44th Faculty Senate
October 1, 2009 – 3:30p.m.
Robert C. Voight Faculty Senate Chambers – 325 Graff Main Hall
Vol. 44, No. 3
I. Roll Call.
Present: J. Anderson, C. Angell, J. Baggett, S. Brokaw, D. Buffton, V. Crank (excused), G. Cravins, T.
Gendreau, J. Heim, K. Hoar, J. Holman, D. Hoskins (excused), K. Hunt, D. Lake (excused), R. LeDocq,
A. Loh, C. Lee, R. Mikat, J. Miskowski, S. Shillinger, R. Smith, M. Tollefson, B. Van Voorhis
(excused) and M. Wycoff-Horn
II. Minutes of September 17, 2009 were approved.
III. Reports.
a. Chair’s Report.
i. To date, there are ten nominees for the faculty seat on the IT Working Group.
ii. Upcoming Chancellor Open Forums would be a good opportunity for feedback and
issues regarding the transition in textbook rental.
iii. International Education Committee Recommendation Update: The FS chair has
requested more information. The recommendation will be brought back to FS at a
future date.
iv. Collective Bargaining Announcement: Regardless of your opinion, stay educated on
this topic – everyone will be affected by any decision that is made.
v. Mission Statement Update: The first Board of Regents reading went well. The
mission statement was well-received at the Chancellor’s Community Council on
September 18. A second BOR reading will be scheduled soon.
vi. UWL 10 Update: The Instructional Academic Staff policies will be placed on an
upcoming FS agenda.
vii. Physics Distinguished Lecture Series: 2002 Nobel Laureate Dr. Riccardo Giacconi
will speak at 5:00pm on October 8.
viii. Dr. Carl Wimberly will speak on “The History of UW-L” as part of the Centennial
Celebration on Monday, October 19, at 4:00pm in Port O’ Call.
b. Chancellor’s Report.
i. Inclusive Excellence: The two forums earlier this week were heavily attended.
ii. Concerns about the Pay for Print and Parking policies were raised by Student Senate.
The new parking policy was implemented without addressing the issue of evening
parking for community members attending theater and/or athletic events at UW-L. The
Pay for Print issues revolved around glitches in the system and are being addressed.
iii. Reminder of the importance of bringing textbook rental issues to the Textbook
Oversight Committee.
c. Provost’s Report. (via Bob Hoar, Faculty Assistant to the Provost)
i. Inclusive Excellence will be the topic of a future FS presentation.
ii. Newsfeed sites are working well and addressing the issue of open meeting laws
compliance. The Academic Staff Council and Human Resources are working on
newsfeeds of their own and the Provost’s office will be launching one for “other”
topics on campus.
d. Faculty Rep Report.
i. Budget Update: At the moment it looks like there may not be a need for a major budget
adjustment act; however, that could change.
ii. Collective Bargaining: UWS is hiring a consultant to train upper-level administrators
in working with collective bargaining. Currently, the items to be mandatorily
addressed in collective bargaining are salary, hours, benefits and conditions of
employment. At this time, legislation prohibits the discussion of BOR powers, tenure,
faculty and academic staff governance rules and academic freedom. The final
legislation allows for choice in how bargaining units are formed (e.g., faculty and AS
at a given campus could bargain separately or together and could choose to join with
other campuses to form larger units.). Bargaining units could be in place sometime in
next spring. Faculty Senates can serve as bargaining units.
iii. Suspension of Programs: UWS now has guidelines for how to suspend a program
(rather than eliminating it) and how to re-instate suspended programs.
iv. Furloughs Reporting: Reporting is done on the local level only – nothing is reported to
UWS. Other campuses have discussed ways to show the impact of furloughs (e.g.,
close a department every Friday afternoon, suspend post-tenure review, increase turn
around time for grading exams and papers, posing a sign on your door stating that you
are unavailable due to a furlough day, or even stating such scheduled directly in your
syllabus)
e. Student Association Representative. No Report.
IV. New Policy on Requesting Student Emails for Survey Studies. (Teri Hinds, Institutional Researcher)
a. Information was disseminated and questions answered regarding the new policy.
b. Why the need for a new policy? Requests for student email lists for survey research has
increased, leading to concerns about student survey fatigue and resulting decreased response
rates. When does the new policy go into effect? Now
c. Process:
i. Survey Design (e.g., appropriate sample size – as you will no longer get access to the
entire student population). Contact the Statistical Consulting Center for help in survey
design or analysis of data.
ii. IRB Process – while most are exempt, all survey research must receive IRB approval.
Instructors who have surveys as class assignments will be required to go through the
IRB process only one time for the entire class – unless the design changes.
iii. Complete Qualtrics form
iv. Administer Survey – while reminders will increase response rate, no more than 3 to 5
reminders should be sent.
v. Send Response Rate data to the office of the Institutional Researcher.
V. Discussion of Faculty Senate sending a Statement on Furloughs to UWS.
a. The members of the 43rd SEC and the 44th SEC drafted a response from SEC to President
Riley in June. In July, Jac Bulk, a UWL faculty member, sent a letter to UWS reflecting his
own views on furloughs. Now, TAUWP has drafted and would like to discuss the possibility
of FS endorsing their letter.
b. Tom Hench, TAUWP member, presented the background on the TAUWP letter.
c. An important clarification:
i. This was called a furlough and not a pay cut for the following reasons:
1. If this were a pay cut, action would have to be taken to re-instate salaries. As it
stands, action would have to be taken to continue the furlough after the
biennium;
2. Our base salary is not affected by a furlough as far as the amount of money
being contributed to our retirement funds (i.e., retirement contributions have not
been reduced by 3.065%) is concerned;
3. Sick leave contributions, likewise, have not been affected by the furlough as
they would be if this were a true 3.065% pay cut.
d. Motion to adopt the sentiment of the TAUWP statement and request that SEC revise the
wording and present a new draft to Faculty Senate. Discussion revolved around which
parts of the letter should be revised, which should be retained and perhaps strengthen the letter
by addressing the above information about pay cut versus furlough and including statistics on
how UWL salaries compare to our sister institutions and how that disparity has been increased
by this legislative action. Motion approved by unanimous show of hands.
VI. Additional Information on Collective Bargaining. (Tom Hench)
The next step in the Collective Bargaining issue is, first and foremost, education. Everyone is best
served by being well-informed. If interest in unionization is shown, interest cards may be filed and
could lead to voting. If an election is held, ballots would probably ask whether or not you would like to
unionize and how you would like bargaining units to be formed. The campus community will decide if
any such voting ever occurs. While TAUWP is taking a lead on this, Faculty Senate could also take an
active role in dissemination of information via open forums, etc. For more information see the system
HR website at http://www.uwsa.edu or the FAQ page at http://www.tauwp.org.
VII. Adjournment at 4:55p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kerrie Hoar