised; sent back to System

·         Year later happened upon report on System web site from Commission on Status of Women

·         In reading, happy issue surfaced and energy put into report

·         Disappointed that knew nothing about report

·         Was supposed to have gathered information a variety of ways from campuses including section on best practices

·         Over 100 included, not one from UW-Eau Claire

·         Now System looking for response to this document

·         Also in 1993, UW-Eau Claire had Commission on Status of Women

·         Document created and presented to administration

·         No one knows what happened to it or the whole commission

·         Do need forum to be able to react as institution

·         Students to react also

·         Response due December 31, 2000

·         First two pages of document are executive summary

·         That is good, but to react need to look at entire document

·         Chancellor Mash filled in some of blanks about current report and response

·         System presented Report at Board of Regents meeting

·         Chancellor forwarded report to Barbara Stevens with instructions to reinstitute UWEC Commission on the Status of Women

·         That group was to work with her to formulate a response to System document

·         Now is draft document responding

·         For each of five goals lists best practices and current initiatives

·         Needs broader feedback

·         Chair Harrison suggested regular Senate discussion on November 14, 2000

·         Any faculty and academic staff always welcome at regular Senate meetings

·         Will put links on Senate web page to documents

·         Entire System Report

·         Draft of response from UW-Eau Claire after clarification with Barbara Stevens

·         Also to be included with Senate agenda for meeting November 14th

·         Provost Satz will get copies of report to deans and department chairs

·         Will invite Barbara Stevens and Commission members to University Senate meeting

·         Chancellor Mash reported members of current UW-Eau Claire Commission on Women

·         Pointedly noted that no members from College of Professional Studies, where a majority of School of Nursing and School of Education are women

·         Also noted this commission has always been appointed from Chancellor’s Office

·         Apparently member of Commission also going to Student Senate

 

Other Items from Senate Executive Committee Meetings

1.        Senate Office consistently gets requests for interpretation of process included in personnel rules portion of Faculty and Academic Staff Handbook

·         Not judgment, but concerning meaning of language

·         In 1985 handbook, interpretation was part of function of Academic Staff Personnel Committee

·         Was dropped with revised committees

·         Faculty Personnel Committee does not have interpretation in its function either

·         Executive Committee recommends interpretations of constitution; does not include personnel rules

·         Are faculty preferring nonadministrative-based interpretation

·         Becomes difficult when what is written is different than what is practiced

·         Some things not defined in rules

·         Such as promotion without full DPC at that rank

·         Provost Satz indicated questions come to Academic Affairs and Associate Vice Chancellor Tallant weekly - they find answers in handbook, department/university guidelines, department personnel plans, legal interpretations, or if can’t find specific coverage, look to good practices at other institutions in state or elsewhere if necessary

·         Administrative Officer Jan Morse would look at handbook interpretations

·         Could also refer to UW rules

·         Could perhaps convene small subcommittee to look at personnel committee functions to determine if need interpretation added back into functions

·         Refer individuals or department personnel committees with process questions to personnel committee chairs or Academic Affairs

·         Sounds as though some of requestors looking for ombudsperson or advocate such as exist in many businesses

·         University has grievance procedure in place for that

·         Must be careful; unbiased interpreters can at times be blamed for outcome

·         Should ask authority creating procedures, i.e., the personnel committees

·         If unclear, those committees should be looking at functions to change them

·         Not good precedent for committees to look at particular cases outside of grievance process

·         Could also seek advice from union (TAUWP)

·         Seems more elementary than that when just asking about procedures

·         Can ask administrative line or entity that wrote personnel rules

·         By consensus, will contact personnel committees to look at functions

2.        Topics for Forums to be held during Senate meetings

3.        Chair Harrison requested official permission to be reflected in minutes to use, at her discretion, a team advisory to the Senate Chair

·         To streamline ideas so presented

 

Items discussed with the Senate Chair

·         Student Senate passed a resolution “Reaffirming Student Senate’s Support of the Ensured Distribution of Freshman Grade Reports”. The resolution points out that “mid-semester freshman grade reports are an important resource for students to properly assess their academic achievement” and “not all professors are distributing mid-semester grade reports”.

Faculty Senators, please gently remind your colleagues that the University Faculty and Academic Staff Handbook, page 7.9, states that: “examinations be given in all freshman courses at the end of the first four weeks of both semesters of the freshman year”; “freshman students receive a mid-semester grade report from each of their instructors, whatever the level of the course”; and “an instructor of a course offered for credit must give to any student enrolled in the course who requests it an indication as to whether or not the student is doing passing work at mid-term in the course.”

 

Faculty Reps Meeting

·         David Miller, Assistant Vice President for Public Relations, spoke about current lobbying efforts on behalf of the UW System biennial budget proposal for 2001-2003.  He urged Faculty Representatives to inform their campuses about the  website:  http://www.wisconsin.edu/budget/ designed to track the progress of the biennial budget proposal.  Miller characterized the period from October to February as a quiet phase, during which the Governor’s Office will be mulling over the UW budget proposal.  He pointed out that the essence of our budget proposal is that the UW System is a very important factor in the economy of Wisconsin.  In distributing a copy of a recent Wisconsin State Journal article that listed the 12.4% increase requested by the Department of Health and Family Services ($1 billion), the Department of Public Instruction request for a 4.5% boost in the first year and a 4.7% increase in the second year, and the Department of Corrections request for 15.4% increase that equates to $235 million, Miller commented that the UW System request of an average annual increase in state money and tuition of a mere 3.7% appears to be quite a bargain.  Miller went on to urge that campuses plan to have contacts with their legislators and legislative candidates, encouraging us to tell them the  UW story.  Other news releases about the budget process and general items of interest to the UW-System can be found on the UW-System’s NEWS web site at: http://www.wisconsin.edu/news/index.htm

·         Miller also spoke about the upcoming Wisconsin Economic Summit to be held from November 29th to December 1st, 2000 at the Midwest Express Center in Milwaukee. Business, legislative, System and community leaders from all over the state will join together to discuss the economic development and workforce needs of Wisconsin. Updates to the Wisconsin Economic Summit can be found on the web.

·         UW Day will be March 7th, 2001 – a day to help legislatures and others see the value in the UW System

·         Larry Rubin, Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs, distributed a handout about the recent meeting of this Instructional Academic Staff Working Group.  The working group will recommend suitable revisions to the UW System instructional academic staff and research academic staff titling options to reflect national titling norms and trends.  It will also recommend efforts and initiatives to facilitate the integration of instructional academic staff into institutional life.  The working group is scheduled to meet during Fall 2000 and to deliver a summary report in January 2001. The UWEC representative to the working group is Don Reynolds, Mathematics faculty.

·         Intellectual Property in a Web Environment was discussed with Glenda Morgan. Basically, you own everything you create unless a substantial amount of university resources have shared in the creation of the product where ‘substantial’ means ‘extraordinary’ – above and beyond what normally is available to the faculty person. The development of products for Distance Ed however seems to work somewhat differently as the materials are normally created under a work-for-hire contract. She talked about the interesting issues that have arisen as an increasing number of textbooks have associated CD ROMs and websites.  Her view of the recently adopted UW policy not to ban Napster and like entities is that the UW is on solid legal ground.  Morgan explained that Napster creates a bandwidth issue more so than a content issue. Important web links and emails of legal resources were distributed.

Copyrightable Instruction Materials Ownership, Use and Control: http://www.uwsa.edu/fadmin/gapp/gapp27.htm

Faculty Ownership and Control of Digital Course Materials: http://www.uwsa.edu/olit/ttt/facown.htm

U of Texas System Guide to Fair Use

Electronic Reserves and Copyright at IUPUI: http://www.iupui.edu/~copyinfo/ereserves.html
University of WI System Legal Counsel – Chris Ashley, cashley@uwsa.edu
Senior Legal Counsel for Technology Development – P.J. Boylan, PJ@uwm.edu

·         Faculty Representatives received a tour and demonstration of some of the newest technology available to the UW institutions and a number of state agencies, including WisLine Web, a new tool that allows for synchronous web conferencing from your desktop.  After the tour there was a brief roundtable discussion about issues related to technology and distance education ending with the familiar refrain that technology is great but that we lack the resources to back up its use.

·         Each Faculty Representative was invited to describe issues currently being discussed on their campuses.  Several campuses are in the midst of revising their personnel rules, an incredible task, marked by considerable dissatisfaction especially with the rules for promotion.  They described the process of revising personnel rules as a matter of negotiating the tensions among players while holding to state laws, System policies, and departmental rules as established by faculties.  Other campuses are discussing the relationships between and among faculty roles and responsibilities, campus decision-making processes, and apportionment of resources.  Still other campuses reported work on policies governing general education, governance reorganization, enrollment problems, titling issues, and what to do with a beloved old building that despite having been placed on the National Register has not been maintained, preserved and may be razed.  UWSP is leading the way in developing a campus policy on intellectual property rights.  Much discussion ensued when the UW-Superior Faculty Representative described how consumed his campus is by the controversy swirling around the Marder case.  The Marder case has been referred by the Chancellor of UW-Superior to the Board of Regents for their consideration and resolution.  Faculty Representatives recently received an e-mail letter from TAUWP which is arguing on behalf of John Marder, Professor at UW-Superior, suggesting that there are a number of serious procedural problems that left unresolved may have serious implications for faculty – administrative relationships.  Campuses are urged to follow this case and to reserve judgment about its merits or lack thereof until the Board of Regents has completed its investigation and deliberation. 

 

Board of Regents Meeting

1.        An Occasional Research Brief on Access to the UW System for Wisconsin High School Graduates was presented by Frank Goldberg, Associate VP for Policy Analysis and Research. He reported that the Fall 1999 UW System access rate was 33 percent. In Fall 1999: (1) the application rate (proportion of high school graduates who apply) was 45 percent; (2) the admission rate (proportion of applicants who are admitted) was 94 percent; and (3) the yield rate (proportion of admits who enroll) was 79 percent. After much discussion noting the disparity in the number of males and females enrolled in UW institutions, questioning why UW institutions do not attract a higher percentage of high school graduates with high ACT scores, wondering whether the number of spaces reserved for out-of-state students causes UW institutions to miss out on qualified in-state students, and expressing concern at the measurable difference between the number of applications and yield for students of color, Regent Barry questioned whether the access rate is an appropriate measure of performance. He proposed graduate/retention rates as a better measure of success. Regent President Smith noted that access is one of the board’s top three priorities for 2000-01. Chancellor Perkins from UW-Green Bay suggested rather than approaching the stats from the aspect of a 33 percent access rate, one should promote the fact that 94 percent of Wisconsin students who wish to attend the UW are able to do so (proportion of applicants who are admitted). [excerpts from draft minutes of the Education committee]

Contained within the report was a table showing the number of Wisconsin immediate new freshman (those coming out of high school) who applied to multiple System schools. The table clearly shows our competitors: (1) LaCrosse, (2) Madison, (3) Stevens Point, and (4) Oshkosh.

 [Access report and copy of slide presentation available in Senate Office, ORB – October, 2000]

2.        Interim Senior Vice President Thibodeau reviewed a three-part strategy for the committee’s 2000-01 agenda: (1) a structured discussion as follow-up to the economic summit; (2) an emphasis on the “quality of the educational experience” that focuses on specific areas (e.g., international education, diversity, technology); and (3) PK-16 educational initiatives, in particular the role of the UW System in forging PK-12 partnerships. [excerpts from draft minutes of the Education committee]

3.        Provost Rada of UW-LaCrosse introduced a presentation title Directions in Health which profiled six of the university’s allied health programs. The presentation emphasized the collaborative nature and all-university focus of these and other health related programs. Regent Brandes emphasized the need to develop outcomes and benchmarks for each area. In later discussions, Regent Boyle also echoed the need to focus on and expect specific outcomes. Once again, Regent Olivieri asked the committee to consider requiring a standardized approach to assessing the need for new programs. Thibodeau agreed to review options, but warned against a standardized approach that assumes a single market analysis model to fit all types of programs. [excerpts from draft minutes of the Education committee]

4.        In the Business and Finance Committee, a motion was passed directing President Lyall to establish a catastrophic leave plan for faculty and academic staff that allows faculty and academic staff to donate earned vacation, personal holiday, and floating holiday leave to colleagues with a “catastrophic” need providing similar benefits to that of classified staff. Accrued sick leave may not be donated under any circumstances. 

A second motion approved a Bone Marrow and Human Organ Donations plan for faculty and academic staff allowing bone marrow donors to remain in pay status for up to five days and human organ donors up to 30 days. It is hoped that a paid surgical recovery period will be an incentive to prospective donors.

The Sick Leave Reports for Faculty and Academic staff for 1999-2000 were received and noted. [see tables]

The priorities of the Business and Finance Committee include the study of flexibility/accountability and economic development.

5.        The Physical Plant Planning Committee announced three priorities for the year: (1) long range planning for determining maintenance needs and methods of preventive maintenance; (2) mechanisms to ensure funds for new facilities; and (3) addressing bonding issues.

6.        The importance of the Wisconsin Economic Summit was stressed in the Full Board Meeting, Regent Brandes emphasized the need to send CEOs within the state personalized invitations to the Summit.

7.        Regent President Smith outlined the top three priorities for the Board this year: (1) Developing the UW role in the Wisconsin economy; (2) Access; and (3) Management, flexibility, and accountability. Regent Smith also announced the formation of a new sub-committee to look at ways to improve the Board. Serving on the committee are Regents Barry, Boyle, and Olivieri with Regent Krutsch serving as committee chair.

8.        President Lyall reported that over 25,000 applications or about 1/3 of the total applications were received on-line this year. There are about 131,500 FTE enrolled this year – about .4 above target. This number includes the 1000 additional access slots. Nearly 50% of the students admitted were in the top 25% of their high school class.

9.        President Lyall signed a Declaration of Understanding with Quebec to help facilitate the exchange of students between Quebec and the UW-System.