President’s Blog

ENTRY: 10-29-2024

• Establish levels of review — for instance, the curricular unit as the 1st, the school as the 2nd, 
  • if the curricular unit were identified as the 1st level of review, the policy would recognize that when the unit has too few members to form a level of review, committee composition would be as close as possible to the curricular unit;
  • the campus-level policy could specify that school-level RTP policy must define how committees (1st and 2nd level of review) are convened, but the campus-level policy would not prescribe the process;
• Establish review path following 1st/2nd level — for instance, identifying either or both the Director and/or Dean as the intervening stage of review before files are sent on to the Provost and then the Chancellor;
• Establish clear policy for next steps following nonrenewal or denial of tenure at the 1st and 2nd level of review;
• The campus-level RTP policy should include reference to FAC 7 A-B (Faculty Workload), which clarifies campus-level scope of faculty expectations in teaching, scholarly and creative activity, and service;
• Given concerns about SOS data (which faculty report is sometimes corrupted or incomplete, sometimes falsely aggregates course sections, occasionally disappears from the database after being circulated to faculty, etc.), the RTP policy could or should include a statement on accepted procedure when SOS data is corrupt or otherwise unreliable.

ENTRY: 10-2-2024

• System will recognize either or both “area” and “school” as a “functional equivalent” to “department.” In other words, both of those terms are acknowledged at the System level. This was confirmed when our restructure was approved by the Board of Regents. This does not mean that we have to define areas as functional equivalents to departments; rather, we are empowered to do so if we choose.

• Not necessarily. One goal in the restructure has been to ensure autonomy at the school level, and the result is a certain amount of heterogeneity in the school models. Some school models treat areas as administrative structures that will enable us to function within budget constraints. Some may consider the groupings as more meaningfully expressive of affinities.
• Where areas are not being thought of as department equivalents, one rationale reported at the Faculty Senate is that in minimizing the function of areas in relation to the wider school, we also minimize the barriers between our programs, making it easier for programs to collaborate.

• Bylaws at the area level may be logical if there is a minority voice that might not otherwise be protected or recognized in school-level bylaws. The rationale for area-level bylaws would normally be that there exist substantive distinctions in a given program that need to be articulated in bylaws. The question then becomes whether anything prevents those distinctions from being defined in school-level bylaws.
• We are the architects of our own bylaws: individual programs (and their subset programs) can be defined in school-level bylaws.
• School-level bylaws can recognize characteristics or needs unique to individual programs, and school-level bylaws can include direct reference to policies that govern both individual programs (e.g., program-specific online teaching policy) and the school and/or university as a collective.
• Note that we already have examples of distinct organizational structures at UWO. Our College of Nursing does not currently operate through a department structure, functioning instead as a unified college governed through a committee system.
• Some consistency across our new schools would, however, be welcome. Shared governance at the university level is sometimes complicated by a lack of shared understanding about significant distinctions across our units. Greater consistency would support shared governance.

• The faculty will lead the bylaws-writing process. The steps of that process have yet to be formally defined, though many people have been thinking about the logical progression. Currently, and in most cases, we have college-level and department-level bylaws. One task will be to triage bylaws components to determine a) what should transfer from existing college-level bylaws to (for example) the new school-level document, and b) what can be standardized across the represented units and, by contrast, where bylaws must recognize unique programmatic or disciplinary distinctions.
• Faculty Senate leadership has met several times with Josh Garrison, Interim AVC for Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs to discuss the process by which existing bylaws, at the college and department levels, will be revised.
• President-Elect Stuart and I have advocated for several interlocking goals:
  • Consistency: A bylaws template can be shared to help ensure a degree of similarity across our units.
  • Simplifying and Streamlining: Our goal in writing bylaws should be to simplify and streamline. By this we mean: bylaws should name unit committees, but granularity could be reserved for committee information forms (which are more flexible documents than bylaws, thus enabling a simpler revision process at a later date); bylaws should gesture to relevant policy and the university, school, or even program level, defining what we are empowered to do and to what we hold ourselves accountable. Bylaws should not be used to past problems. In revising our bylaws, we should remain attuned to guidance that belongs in policy, citing relevant policies or modifying policies to include necessary guidance, as needed.
  • University-level Policy: Where university-level policy would usefully centralize guidance that should inform our local deliberations, that policy should be written. For example, we have proposed that a university-level policy for renewal, tenure, and promotion should be written in order to ensure that we are all aware of the overarching expectations that govern all such processes across the university. This would not preclude local-level renewal, tenure, and promotion policy, but it would enable those policies to focus on program or (more often) discipline-specific expectations for renewal, tenure, and/or promotion. We have had similar discussion about a university-level online and hybrid course policy, which could then allow local policy to specify any unique program-specific guidelines.

• In the next stage of work, as the faculty develop the collective documents that protect faculty rights and responsibilities in relation to (for example) personnel, curriculum, and workload matters, part of the task will be to define job descriptions for the leadership positions in our schools. Whether these are area coordinators, program directors, program leads, discipline leads, etc., job descriptions will need to exist in order to inform other key documents – e.g., bylaws, policies, committee information forms. And part of our goal in the next stage of this process will be (as I have noted above) to ensure collective clarity on the relevant policies that cascade down university to school to program, as appropriate.

ENTRY: 9-6-2024

• the timeline and process for finalizing “areas” and determining their scope as governance units (i.e., what is an “area” responsible for and what is it not responsible for)
• where the first and second level of review for renewal, tenure, and promotion will be housed (e.g., area + school?)
• the function of area or school bylaws to uphold faculty as subject-area experts in personnel and curriculum decisions
• whether we plan to use bylaws templates to determine what belongs or doesn’t belong in bylaws and ensure relative uniformity across bylaws for areas, schools, and colleges
• how existing relevant Faculty Senate committees will be integrated into the restructure implementation process
• whether the administration will entertain the possibility of retaining the “department” and “chair” nomenclature.

• We need to work more intentionally to build trust between faculty and administration, in both directions.
• We need more evidence of the administration seeking out the faculty as proven creative problem solvers.
• We need greater clarity on how the complex array of administrative, advising, and recruitment work currently being done by chairs during the summer is going to be covered in the new system.
• We want to be involved in finalizing the roles and responsibilities in the PD for area coordinators.
• We need concrete and universally applicable guidelines on the service equivalencies for cancelled classes.
• We are not persuaded by the arguments that have so far been offered for nomenclature changes. We can embrace change (transforming our definition of what a “department” consists of or what a “chair” does) without having to adopt new terminology that prioritizes an inward-facing perspective over the institution’s outward-facing legibility.

• We built upon the existing database enumerating each school’s array of experiential learning options, from community-based learning to practicums to internships to exhibitions to clubs to specific capstone courses or course elements to study abroad, etc.
• We discussed the value of distinguishing experiential learning from skill-building that is foundational to performing certain work.
• We discussed the importance to experiential learning of fostering reflection and metacognition in our students, distinguishing between providing students with wonderful experiences in university and fostering an environment in which they are urged to intentionally reflect on the skills, knowledges, habits of mind, etc., being developed by the experience.
• Note that our discussions were informed by the list of nine high impact practices (HIPs) that you will find in the OneDrive folder.
• Each table (representing a school) produced a set of notes on an Asset and Gap Mapping document designed to clarify our existing resources for building a shared culture around experiential learning and any perceived gaps.

• emphasized a feeling of optimism about the opportunities for collaboration and innovation that were beginning to come into focus as well as their support for the goal to foreground and support experiential learning.

• noted that it will be challenging to build relationships between areas and programs, and that we will need to be very intentional about building the necessary cross-disciplinary awareness to support the process, but emphasized that this is something we should have been doing more prior to this moment;
• expressed concern about how creating larger areas will affect student advising, especially for high-touch programs with highly functional advising structures in place;
• noted that we will need open communication as we undergo the process of simplifying our program array as well as the administration’s ongoing pledge to achieve this without instituting faculty cuts.

• How do we work to ensure that we understand each others’ programs?
• How might we go about sharing effective systems (e.g., advising trackers) to mobilize existing efficiencies to support our programs?
• How will we help area coordinators to understand and manage the front-end work that goes into supporting our programs to ensure, to give just one example, that high-touch programs do not lose the benefits of our current system?
• How will we go about reducing program emphases to simplify and streamline program pathways?
• Might we consider moving committees that currently exist at the department level to the school level rather than retaining them at the area level?
• How will we go about delegating work currently done by chairs that requires expertise or specific department-level knowledge (e.g., coordinating events, managing equipment, etc.) without overburdening department members or DAs?
• Who will be responsible to oversee the faculty evaluation process? How might it be handled at the area level, enabling the School Directors to enter the information without having to oversee the process?

• We should be guided by a shared sense of what problem(s) we are trying to solve as we review and alter our existing policies. For instance, a problem might be a lack of uniformity across the institution in how policies are implemented and/or a lack of uniformity in expectations for renewal, tenure, and promotion, as well as annual reviews.
  • We need rubrics that establish clear expectations. For example, might we consider creating a single set of expectations by school into which individual disciplines might enter discipline-specific guidelines?
• We should establish clear expectations for service, recognizing both potential imbalances in how service is valued and that some service is less visible but no less important.
• We need to establish whether evidence of ‘leadership’ is expected.
• We need to revise our system for peer teaching evaluations,  ensuring that our culture allows evaluations to include specific and constructive feedback (without incentivizing evaluators to look for problems), ensuring that we are consistent about what materials inform the evaluations (e.g., syllabi, assignment sheets, etc.), and ensuring that all areas of the university have a process for evaluating both face-to-face and online offerings.
• We need to determine (perhaps by policy) next steps if the initial level of review denies renewal, tenure, or promotion.
• We should avoid one-size-fits-all benchmarks (e.g., establishing an agreed-upon scale of measure).
• We should revise and reconfirm UWO-level policies on renewal, tenure, promotion, post-tenure review, annual review, faculty workload, and teaching evaluations.
• We need detailed discussions about where the first level of review should reside in light of concerns about diminishing content-area expertise input, and we should discuss the make-up of a possible school-level committee (e.g., 1 faculty member chosen by the candidate + 4 faculty from distinct disciplines in the school).

• Conversations focused on the arguments for keeping bylaws at the area level or doing away with area-level bylaws in favor of school-level bylaws.

• expressed positivity about school-level committees facilitating our goal to know and understand each other through our governance process;
• noted that the atmosphere across the day’s conversations was characterized by a willingness to be flexible and a collective goal to address issues and find solutions;

• expressed concern about what our new committee structure will look like;
• expressed concern that we still lack clarity about what an area is (what it’s responsible for), how many areas we will have, and what an area coordinator does;
• expressed concern that we still don’t have a clear sense of how key day-to-day work will be done (by chairs, etc.);
• expressed concern that inevitable summer work will not be compensated;
• expressed concern that we need more conversations about recruitment and retention.

• that “The equity process will be overseen by the Faculty Salary Equity Technical Committee,” which will “work with OIR and/or Human Resources to ensure that the equity process described below is implemented properly,” and
• that “90% of the mean CUPA salary for every faculty based on rank and discipline in the appropriate comparison group” shall be used as a benchmark for salary adjustment calculations.

• that our internal implementation procedure, which is detailed in the “Salary Equity Process Technical Document – Faculty” (2023) had not been followed (namely, that our Faculty Senate Compensation Committee had not been asked to form a Technical Committee to check the correctness of the calculations produced by Human Resources) prior to the official notification of affected faculty on January 8, 2024, and
• that the calculations had been undertaken by UW HR rather than UWO HR, we were not aware until later, once I had had an opportunity to meet with UWO faculty who are subject-area experts, that UW HR had used 90% of the CUPA median with ± 2 standard deviations rather than 90% of the unfiltered CUPA mean to calculate the salary adjustments. I informed the Chancellor and his Chief of Staff of this issue on January 18, 2024.

• that a longstanding faculty-generated process document, which was produced by the Faculty Senate Compensation Committee and had been revised by that committee in 2022-2023, then discussed and approved by the Faculty Senate in the spring of 2023 and subsequently endorsed by the Chancellor in September 2023, was not followed by either UWO HR or UW HR, which raises concerns about the extent to which policies and procedures authored by shared governance are perceived to be legitimate and locally binding, and
• that the use of 90% of the CUPA median (filtered for ± 2 standard deviations) rather than 90% of the CUPA mean (unfiltered) results in fewer faculty members receiving “parity” salary adjustments (this is the term used by our administration, but the term is “equity” in the Technical Document).

• Fewer faculty received pay increases than would have been the case had our Technical Document been followed.
• Some faculty receive more than the UWO procedure would have determined.
• Some faculty received less than the UWO procedure would have determined.

• that we are grateful to the Chancellor for his diligence in advocating on behalf of faculty to UW System to establish the Discretionary Fund in the first place as well as for his willingness to find a solution to the issue that benefits faculty;
• that the proposed solution would mean adding money to the original fund (of $487,352.20) by an estimated $72,000.00, and that this action might be deemed irresponsible in light of our institution’s current financial circumstances and our recent, and very painful, process of layoffs, non-renewals, and early retirements;
• and that bringing those who had been under-remunerated – when the calculation uses 90% of the unfiltered CUPA mean – while leaving in place those adjustments resulting from a calculation using 90% of the CUPA median with ± 2 standard deviations serves to enshrine a mistaken imbalance in how the equity monies were disbursed and how affected salaries will be adjusted going forward.

• Mistakes were made which originate in HR’s failure to use an existing process document and interact directly, as that document specifies, with subject-area experts in the faculty to ensure the correctness of all calculations;
• The process of obtaining the unfiltered data and finalizing next steps was very slow, causing meaningful delays in enabling the Compensation Committee’s Technical Committee to produce the calculations according to the parameters detailed in our Technical Document and in implementing an equitable solution;
• Senate recommendations did not ultimately inform decisions made by our senior administration;
• Senate requests for an apology from UWO HR – both to the Faculty Senate and to the faculty at large, showing accountability by acknowledging mistakes while also, ideally, expressing a determination to engage, where appropriate, with shared governance going forward – have yet to be fulfilled;
• Members of the Faculty Senate have expressed the concern that the proposed solution ratifies the idea that shared governance is not being allowed to help move the needle in decision-making.

UWO Updates

At our February 7 meeting, the Senate passed two policies related to expectations around teaching. The first is a Policy on Credits and Contact Hours that defines a credit hour aligned with HLC requirements. The second policy defines “regular and substantive interaction” and requires that instructors provide a minimum of 1 hour per week for 14 weeks per credit (or the equivalent) for all course modalities. This policy puts us in compliance with US Department of Education requirements for online and hybrid courses and clarifies the variety of activities that compose regular and substantive interaction.

 

Our Senate Committees are at work studying DFW rates, investigating ways to promote UWO among local businesses; advocating for faculty salary equity using CUPA data; looking at ways to make courses more accessible to a diversity of students; planning recommendations for displaying and summarizing SOS data for the purpose of tenure and promotion; creating an evaluation process and evaluation schedule for UWO AVCs, the provost, and the chancellor; monitoring budget planning for the coming year; and studying the grievance policy, the plagiarism policy, and the policy on department chair appointments. We will be discussing these issues at meetings in the coming months.

 

System Updates

UW System has formed a working group to study the expansion of dual enrollment courses across the state. They are also working on updating a policy on faculty professional development (I am a member of that working group) and one on intellectual property — this second policy is particularly urgent given the proliferation of online content.

 

System has released the results of a Free Speech Survey. As a mathematician, I note that the methodology of the survey is subject to significant non-response bias (12% response rate). This type of bias amplifies the concerns of respondents with strong feelings because they are likely overrepresented in the sample. All interpretations of results should be qualified by that fact. Here is a link to the results: https://www.wisconsin.edu/civil-dialogue/

 

Civil Dialogue The University of Wisconsin System institutions share in the responsibility to create an environment where members of the campus community may freely engage with others. This includes upholding the legal […] www.wisconsin.edu

This semester, the Faculty Senate provided feedback to the Strategic Planning Committee and debated a Vehicle Idling policy and Credit and Contact Hours policy.

 

Our Senate Committees are at work studying DFW rates, investigating ways to promote UWO among local businesses; advocating for faculty salary equity using CUPA data; looking at ways to make courses more accessible to a diversity of students; planning recommendations for displaying and summarizing SOS data for the purpose of tenure and promotion; creating an evaluation process and evaluation schedule for UWO AVCs, the provost, and the chancellor; monitoring budget planning for the coming year; and studying the grievance policy, the plagiarism policy, and the policy on department chair appointments.

 

At the System level, faculty representatives from across the 13 campuses provided feedback on the proposed UW System Strategic Plan and a free-speech survey that President Rothman hopes will “… shed light on our students’ understanding of the First Amendment, including their rights and responsibilities.” President Rothman has also announced the launch of a new website with resources to help faculty and staff promote and navigate civil dialogue across the System: https://www.wisconsin.edu/civil-dialogue/

Civil Dialogue | Promoting a respectful living, learning, and working environment UW System Policy & Legal Resources. Learn about civil dialogue policies and legal resources at UW System campuses such as off-campus speech and social media, posters, marches, use of space on campus, and uninvited speakers. www.wisconsin.edu

Jen Szydlik

 

ENTRY: 9-27-2022

This fall the Faculty Senate is focused on providing a strong faculty voice in the Strategic Planning process at UWO. We are hoping to discuss the latest draft with members of the Strategic Planning committee at our next virtual meeting on October 4, 2022. All are welcome.

In UW System news … System has completed a review of affordability. They found that while we compare very favorably to our peer institutions in other states, students from low-income groups are still unable to afford college in Wisconsin. In response, President Rothman has announced the Wisconsin Tuition Promise. This program will ensure, “underserved Wisconsin students can attend any UW System university without paying tuition or fees. The goal of the program is to increase the number of state residents who graduate with a bachelor’s degree – especially first-generation students and those from low-to-moderate income families throughout Wisconsin – thereby improving individual lives and communities and helping meet the state’s workforce needs. The Wisconsin Tuition Promise would provide up to four years of tuition and fee funding for students coming from families earning less than $62,000 annually and enrolling at the 12 public universities other than UW-Madison.” This program was funded this year by the UW System; in future years it will require a commitment from the legislature. For more information, check out this site: https://www.wisconsin.edu/tuition-promise/

UW System is also in the midst of strategic planning. While much of the earliest draft (released today as part of the Board of Regents’ agenda) was written in consultation with the Chancellors from across the state, President Rothman has had two meetings with shared governance (one in June and another on September 26) to elicit ideas. We hope to have even more involvement going forward.

The UW System is responding to a need for increased mental health services with new initiatives. They have signed a contract with Mantra Health for supplemental telehealth services for our students; they are implementing a well-being portal called YOU at College to direct students to resources; and they have created a new suicide prevention training for faculty and staff that will soon be available in Canvas.  They have also launched a Healthy Minds app. You can try it at https://hminnovations.org/meditation-app

Try Our Free App for Guided, Mindful Meditation | Healthy Minds Innovations Dr. Richard Davidson “[The Healthy Minds Program app] is NOT simply a mindfulness app. While it includes mindfulness, it is based on research that identifies four key pillars of well-being that each need to be trained to establish enduring flourishing. hminnovations.org

 

ENTRY: 5-17-2022

Here is an end-of-the-semester update on all things Faculty Senate!

 

At our November 16 meeting, the Faculty Senate approved an updated charge and membership description for the Academic Policies Committee to better reflect their work. We also considered recommendations from Provost Koker’s working group on Total Title and Compensation (TTC) titles for Instructional Academic Staff (IAS). The working group recommended that UWO use two titles (Lecturer and Assistant Teaching Professor) for IAS. The working group also recommended that UWO not adopt “business titles” to create a structure for title progression outside of HR. The Faculty Senate declined to endorse both recommendations.

 

At our December 7 meeting, the Faculty Senate endorsed a letter addressed to UW System President Tommy Thompson, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs Anny Morrobel-Sosa, and Associate Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Daniel Chanen expressing our disappointment in the loss of title progression for our staff colleagues and our frustration with the TTC titling options for IAS.

 

The Board of Regents met on December 9.  At that meeting, President Thompson reported that UW System has provided more than one million Covid 19 tests to students, faculty, staff, and the public. We will continue to provide testing through this winter. We have also led the way on vaccinations.  

 

The UW System Presidential Search Committee has sent a list of finalists to the Special Regents Committee — but they have not released the names. There will be an opportunity for some Faculty Representatives to meet with the finalists in late January. I will try to be a part of that delegation.

 

UW System has launched a Student Behavioral Health Initiative to address increased cases of anxiety and depression. They are working to provide help in crises, target vulnerable populations for services, and promote well-being and healthy working environments. UW System has implemented a digital mental health platform (SilverCloud) available to all faculty, staff, and students (Feel free to make use of the platform: https://www.wisconsin.edu/ohrwd/well-being/mental-health/) 

Mental Health | Employee Well-being SilverCloud. SilverCloud is an online, anonymous, self-guided, interactive resource that provides UW System students, faculty, and staff with no-cost, confidential help with mental health well-being and stress management. www.wisconsin.edu

The Joint Committee on Employee Relations (JCOER) of the Wisconsin Legislature has yet to schedule a meeting to endorse the pay plan. This means that UW System salary increases may be delayed.  

 

Finally, the BOR Education Committee has lengthened the “temporary suspension” of the use of the SAT or ACT in UW System admissions until 2024. (Students may still test if they wish to do so.)  

 I wish you all a wonderful end of the semester and a relaxing holiday season.

 

Jennifer Szydlik

Faculty Senate President