UW-Madison Faculty Senate February 4, 2019 >> I am told we have a quorum, so I'm going to call the meeting to order. Can I ask everyone to rise as you are able for the reading of the Memorial Resolutions? Is Professor Alan Sidelle here? Up here. So, you are here. Good. Then come forward to present the Memorial Resolutions for both Professors Emeritus Haskell Fain and Fred Dretske. >> Haskell Fain, known as Hak [assumed spelling], was a valued member of the Philosophy Department from 1956 to 1993. His research spanned an impressive range of philosophical subjects. Hak taught at the first Vietnam War teaching in UW and adeptly chaired the department during some of the most intense years of campus protests. Hak was also an effective advocate for junior faculty. He delighted in telling philosophical jokes and put his wry wit to good use in his excellent teaching. Hak also enjoyed playing chess, cooking, and sharing delicious meals with friends and family. He was great really loved and is sorely missed. Brother, departed member, departed rather longer ago, 2013, is Fred Dretske. Fred Dretske was professor of philosophy at UW from 1960 to 1988. He was a philosopher of singular quality, inventive, lucid, and fundamental. His work in theory of knowledge and philosophy of mind, and his analysis of laws of nature, won him wide recognition and respect. He was a superb teacher. Fred's writing is a model of hard-working philosophical prose, beautifully clear, down to earth, driven by simple, persuasive examples. He was a person of great charm, greatly loved by his friends. His philosophical power and the quiet force of his personality made him the solid center of the UW Department. >> Let me recognize Professor Janet Jensen to present the Memorial Resolution for Professor Emeritus Anthony Barresi. >> Thank you. Anthony Barresi, professor of choral music education in the School of Music from 1978 to 2000, died in December 2017 at the age of 83. In addition to his regular teaching duties, Professor Barresi served as the chair of the music education program for seven years, conducted the university choir, and was associate director of the School of Music for two years. He was renowned for his expertise in public policy and the arts, the development and health of the adolescent changing voice, choral conducting, and study abroad programming and direction. His kindness, good humor, and positive personality are cherished by all who knew him. And on a personal note, I might never have finished my own dissertation in policy -- arts education policy without Tony's encouragement. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I'm very pleased to welcome Professor Barresi's wife, Jenny [assumed spelling], and his daughter, Regina [assumed spelling] Barresi-Spalla, who are both here. Thank you for coming. [ Applause ] Let me recognize Professor John Pfotenhauer to present the Memorial Resolution for Professor Emeritus Roger Boom. >> Thank you, Chancellor Blank [assumed spelling]. Good afternoon. It's a great honor to be able to do this. Roger Wright Boom was born in 1923 to Frank and Gladys Boom [assumed spelling] in Bladen, Nebraska. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from UCLA in 1958 and joined the College of Engineering at UW Madison in 1968. Roger's career in cryogenic engineering and superconductivity spanned more than 30 years. He invented and pioneered superconducting magnetic energy storage, and in 1983 founded the applied superconductivity center at UW Madison. Roger was also a great developer of people. His positive outlook was infectious, being so positive about what those around him might be able to do. Roger died on August 8, 2018, at the age of 95. He will be missed and remembered with fondness. >> And I'm very pleased that Professor Boom's nephew, Rod McKenzie, his wife, Paula, and their daughter, Jessica, are here today. Thank you. [ Applause ] And let me recognize Professor Hemant Shah who is going to present both the Memorial Resolution for Professor James Baughman and for Professor Emeritus William Hachten. >> Thank you, Chancellor Blank. James L. Baughman, [inaudible] and professor of journalism and mass communication and former director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication died on March 26, 2016 at the age of 64. Baughman joined the faculty in 1979 after earning a doctorate in history at Harvard. He wrote four influential books on media history, as well as dozens of book chapters and journal articles. Friends and former students will remember Jim's humor and skill at mimicry. No, UW faculty member did a better imitation of Eleanor Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan. You will also recall his devotion to the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Survivors include his brother, Milton [assumed spelling] of Columbus, Ohio, nephew Thomas [assumed spelling] of Paso Robles in California, and niece, Kate [assumed spelling], in New York City, as well as his wife and best friend, Michelle Machuda [assumed spelling]. William Andrews Hachten, Professor Emeritus and former director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication died on May 15, 2018, at the age of 93. Hachten joined the UW faculty in 1959 and taught media law, international communication, news reporting and editing, and until -- until he retired in 1989. He was a leading researcher and prolific writer on African media and global journalism and he had written dozens of journal articles and six academic books. Before his academic career, Hachten played collegiate football at Stanford and Berkeley, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was drafted by the New York Giants of the National Football League, and he worked as a professional journalist. He was preceded in death by his wife, Harva [assumed spelling] and is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth [assumed spelling] Hachten and Marianne Carter [assumed spelling], three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. You may be seated. It has been a while since we last convened in early December, and quite a few things have been happening since then. Let me give you all a few updates. First of all, I want to thank everyone for your patience and your flexibility during a very unusual and difficult stretch of bad weather last week. As some of you have seen, the results of that bad weather have not been good. In the last 24 hours we've been dealing with major flooding and burst pipes, particularly in Violet [assumed spelling] Hall and in chemistry, both of which are closed right now. This is reasonably unprecedented, and we've worked throughout the weekend to try to figure out both what has been damaged in those buildings, how quickly we can recover it, and make sure that we can relocate classes. I know this has had a huge impact on students and faculty, staff, and on research in those buildings, and we're still in the midst of assessing and doing as much cleanup as rapidly as we can. So, thank you to all of you who may be in that building, and particular thanks to our facilities folks who've really been working around the clock to make things move along and try to do some recovery in all of this. To recap the weather decisions from last week's snow and extreme cold, safety is always a priority, particularly when we have the degree of cold we did, and I think we did the right thing by canceling instruction for a day and a half, though. That is the longest we have ever closed from what anyone can see. We have quite a clear metric about this. We probably haven't been as transparent about it as we should be because it doesn't happen very often. When it snows a lot, we only close if the metro bus system stops. That almost never happens, so we almost never close when it snows a lot. Many of you know that. So, for instance, it often happens that the city schools are closed and we are not closed after a snowstorm. When a cold occurs we follow the National Weather Service guidance which says that this becomes highly dangerous whenever the windchill dips below 35 below. So, whenever the forecast suggests we're going to have sustained windchills below 35 below, as we did have for a day and a half here, we have closed in the past, and obviously we closed this last week. We are reviewing the shutdown experience from last week. And if there are things to be learned and things we should've done better, do feel free to send us your ideas and advice and, you know, we'll do what we can. As you know, we never really close. There are always people who have to come in. We've got animals. We've got labs that occasionally have to keep running because of what's happening there. And, of course, in our dormitories we have to have staff and food service workers. And so, there are always workers at work here even when we are officially closed. And I want to thank particularly those people who came in and had to work last week, even when many other people were able to stay home. Leadership searches. We are in the midst of recruiting and hiring a number of key leaders. Since we met in December, I suspect you've all heard that our Provost, Sarah Mangelsdorf, has announced that she has accepted a job as the president of the University of Rochester in New York. She will be departing at the end of this semester and I want to wish her well. She's been provost here for five years and done just an excellent job. We have a search committee formed. The job is posted. I charged them about a week ago. And the goal is to hire a new provost by the end of the spring semester. Anja Wanner, professor in English who headed the UC last year, is going to be chairing that search. In early January we announced a new business school dean, Vallabh Sambamurthy, who is currently the Eli Broad professor and associate dean of the MBA and professional master's programs at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University has been selected as the Albert O. Nicholas dean of the Wisconsin School of Business. And I'm very much looking forward to having him arrive on campus this coming summer. And as you all know, we have a vice chancellor for research and graduate education search that is going on. They have largely completed their work, and later this week we are going to be announcing the dates and the public presentations of the three finalists who will be coming through at the end of February and early March. So, look for those dates, mark them on your calendars. Make sure, particularly your research faculty who care about who the new VCRG is going to be, know about them and look for them and attend the public presentation if they can. And then lastly, we also have finalists for a new health service director, and we are in the midst of a search for a permanent dean of students. So, lots of things going on. And you all have searches in your departments as well, I know. On behalf of Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Lori Reesor, I want to mention one important initiative. As many of you know, the demand for mental health services on this campus, on every campus in the country, has simply skyrocketed in the last several years. In the last few years, UHS has added 11 positions in mental health services, including four new counselors, a psychiatrist, in addition to intake workers and medical residents. Lori has convened a new ad hoc BCSA task force, which is going to review the mental health resources here on campus and provide recommendations for a comprehensive and multifaceted approach to address the mental health needs of our students, including prevention, resiliency, training, treatment, and capacity building so that students, faculty, and staff can also identify and be helpful to students who find themselves in some degree of crisis. That task force will include students, faculty, and staff, and should be reporting I think by the end of the semester. So, we will make some decisions about how we want to move forward and any changes we want to make by the beginning of the next -- the next semester. Some of you who follow the news out of Washington, D.C. know that the Department of Education has proposed a number of major changes to the federal regulations around Title IX investigations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct. I've submitted comments about those proposed changes. While some of the changes might be helpful, other aspects of them are very highly concerning. The system has also submitted some very detailed comments on this as well. Those of you who want to see more, my letter is posted in my blog and I encourage you to read that, or simply Google Title IX the Department of Education proposed changes and you will get a lot of information. I think they've had more comments than any other proposed regulation change that has ever been seen, and how they sort through these and what they do next is a really interesting question. Graduate assistants, we've talked about graduate assistants' well-being a number of times in this assembly. I want to let you know that we are raising the minimum stipend for teaching assistants on campus next year by almost 9%. This is for the upcoming academic year, 2019-2020. That increase brings minimum TA stipends up to $20,000 for a nine-month 50% appointment. It places us at or above the median stipend rate among public peer institutions. When I arrived on this campus we were at the bottom, and we have done a series of rather substantial increases. It is the only group on campus that has seen anything like the sort of across the board increases, and it's been important to get them up there. As you know, many departments actually pay stipends above the minimum rate in order to be competitive in their field for recruiting top graduate students. Resident assistant stipends rate also received a modest increase from the past year, so be watching for those changes and let those of you who in your department who work with your graduate program know about them. It is Black History month this February. And the campus has done an increasing number of things around Black History month in recent years. And there's a terrific slate of events taking place this February. We are also remembering the 50th anniversary of the rather historic black students strike of 1969 on this campus. Those were lively years. That event led to the creation of the Department of African-American Studies, and we're going to be revisiting it through an oral history collaboration between our communication staff and journalism students of color. So, watch for sort of more news about that in the weeks ahead. Finally, lastly, a plug for something happening later this week. The Board of Regents is meeting, hosted by UW Madison. They often meet on our campus under their own aegis, but this month we are officially hosting them at Union South on Thursday and Friday of this week. And we have the chance to share information. If you feel any desire to go to the education committee or the business and finance committee or the capitals planning committee or the research policy committee of -- on Thursday morning, we will have people from Madison making presentations about our work in each of those areas. On Thursday afternoon around 1:15, after they convene, I have a chance to speak to them and give sort of a state of the university, what are our opportunities, what are our challenges, and that is broadcast live for those of you who have nothing better to do on Thursday afternoon and want to watch it. It is a budget year. So, this -- it's always important in the conversation with regents around that year. That is all of my comments. Rick [assumed spelling] has a comment before I -- we both open for questions. Let me note if you haven't noticed already, we're going to end this meeting with a closed session in order to vote for honorary degree candidates. We must have that vote today in order to bring honorary degree candidates here. So, we really need a quorum at the end of this meeting. And from what I know of the agenda, I think the meeting is not going to run too long and I just want to urge you not to duck out early until you've given us a vote and we can complete the work to make sure we have -- give a few honor degrees at commencement this year. Rick, do you want to take over? >> Okay, this is just an update. At the meeting last year, we had a discussion about the UW system draft of a policy on low productivity programs. And one of the things that UC was asked to consider was whether we should form a working group on defining productivity. We found that the campus, in various ways, is already responding to that -- to this draft policy that's under development. For example, Jocelyn Milner, APIR office, we met with her. She has very good data on productivity. We believe that the concerns for this campus are being communicated well to the -- to the group working on this draft policy. And also, we have a faculty representative in the system, the group of faculty representatives to the system as well, and this has been discussed there. And also, I wanted to note that another draft of this policy will be hopefully available from the system folks working on it in March for us to consider. So, at that point we'll have a -- we'll see whether our concerns and the concerns of the other campuses have been addressed. >> Thank you, Rick. Are there any questions for either Rick or for myself? Go ahead. >> I'm Matthew Brolin [assumed spelling], District 27, presenting a prepared question on behalf of my department. So, we've been asked in the next year to guarantee four-year 50% funding to incoming doctoral students, a change that has seismic consequences, or how we admit students, who we admit, how and when we teach graduate classes, mentor new researchers, literally every aspect of graduate education. While we absolutely support the improvement of funding for graduate education, the speed and inflexibility of the policy as presented [inaudible] far-reaching changes in graduate curriculum and teaching areas where the faculty, at least in theory, have primary authority. Can you answer why it's being implemented at such an extraordinary quick pace? How can we, as faculty, exert some control over these far-reaching changes in graduate curriculum and teaching programs for which we are ultimately held responsible? Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you. I actually don't know about changes in graduate curriculum and teaching. I cannot answer that. I'll ask Bill Karpus, who wants to say something about that. I know he's sitting in the back of the room. Let me say a word about the funding of graduate students. We -- when I arrived, for 75% of our graduate students were providing four to six years of funding, but we were only guaranteeing it one year at a time. Almost all of our peer institutions are guaranteeing multiple user graduate student funding, and I think it's highly important that we catch up with them since we're doing it already in many cases. And I know a lot of departments over these last five years have moved towards multiyear funding commitments, and I'm hoping that we can get there with almost all departments. I realize there may be a few departments for whom at the end of the day that's just too difficult, or they don't have the market they need to meet. >> If I could speak for my department, I think the concern is, we're a top-ranked department and we get graduate students without guaranteeing the full four years funding and we would no longer be able to make those decisions about who we accept. Rather, we'd have to defer to the university to guarantee that we are providing those funding, rather than let the students decide, with full information, that they may not be funded for the full time. I think that's the -- >> So, I'm not -- I'm trying to understand you. My understanding is this doesn't change the admissions process. It's simply for those departments that are doing four -- you know, with a four-year funding guarantee they put it on the table upfront rather than doing it year by year. >> I think the thought was that we would not be able to accept students who were not guaranteed four years of funding, when right now we do. We leave it up -- we try to fund all of our students and we think it's very important that all our students are funded, but we also allow some student freedom to come -- >> I know that there are a few departments that regularly do accept unfunded students and get students who come under those circumstances. There a lot of departments where that's just not even an option. They wouldn't get people. I'm going to ask Bill to address that and say what his office is doing in all of this front. Thank you, Bill. >> Bill Karpus, dean of the graduate school. And so, it's not true that you will not be able to admit students if you don't fund them for four or five years. You will - the process won't change. You'll do your admissions process. It's just that the chancellor says what we would like to be is competitive nationally, so when you admit a graduate student they know, they have in their offer of admission letter and they're considering UW, they're considering Berkeley, they're considering Michigan, they're considering Yale, they're going to say, they're going to line those up and they're going to say what is the best deal if everything else is equal, and they'll be able to make that decision. And so, as much as we can guarantee, pending adequate academic and research progress, in four or five years we will continue to be competitive. Now I know your program is highly ranked, but if we don't do these things that our peer institutions are doing, highly ranked programs will start to drop. And I can tell you, a number of the programs, sociology did this a number of years ago, political science did this a number of years ago, they, quote, right size their graduate programs to guarantee funding to graduate students and it actually improved the quality of their admits in their enrollees. So, we are working in the graduate school, we are working to implement this across departments, schools, and colleges by having discussions with faculty members, with chairs, with deans of those schools and colleges, and we're not putting anyone under the thumb to do this in two or three weeks. We're working through issues. So, for instance, in a number of the programs in the School of Education, there are professional students out there, superintendents, principals that already have a job and don't need the four or five funding guarantee. We need to parse those out from the other graduate student population that comes in straight from undergraduate, or a couple years removed from undergraduate, where we need to be competitive with our peers. >> And -- >> That's exactly -- that's exactly our concern. We're the Department of Curriculum Instruction, and many of our students are professionals who want to continue working. I think the worry is that if it is implemented in the next year, finding ways to accommodate the diversity of our students and the diversity of ways that they're funded might be difficult. I think that's -- >> And I'd encourage your department to be sure to be in ongoing conversations with Bill's office, because clearly they're aware of that issue. >> So, I'm district 52, that's computer science. First of all, this evening is the beginning of the Year of the Pig. And it's a new year, the Chinese New Year, so it's an opportunity to send greetings to all the people who celebrate that. And I'm sure that there are many faculty and definitely students who do so. So, I'm sure that everybody would join me in this regard. But that's not the purpose of my comment. Chancellor, [inaudible] respect it looks like that you have missed something in your coverage from what happened from our [inaudible] submitting and allow me humbly to try to fill in this gap. So, soon after the -- it's about the regents, and you just mentioned the regents. And many times we find ourselves in debate and in a position, and sometimes in stronger position to the positions and to the decisions that were made by the regent. And this time I find myself personally just in the opposite with complete agreement with the positions that they took. So, soon after the meets that we had in December, the regents announced the [inaudible] of the position of the Chancellor of UW extension, and divided this salary among the Chancellors of the different systems. And I personally don't know anything about any other institution, other than our own institution, and I wanted to see what is their decision about [inaudible] rank first in the evaluation of performance and rank first in the [inaudible] that they devoted to our leader. And then I shared that with another faculty and he said, don't raise it in the senate meeting because even the three monkeys on the [inaudible], those -- if one of them cannot speak and one of them cannot hear and one of them cannot see, even they know that our leader is a top performer and the regent must know it. But, you know, sometimes we are in disagreement and I want to share my appreciation to the regent for good discretion and good judgment. >> So, I'm not quite sure what your question is. >> I didn't have a question. I just says it didn't mention that as something that happened between now and then. >> Good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments or issues? Thank you very much. In that case, if you turn to the minutes of the 3rd of December 2018, on pages 12 to 13 of your agenda, are there any additions or corrections to those Minutes? Seeing none, the minutes are approved as distributed. I remind you, at the beginning of the 2016-'17 academic year you approved a new standing formula for creating the academic calendar that standardized our semesters and created predictable start and end dates. So, we actually had semesters that you could think a year ahead of time, when they were likely to start and when they were likely to end. You have in your materials Faculty document 2795 on page 14, which is the specific implementation of this new formula for the academic years from fall 2021 through spring 2026. So, your calendars can now be marked if you approve this. If you accessed the senate materials right away last week because you were so eager to read them, there was a typo in that version of the document. The corrected version, which was since changed, includes May 31 as the start date for the summer three-week session in 2022. Other than that clerical correction, this is one that, if there are no objections or questions about this five-year calendar, we've discussed this in the past, this is just laying out what was approved in the past, it is going to be approved as distributed. But if there are objections, we can have a vote and a discussion. I'm going to say that calendar is approved as distributed. All right, agenda item six. Let me recognize that Professor Dan Vimont, who is going to present the annual report for the committee on committees, you can see the slate on pages 15 to 17, and the nomination for election to the committee on committees, which is also reproduced in your agenda. Dan? >> Thank you. And is there a slide that goes with this or not? >> There should be. >> Okay, the slate for the committee on committees is on pages 15 to 17 of the full packet. This is a faculty document, 2796. And there's a couple of things, like I said, I'd like to highlight in that -- in the report from the committee on committees. First of all, I want to thank all candidates who have agreed to serve in -- on a committee or have -- who have agreed to run for a committee. The election is April 1 through 15, and that's conducted through committee trackers. So, please encourage your respective units to vote in that election. Everyone will get reminders and links at the April Senate and via e-mail. Second, the university library committee late is still incomplete. We still need one more candidate for biological sciences for a three-year term. As you go back to your various units, if you have suggestions of someone, please e-mail us with recommendations of people who might be willing to serve. Also, faculty compensation and economic benefits, please note we need a physical sciences candidate on that committee as well. The last sheet in the committee on committee's slate is the agenda as well. And that is the slate of people who will be running to serve on the committee on committees, and that's voted for in the election from April 1 to 15, and that is voted for only by the senators. So, that's all you will be voting for -- so, be sure and vote for next membership on the committee on committees. And then the last thing I am sort of -- I'll sort of say on behalf of the committee on committees, I want to make a plug for shared governance. So, I recognize, and we recognize that I currently am preaching to a choir here, because you are all participating in shared governance. However, for the benefit of the COC, I want to emphasize the importance of considering to serve on campus committees. So, as you go back to your units and your departments, I would like to encourage you to emphasize this importance of shared governance and participating, and to fill out the questionnaire on which committees you might be willing to consider -- on which you might be willing to consider serving. There's a questionnaire that gets sent out sent out. It was sent out in the fall. I'm not sure if we'll get it sent out again. But, also, send your names forward as well. It's not always easy. The fact that a committee on committees exists indicates that it's not a plentiful resource always to have people signing up for these things. Last, I want to thank all of you for your service on behalf of the committee on committees and thank all of the candidates listed on the slates. >> Questions? The vote on this occurs the first two weeks of April. >> That's correct. >> Please encourage all of your members to vote, all right? Let me then recognize Professor Pete Miller, who's going to present the annual report for the athletic board. Pete? >> Thank you, Chancellor Blank. Hello, everyone. It's good to be here to report on the work of the athletic board. Just as a reminder for those of you who are not familiar with the board, it's a large board. We have 23 members on the board. We have representatives from the faculty, from alumni, from academic staff, and from students. This is a group that's very active. We meet over 30 times during the year. The work of the athletic board is kind of divvied up into subcommittees. So, those are in the area personnel and finance facilities and operations and equity, diversity, and student welfare, and also in academics and compliance. So, if you look at the structure kind of of the athletic department, it's a quite large enterprise, and these committees kind of target their work in these areas. So, I just wanted to share some of the, kind of, highlights of our work during the year. Most of our work focuses on academics and compliance and on kind of the -- kind of the students' experiences outside of the court. So, we're not really focusing on how many games a football team wins as much as how those experiences are off the field. So, just a couple of things I'll touch on. One of -- the year academically was perhaps the strongest in history for you UW student athletes in terms of their academic outcomes. A number of records were set in terms of the GPA and awards that they won. If you compare the student athletes from the University Wisconsin with those at other schools in kind of Division I athletics, we tend to rate quite highly, quite favorably with them. So, that's a really good thing. Under the next slide we have the cumulative GPA of all of the student athletes last -- at the end of the spring was the highest, in at least the last 15 years since it's been tracked. So, that's a positive thing. Three hundred and 49 student athletes out of approximately 800, over 800 were Dean's list, Dean's honor list, the entire honor list. So, that is actually quite -- that's really good. It's the best that we've ever recorded, that the university has ever recorded. Under the next, 54 student athletes had, you know, over 3.7 GPA's, 293 student athletes were academic, all big 10, the most ever. So, I normally don't share this many accolades, but it's -- it was -- it was -- this is -- this is not normal. So, was it was good. It's good to be able to share this. One issue that we tend to see when we look nationally, there are a lot of issues that you probably read about it, you know, in the sports pages and the news pages about athletics, about different types of scandals happening in different places, and things. One that happens in an academic way at a number of institutions is academic clustering, where students are brought to campus and they're shepherded into one area to study, and not really giving full chance to study what they want to. So, that's something that we, as a board, really pay attention to. We want to make sure that when a student comes to this place they have a chance, not only to compete in athletics as they want, but, more importantly, to choose the academic pursuit that they want. So, that's pretty evident in the -- in the -- if you see where the students are studying, 90 different majors. The most common you see up here are personal finance, life-sciences, communication, economics, and kinesiology. So, it's good to see that distribution. Under the next slide, if you look at the -- at the kind of team level of how -- of how graduation rates look, there's an academic performance rate that the NCA uses. All of -- all UW teams met that rate, which is a very, again, a very positive thing. No teams were under the rate. Most were well above it. Fifteen sports actually had a perfect graduation rate, which is a really good thing. If you look at the multiyear graduation rate, looking over at perhaps the last five years, we had four teams that have been recognized in the top 10% of all Division I teams. The sports football, women's golf, women's soccer, and men's tennis, that's the sixth straight time for football. The only other schools to do that are Duke, Northwestern, and Stanford. So, these are -- it's good at a team level to see the different teams achieving, graduating at high levels. Moving on to compliance. So, the NCA, the governing body for college sports, has quite, if you ever see the manual, a thick, 300 some page manual of rules, and there's a lot of rule compliance, diligence that goes on here. There are four levels of violations that can occur in NCA athletics. Levels one and two are what we could deem kind of really minor things. So, for example, we'll have -- we've had instances where, you know, there'll be a deadline where you can be in touch with a student starting June 1, a potential student athlete, and maybe a coach made a text the week before or something like that, would be a -- this -- I kind of made that up as a hypothetical. That's a minor violation as opposed to a -- major things are more the things that we tend to read about in the newspaper. So, there were -- there are 17 violations at levels three and four. Again, that would be the minor things. There were zero violations at levels one and two during that academic year. So, on one hand, we, as an athletic board, are -- we never want to see any violations, but the fact that we see that there were 17 of them in some way shows a degree of diligence that we're happy to see. We didn't -- you know, if we saw zero violations we -- it might have caught us a little bit more off guard than seeing a number of them. This number is relatively consistent with what we've seen in recent years, slightly lower actually than over the last 10 years. Just a couple other final matters. As you look nationally, again, a lot of institutions have had some really, really difficult stories that we've read about, a lot of us have probably read about. So, one, you know, the athletic department and a number of members of the athletic board took an active role in conducting a safety review over the past year to really look at the student experience and make sure that it's as safe as possible in a variety of ways. So, that was kind of a long -- a significant endeavor and it produced a report about that to -- and the athletic department has reported that to a number of people and is working to respond to it to create a safe as possible environment for all students. A couple of other things. Just general student welfare issues, issues around nutrition, sleep, and psychological support services are always on our purview and things that we're paying much attention to. Just recently the athletics hired a new psychologist. Just as Chancellor Blank shared, that's an issue that's rising greatly among the students, the issues of mental health and having those support services. Lastly, kind of looking forward, what is on our horizon? Just continue to prioritize the things I talked about. Just a quick note also that the broader -- the broader terrain of intercollegiate athletics is one that may be changing significantly in the years ahead. There's litigation pending that could make some significant changes. And so, we're monitoring that. And we'll continue to work closely with all parties here on campus, and continue to, as a board, be as educated as we can on what may develop and how to kind of maintain our principles as an institution as any changes happen externally. So, with that I will be open to any questions if anyone has any. >> Eric Sandgren, district 113. Comment and then a question. First, I'm so delighted by the positive statistics about academics. That's really important to, I think, to everybody here. And I'm glad that this campus takes that so seriously. I'm glad that you make a point of celebrating that with us. The second question, the second is a question and that has to do with what is the extent or distribution of discussion of head injury problems that have been coming up, the medical issues in football on this campus and maybe by your committee? Is that something that you're dealing with specifically? >> Yes, it's a -- it's a really important question. Our campus is part of a national study that's the gold standard study on head injury. One of the -- some of our doctors are kind of on the frontlines of that work. So, that work is actually putting us in a really good position as a campus and being -- help shape the discussion moving forward. So, that's something that we are updated on our -- on our board regularly by those physicians who are conducting the research. If you happen to be a football game or see on TV, there's a whole row behind where the players are of, kind of, computers and equipment. All that is, there are sensors inside the students' helmets that they're monitoring that. So, we're kind of on the cutting edge in some ways of what is a really, kind of, critical, critical issue. So, it's one of our priorities. >> I should know, there's actually a conference at the athletics department is sponsoring jointly with the group doing this study in April that will be here on our campus discussing exactly that set of issues. And those of you interested in that, we can get information to you about that conference. >> In part, I'm asking that question sort of to honor Mike Webster [assumed spelling]. I remember when he was here, and what a wonderful citizen he was on our campus. Just a delightful person. And the story associated with what's happened to him is so sad. But he was one of the people who really was first identified with having some of these changes, in that sense contributed to our understanding. >> Other questions? I want to thank Pete and the entire athletic board. They've done a lot of extra work this year on top of their usual relatively heavy set of duties with the safety audit that they conducted together with the athletics board, looking at every team, at every facility, and, you know, turned up some things that we need to improve but, you know, didn't turn up anything that was like a big flashing red light that says, man, we've really missed something big there. That was a very good thing to do and, you know, has helped us move forward, I think. So, thank you for all of your work on that. [ Applause ] Let me recognize Professor Ankur Desai who will present the annual report for the budget committee. >> Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Ankur Desai from atmospheric and oceanic sciences. And on behalf of our department we wish you a belated happy Groundhog Day, hopefully for an early spring for some. So, I am the chair of the UW budget committee. And this is our first annual report that we are submitting to the faculty senate. And this is our first because it was in spring of 2016 when this body, along with the -- formed the budget committee in response to a lot of the questions and issues that we were seeing around budget and finance, which included the campus budget model, particularly with things going on at the state level with the biannual budget process and the things that we were seeing. So, the budget committee was formed. And I think months after being promoted to full professor I got a phone call saying, hey, do you want to be on this new committee for three years? And I didn't learn to say no, yet, so I am, here I am. So, the report is in your packet. I'll just kind of give you highlights of it here. This is actually now our third year that we're in operation. The short answer are kind of -- I'll kind of present our recommendations first, is that this budget committee, which is a true shared governance committee, its faculty, academic, staff, university staff, students, and then the vice chancellor of finance administration and the Madison budget office, is a true shared governance voice into budgetary and financial matters in this university and with the state. And I think that's a really good thing. And actually, one of our biggest recommendations, because I know some people had questions about the structure, the purpose, or existence of this committee, is that actually I think it's been a really good process. It's really led to true shared governance discussion about how the budget affects academic and scholarly mission. It allows us to directly respond to initiatives that are happening at the campus level. It allows us to invite visitors from campus units, from state units, from campus planning, and elsewhere to talk about how -- what's happening in finance and budgeting is influencing or impacting our ability to do our jobs. So, I think that's been a real big plus. So, a lot of this, of course, required a lot of spin up in education. That's partly why we did not submit a report in the first year, which is that we had selected three-year terms for this committee, partly because we realized that it was going to require quite a bit of education for most of us to really learn about all the ways the budget interacts. And, of course, the thing is, money makes the world go around, money makes the university happen. Budget really touches on every single thing that happens in this entire place. And so, there's no shortage of types of things we could talk about. And if you saw in our report, we really touched on many, many different aspects of the budget process, the biannual process at the state level, down to talking to individual deans and unit directors about how the campus budget model has been either helping or harming their operations. So, our main recommendation is that we should continue this process. I think the budget committee should continue to stay as a shared governance committee. We are thinking, though, of one particular area where we believe we could be more effective. Now that we have members who are educated, our ability to talk about and serve as roles as ambassadors across campus about budgetary issues, but we also really hope that governance committees and governance bodies, like the faculty senate, use the budget committee to their benefit, to be able to ask deep questions about how [inaudible] financial impact save a resolution of a particular idea, to be able to use the committee to provide an analysis. By being able to meet directly with the vice chancellor for finance and administration, Laurent Heller, on a frequent basis, as well as the Madison budget office, we're able to get information and crunch the numbers and provide that information back to you. And I think that's a role that we're hoping to see more of into the future. For example, with the role of -- the recent discussion on segregated fees and graduate student remission, that's an issue, for example, that would be one that we will likely discuss in the future. Other major recommendations are primarily that we need to be also in touch with some of the other campus and faculty committees that deal with things like economic planning and campus planning and capital budgets. We're also, of course, staying on top of and trying to look closely at what's going on with the UW extension merger with performance funding, with communications about the budget, both to faculty, staff, and students. Particularly one of the big initiatives we took on through the associated students of Madison was to provide a new set of visuals for tuition transparency. How is tuition spent on campus for students? And that was something that was requested by the ASM and something we were able to make happen through the committee. Other things we really focused on, after spending a lot of time -- or time really getting educated on the process was focusing on the state process, really having an early eye into making sure what was coming on the horizon from the governor's budget, what was coming in from the campus UW system request, and how that was aligning the UW Madison's priorities. Of course, we've seen a lot of things, both good and bad, happening with the state level budget. We've asked a lot of deep questions about performance funding and what the effect is on our campus. The campus budget model, which is more an internal allocation of funds, is something that we're also paying attention to. As you know, there is an ad hoc committee prior to our committee that really helped provide the recommendations for the initial campus budget model for allocation to colleges and units. Now there are no proposals on the table to modify that but, obviously, if there is, I believe this committee would be the one that would be the ones looking right at it in detail. Other issues we've looked at over the year include professional master's programs. We have a subcommittee looking at that in terms of how that financial impact effects other units on campus, academic staff issues in terms of salary support and funding for soft money funded scientists, budget for student fees that I mentioned and, of course, thinking about long-term strategic planning in terms of financial performance challenges for growth. That's something the new VCFA has really put a new effort into in terms of strategic planning out in the long run. It's something that we're not necessarily always great at and something that we're all going to see more of. I think I'll just leave it at that and open it for questions if you have any. >> Chad Alan Goldberg, District 71. I just very briefly want to commend the budget committee for raising concerns about the possible perverse consequences of performance-based funding and the state budget, which you alluded to. I presume that those concerns have been communicated to the legislature in the past, and I want to strongly encourage profs and the chancellor's office to continue to convey those concerns to the legislature and to the new [inaudible] administration. >> Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, that is something that we have discussed, and that we are providing case studies. One of the things we are doing this year in particular was inviting various deans of various colleges to come present to us. We had the dean of L and S, the dean of education talk to us about how things like performance budget and campus budgeting is affecting their operations. Next semester we're going to focus on university health services, for example. With their rapid increase in mental health service is having a big bite on their budget as well. >> Any other questions? I want to thank you and your committee as well. I know you've done a lot of work and it's been a very helpful committee for the vice chancellor for the finance and administration office. So, thank you. Let me recognize Professor Joe Salmons, who will present the annual report on the information technology committee. >> Thank you. I'll be extremely brief. You have the report in your packet. You have a longer report that is linked there, a much more detailed report covering the last couple of years. I'd just like to make two points, one backwards looking and one forwards looking. In -- to the first point, I'd like to thank [inaudible] for his leadership over the last few years. The report reflects the work that he basically did as chair of the committee. And for the, I guess the third report today, we have shared governance being prominent. Raffi [inaudible] really did a whole lot to refocus things in terms of shared governance and work on bringing that into practice. So, thanks to him for more intense dedication to a committee assignment than I have ever seen anybody have in decades in the -- in the profession. The second point is actually kind of related to that. We have this year a new CIO on campus, Lois Brooks. And she has come onto campus actively engaging with governance and with an understanding of governance and so forth, and I would just like to say that I think we've got an opportunity here to build on our foundations there if you're interested in being involved in governance. The ITC is a -- is a good place to be. So, I think that's all of my remarks. >> But you're not done yet. >> Yes. >> Yeah, the second part of Professor Salmons' agenda here is to present a motion regarding the leadership structure the ITC. This will need a second and we will be voting on it. And you should see the proposed changes are in your agenda items. >> I would like to move adoption of document 2800. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right, you want to explain the -- >> Just a couple of small changes. There was a cochair of the executive director of IT planning and strategy, was made official cochair. That office is empty and likely to stay empty. This seems like a good opportunity to institute a, sort of, regular rotation instead of having, now being in the job and having seen a Raffi put into it, but this is not a job that somebody should have for several years, and we should have a healthy rotation bringing in people. And so, we'd like to move to a rotation of x chair, chair, incoming chair as is common in many situations as the basic motivation. >> Are there questions or comments on that motion? If not, I will assume you are ready to vote. All those in favor of the motion as proposed to change the leadership structure indicate by saying aye? >> Aye. >> Any opposed? The motion passes. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> I would then like a motion to move into closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statutes 19.85 1 C and F to consider the recommendation of the committee on honorary degrees. Do I have such a motion? [ Inaudible ] We need a name. You got -- pick a name. Someone raise their hand. Put -- yeah. Do I have a second? All right. All those in favor of moving into closed session indicate by saying aye? >> Aye. >> We will move into closed session. I ask anyone who is not a senator, an alternative, to please leave the room. And once you're in open session I can firmly adjourn the meeting and ask you not to leave until you have voted. Thank you very much.