49th Faculty Senate
September 18, 2014 – 3:30 PM
Robert C. Voight Faculty Senate Chambers – 325 Graff Main Hall
Vol. 49, No. 3
I.
Roll Call
a. Present: M. Allen, J. Anderson, C. Angell, K. Beyer, G. Cravins, M. Current, T. DocanMorgan, N. Eschenbaum, R. Fowler, T. Gendreau, P. Haried, D. Hart, K. Hunt, S. Kelly,
T. King-Heiden, J. Kirsch, W. Maas, R. McKelley, M. Rott, B. Seebach, J. Shanks, B.
Shrestha, K. Terpstra
b. Excused: L. Caya
II.
Minutes of September 4 approved
III.
Reports:
a. Provost (Heidi Macpherson):
i. Enrollment figures: The official student headcount (as of the ten-day figures) is
10,558. This represents an enrollment record. This number includes 1977 first
year full time degree seeking undergraduates, 526 second degree transfer
students, and 320 international students.
ii. International visitor: Professor Lixian Jin, an expert in intercultural
communication, will be visiting campus. The provost will send out more
information soon.
iii. "Freedom to Read" event: Murphy Library is planning a read-out as part of
National Banned Books Week. The event will be held from noon-2 PM on
Wednesday, 9/24/14, and the library is looking for volunteers to read short
passages (contact Marc Manke at mmanke@uwlax.edu).
iv. General Education Assessment Tool: There will be an RFP going out shortly for
a General Education Assessment Tool. People will have approximately three
weeks to analyze it.
v. CBA and CLS Dean's Search and Screen Committees: The call for nominations
to S&S committees has gone out to governance groups. The initial charge
meeting for the CBA committee will be in mid-October and the initial charge
meeting for the CLS committee will be in early November. Both committees will
consist of ten people, and FS will nominate five people to each. Please consider
putting names forward to the SEC.
vi. President Ray Cross has asked Provost Macpherson to join a committee on
strategic planning and visioning.
vii. Questions:
1. New Regent Scholars grant program: More information was requested
about this program announced by the Provost's office on 9/18. The
program is STEM focused, but is open to a wider audience. An economic
development component to the proposal may be an asset.
2. HLC Report Status: Provost Macpherson was asked if FS would have the
opportunity to look at a draft of the report before it is submitted. She
indicated that it is difficult to give people access to the entire report
because of the interface used to submit it to HLC, but she will ask a
representative from her office to make a presentation about it to FS.
3. Academic Planning Committee Charge: It was noted that the charge for
APC included working with the new task force on Interdisciplinary
Initiatives. Provost Macpherson was asked for more information about
this task force. She reiterated that the two new task forces
(Interdisciplinary Initiatives and Leadership Development) were
developed from discussions in the Provost's Retreat/Academic Affairs/
Provost's Council and were motivated, in part, by the fact that UW-L
now has more Assistant Professors than the number of Associate and
Full Professors combined.
b. CFO (Bob Hetzel):
i. The CFO had no additional information to share with FS this week.
ii. Questions:
1. Pay Plan Information: It was noted that faculty have not received an
email from HR about their Pay Plans for the 2014-2015 academic year,
and a request was made that these emails be sent out on the date our
contracts begin. This request will be included as a new business item in a
future FS meeting.
2. Wittich Hall Renovation: An inquiry was made as to how major
construction/renovation projects are prioritized on campus. CFO Hetzel
identified the process as starting in Dean's Council, moving to Joint
Planning and Budget, and then to faculty governance groups. Priority
tends to be given to projects that can be partially or fully funded by
student fees (providing that these projects are approved by the student
body) and/or donors. Several Senators voiced support for a new
performance hall/venue.
3. Tuition Freeze/Rainy Day Fund: CFO Hetzel was asked if there are
concerns about finances, given that there is talk of continued tuition
freezes and a required spend-down of some of the University's reserves.
He indicated that there were concerns.
c. Faculty Representative (Georges Cravins):
i. President Cross's Campus Visit: Rep. Cravins indicated that he was pleased with
the turnout at President Cross's open forum and with the issues raised by
attendees.
ii. Faculty Representative Meeting: Rep. Cravins stated that there are six of these
meetings over the course of the academic year, and that the first of these
meetings will occur in the week of 9/20. He expects that the following topics will
be discussed at length:
1. A 12-month payroll option for faculty/staff
2. Faculty salaries
3. The tuition freeze
4. The Universal Credit Transfer Agreement that System is working on
implementing
iii. Questions: There were no questions for Rep. Cravins, but he encouraged
Senators to contact him with any topics of interest for him to take to future
Faculty Representative Meetings.
d. Student Senate Liaison (Amy Keel):
i. Report from Student Senate: Senator Keel informed the FS about an upcoming
referendum. There will be a special election to determine if additional student
fees can be used to partially fund the construction of a new student Fieldhouse.
1. Senator Keel also asked the FS to contact Student Senate leadership via
email if student representatives were not attending FS Committee
meetings.
e. Faculty Senate Chair (Bradley Seebach):
i. Articles and Bylaws Charge: Chair Seebach noted that the issue of changing the
number of members of the APR committee (as raised in the FS meeting of 9/4)
has been added to the ABL charge.
ii. Interdisciplinary Course/Program Charges: The APC and the Graduate Council
were both charged with considering ways to support interdisciplinary efforts
across campus.
iii. Dean's Search and Screen Committees: The call for nominations for CBA Dean
S&S committee members has gone out and SEC has begun receiving names. The
call for nominations for the CLS Dean S&S committee will go out next week.
IV.
Approval of one-year additions to APR Committee: Linda Dickmeyer and Andy Matchett;
M/S/P.
V.
Approval of one-year replacement to the IAS-PC: Karyn Quinn; M/S/P.
VI.
Approval of CBA and SAH representatives to the S&S Committee for the Director of
Academic Advising and Career Services: Laurie Strangman (CBA) and Rick Mikat (SAH);
M/S/P.
VII. Proposed Institute for Social Justice (Laurie Cooper-Stoll):
a. Dr. Cooper-Stoll described the background work that led to the development of the
proposed Institute for Social Justice. She indicated that it originated as a logical answer to
the two fundamental questions about how to bring people working on social justice
related questions together and how to engage students in social justice research. She then
presented a video of numerous UW-L faculty and staff indicating their support and need
for the Institute. It has been decided, in the short term, that the Institute will be funded for
its first three years by CLS with Dr. Cooper-Stoll as its Director.
b. Questions:
i. Formal definition of an "Institute": An Institute is defined in Faculty Senate
Policy XIII.
ii. Location/funding of the Institute: The question was raised as to why the Institute
is being housed and funded in CLS if it is designed to be a University-wide
institute. Other Deans were supportive of the idea, but wanted to know more
about it before committing funds. Dean Benson has initially funded the Institute,
and it is likely to see more buy-in from additional groups as it develops.
iii. Faculty Senate support of the formation of the Institute for Social Justice;
M/S/P.
VIII. Anti-bullying Task Force (Julia Johnson):
a. The policy drafted by the Anti-bullying Task Force was inadvertently left off of the FS
website. It has since been distributed to the Senators.
b. Assoc. Dean Johnson provided the FS with context for the task force and how it was
formed. The resulting policy was being presented to FS at the request of the Provost.
i. The policy was written with input from Affirmative Action, Human Resources,
representatives from each college, Student Affairs, and Faculty Ombudspersons.
It was then vetted by the Dean's Council and the Chancellor's Cabinet. It is now
making its way through governance groups for additional feedback.
c. Questions:
i. Data collection: Dean Johnson was asked about how bullying issues were
identified and how the task force intended to continue its work. She indicated the
task force would continue to disseminate questionnaires (such as campus climate
surveys and the Campus Scorecard) and their results to the campus community.
IX.
Old Business:
X.
New Business:
a. Report on Customer Satisfaction Surveys from the Division of Enrollment Management
(Fred Pierce, Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management): AVC Pierce
provided background for the FS on his report and described some early results.
i. In the Spring 2014 semester, this division of Academic Affairs sent out Customer
Satisfaction Surveys to gauge the campus perception of the quality of services
being provided by different units. After tabulating the results of 1100+ responses,
it was determined that the surveyed units were better in their treatment of
individuals than they were with communicating their services to campus. The
Office of International Education was an outlier, in that the data collected did not
match the office's self-perception.
ii. The Division of Enrollment Management brought in a facilitator to OIE to help
redefine roles and responsibilities and provide leadership training. They now
have information related to the service interface and are working to increase their
visibility. AVC Pierce will return to FS with more details in a month.
iii. Questions:
1. It was noted that many of the units employ people who are doing
outstanding work, and AVC Pierce was asked if any of these people/units
are being acknowledged. He indicated that he has brought some of these
groups together for communal activities and plans to continue doing so.
2. AVC Pierce was thanked for this undertaking, and it was suggested that
one way to improve camaraderie would be to start referring to personnel
in these units as colleagues rather than maintaining a service
provider/customer relationship.
3. The turnaround time for the Satisfaction Surveys was only two days, and
the fast turnaround time may have introduced some bias toward extremes.
AVC Pierce acknowledged this, but indicated that time constraints were
necessary last spring.
4. Similar surveys will be conducted with students in the Spring 2015
semester and then again with faculty and staff in the Spring 2016
semester to collect more data.
5. It was noted that this would be a positive undertaking for other divisions
such as Administration and Finance.
6. AVC Pierce was asked if there were plans for disseminating similar
information about Enrollment Management. He indicated that there
weren't at the moment, but that the idea had merit. The SEC has a seat on
the Enrollment Management Council, so representatives will start
reporting information from those meetings back to FS.
XI.
Adjournment at 5:06 PM
Respectfully submitted,
Janet Kirsch