49th Faculty Senate
April 16, 2015 – 3:30 PM
Robert C. Voight Faculty Senate Chambers – 325 Graff Main Hall
Vol. 49, No. 15
I.
Roll Call
a. Present: M. Allen, J. Anderson, C. Angell, K. Beyer, L. Caya, M. Current, T. DocanMorgan, R. Fowler, T. Gendreau, P. Haried, D. Hart, K. Hunt, S. Kelly, T. King-Heiden,
J. Kirsch, W. Maas, M. Rott, B. Seebach, J. Shanks
b. Excused: G. Cravins, N. Eschenbaum, R. McKelley, B. Shrestha, K. Terpstra
II.
Minutes of March 26 and April 2 approved
III.
Reports:
a. Provost (Heidi Macpherson):
i. The overall admissions numbers are up relative to where they were at this point
last year. The numbers of deposits are also high.
ii. Report from Board of Regents Meeting (April 9/10, 2015):
1. The consortial MS Degree Program in Data Science was approved.
2. The Regents will hold a series of open hearings on the proposed
revisions to UWS 4, 7, and 11, which are designed to bring UW-System
into Title IX Compliance.
3. The Business and Finance Committee approved rises in out-of-state
tuition.
4. Contract negotiations with Chartwell's were approved for UW-L food
service/catering. They will be taking over in June.
5. The UW-L Department of Mathematics was honored with the 2015
Regents Teaching Excellence Award.
6. Provost Macpherson participated in a panel discussion on the importance
of libraries and on providing the UW-System libraries with enough
support.
iii. The Search and Screen for the new Director of International Education and
Engagement will be launching soon.
iv. The Women Moving Ahead conference and workshop will be held April 17-18 in
150 Murphy Library.
v. There were 490 nominations for the Provost's Teaching Award this year, and at
least one from every department on campus.
vi. Questions:
1. How will the Search and Screen committee for the new Director of
International Education & Engagement be crafted? Administrative search
processes for a non-tenured position will be followed. The Faculty
Senate will nominate three members, the Student Association will
nominate two members, and a majority of the committee (five members)
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will be formed from nominations by the Academic Staff Council. There
are no current legal situations that affect this search and screen.
2. What is expected to come of the discussion of issues with UW-System
libraries at the Regents Meeting? People are trying to determine if
System can obtain single, centralized subscriptions to certain online
services instead of requiring multiple subscriptions at individual
campuses. Provost Macpherson encouraged Faculty Senate to invite
Murphy Library Director Catherine Lavalee-Welch to a future meeting
for further discussion and to fill out the library resource survey.
3. Would the administration be willing to hold an open forum to
disseminate more information regarding Phase 2 Budget Reductions?
Provost Macpherson indicated that she would take this request to
Chancellor Gow and encouraged others to make a similar request.
b. Student Senate Liaison (Rep. Amy Keel):
i. A member of the Student Association is working on a resolution to make UW-L
more bicycle friendly, and is interested in working one on one with a Faculty
Senator. The Faculty Senate recommended that the Student Senator submit a
formal request providing as much detail as possible.
ii. Student Senator Timothy Hartwig presented a request to add students to the
membership of hiring committees for new faculty members. Chair Seebach will
forward the official wording of the resolution to the members of Faculty Senate
once it has been sent to him.
iii. Questions:
1. How would the selection process for students serving on hiring
committees occur? Senator Hartwig indicated that the Student
Association would be responsible for nominating students for this
process. Subsequent discussion focused on the potential difficulties in
finding adequate student participation, reporting measures,
confidentiality issues, and workload requirements.
c. Faculty Senate Chair (Brad Seebach):
i. Chair Seebach reminded the Faculty Senate that the next meeting (on April 30,
2015) would include both the organization of the 50th Faculty Senate and a
regular business meeting for the 49th.
IV.
Changes to the By-laws: APR Committee and Joint Promotion Committee:
a. The ABL Committee was charged with changing the Faculty Senate By-laws to increase
the number of faculty members serving on the Academic Program Review Committee
from nine to eleven.
b. The proposed changes to the Academic Program Review Committee Bylaws were
approved (first reading).
c. The ABL Committee was also charged with amending the Bylaws to include the Director
of the School of Education as a permanent member of the JPC, and requiring that the
Director hold the rank of Professor.
d. The proposed changes to the Joint Promotion Committee Bylaws were approved
(first reading).
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V.
Salary Compensation Plan April 15, 2015 draft (Mike Tollefson, Chair, and Adrienne Loh,
Member of PTS):
a. The plan that PTS presented to the Faculty Senate on April 2, 2015, generated some
concerns regarding adherence to the CUPA median as the sole means of determining
matters of salary inversion/compression and regarding a perceived lack of transparency in
the process of identifying cases of inversion/compression. The April 15, 2015, draft
amended PTS's original plan specifically to address these concerns.
b. The deferred motion from the FS Meeting on 4/2/15 to approve the original Salary
Compensation Plan from PTS was defeated, M/S/F (unanimous).
c. Discussion:
i. Is the new proposed plan too transparent? The current Plan drafted by PTS would
initiate department-wide discussions of salary issues, which could strain
relationships between faculty members within a department.
ii. After much discussion, Chair Seebach summarized the main concerns of the
Faculty Senate with the April 15 Draft as follows: there are still issues regarding
1. How salary information is disseminated at the department level,
2. Who makes decisions about inverted/compressed faculty members,
3. How the pay plan is distributed if approved, and
4. How the terms "inverted" and "compressed" are defined.
iii. It was recommended to PTS that the formula used to calculate salary inversion
and compression be included in the document.
d. The motion to approve the PTS draft plan of 4/15/15 as written was defeated, M/S/F
(unanimous).
e. The draft was sent back to PTS for further revision.
VI.
HLC Accreditation Process Update (Natalie Solverson, Director of Institutional Research):
a. It was noted that UW-L is less than one year away from the HLC's on-campus visit, and
steady progress is being made on the written report. Director Solverson wants to ensure
that people have an opportunity to read and give feedback on the report once it is
complete. Dissemination of this information will begin in August.
b. Last week, Chancellor Gow sent a campus-wide email noting the recent updates to
UW-L's Mission, Vision, and Values Statements.
c. Director Solverson reminded the Senate of the link to the 2016 HLC Resource Guide that
is on the web, and encouraged continued questions/feedback.
VII. Old Business
VIII. New Business
IX.
Adjournment at 5:06 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Janet Kirsch
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