Open Forum Items from Senate Executive Committee Meeting minutes
- Jim Oberly presented an update of the progress of the Chancellor Search and Screen committee. He reviewed the 3 phases of their work, provided and highlighted information from a handout, and answered questions regarding procedures involved in the process assigned to the committee. There was discussion regarding one-day campus visits, upcoming faculty/staff meetings, and future communications and actions which will involve President Lyall.
- Marjorie Smelstor shared information regarding the naming of the Fine Arts Center. She provided a historical context regarding its dedication in 1986, recalled the policies regarding the naming of buildings on campus, and shared steps which have been recently taken to name the building the Leonard and Dorellen Haas Fine Arts Center. She reminded committee members that such action requires Board of Regents approval. After such approval, an appropriate spring ceremony will be planned to honor those for whom the building will be named.
Other Items from Senate Executive Committee Meetings
- Dr. William Ogden, Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance was appointed to the Ad Hoc Instructional Technology Committee.
Items discussed with the Senate Chair
- The UWEC Student Senate passed a bill on March 5, 1998 identifying the money from the Student Technology Fee to be spent for: student labs, the Notebook PC pool, network/servers, student global server, data bases, software, 1 Student Global Server FTE, an LTE for OL 1108 & notebooks, and student workers for the labs.
- The UWEC Student Senate passed a resolution on March 30, 1998 in support of maintaining the adult opportunity advising position at UWEC. "Whereas, up to 20% of the student body are non-traditional students; and whereas, non-traditional students are currently provided with advising services through the Adult Opportunity Advisor; and whereas, non-traditional students generally take longer to receive a degree; and whereas, it is important for non-traditional students to have an advisor who is capable of maintaining a sense of continuity for non-traditional students during their education; and whereas, it appears that the Adult Opportunity Advising position will be dissolved in the 1998-1999 academic year; and whereas, without this position non-traditional students would need to be advised by regular faculty advisors; and whereas, this would have a detrimental impact upon advising throughout the campus; BE IT RESOLVED that the Student Senate supports maintaining the Adult Opportunity Advising position at UW-Eau Claire."
- The Institutional response to the Diversity Plan 2008 has been submitted by Interim Chancellor Smelstor expressing areas of support as well as areas of caution in the plan.
- A copy of System's report of the Pilot Distance Education Funding Policies for Credit Instruction has been distributed to the members of the Academic Policies and the Ad Hoc Instructional Technology committees for reaction. Some of the recommended changes in policies include:
- Enabling institutions to determine the types of expenses and types of distance education courses that can be accessed a distance education fee;
- Allowing institutions to request a waiver of the nonresident tuition for out-of-state distance education courses (without including these waivers in fee remissions), for courses funded through 101-103 as well as 104, as long as courses are designed primarily for both resident and out-of-state nonresident students; and
- Suggesting institutions eliminate the segregated fee entirely, or develop a sliding scale based upon services rendered for distance education courses delivered strictly to off-campus and/or out-of-state students (who can be accessed the distance education fee).
Responses to the policies should be submitted by May 1st and the report will be presented to the Board of Regents in June. Any senator wishing a hard copy of the report should contact the Senate Office. The report is not available via the web from System.
Faculty Reps Meeting
- A plan exists in the System to pilot test the training of approximately 40 students this summer in the area of networking and technology. These students will be given real positions back at their respective institutions working in the area of CNS.
- Discussion with President Lyall: If one doesn't like the current '1/3, 1/3, 1/3', rule used by System to guide the distribution of the pay-plan package, suggestions should be given to members of the System Compensation Committee by April 15th. These ideas may then be incorporated into the guidelines given to the Regents by President Lyall in November. Senator Gapko and Associate Dean Lund are the two UW-EC representatives to UW-System for the Committee on Compensation.
Board of Regents Meeting
- At the Education Committee meeting, Ed Meachen, Associate Vice President for Information Technology, reported that the number one information technology need of UW System institutions is for trained IT staff. He stated that the goal for the 1999-01 biennium is to provide funding to do four things: (1) increase the number of IT student workers; (2) provide additional technical training to those workers; (3) hire these trained students after they graduate from the UW System; and (4) retrain existing staff. He stated that the cost of this program over two years would be approximately $10 million.
- President Lyall reported that the UW System has just finished negotiations with Oracle to purchase a common electronic database platform for applications such as financial management, student administration, time keeping, and library functions which all our institutions can use. The cost of a common contract saved more than $4 million over what would have been paid by each of our institutions on its own.
- An excellent presentation was given by Dr. Donald Norris from Strategic Initiatives, Inc., a management consulting firm, specializing in developing organizational strategies for the 21st Century -- the Knowledge Age. His presentation explored the 'massive growth potential for learning in the 21st century and how every aspect of learning will experience a jump shift.' He provided guidelines 'for institutions wishing to realign, redesign, restructure, and reengineer themselves into 21st century learning enterprises'. A source for more information: