The UC was joined this week by several guests including three students attending as part of an assignment for a journalism class. We spent the first hour of the meeting with Chancellor Mone, Provost Britz, and Associate Vice Chancellor Venugopalan discussing Post Tenure Review Policy. Although the policy that the UWM Faculty Senate passed last month meets the requirements of the Board of Regents policy, we were informed that UW System and the Board will require us to add an administrative review at the Dean level for all faculty, including those who “meet expectations” as determined by their executive committees. We worked on inserting new language into the policy document that would address this new System request. The UC will bring the revised document to the Faculty Senate on Thursday. Members of the UC expressed concern that System is asking for additions to PTR that are not reflected in BOR policy, and that a review of “meets expectations” determined by executive committees should not require further review.

The Chancellor also informed us that he is putting together an ad-hoc committee on Strategic Visioning, and he mentioned that plans to partner with an international pathways provider have slowed down so that more questions can be answered and communicated to university units.

The Chancellor attended the APLU (Association of Public Land grant Universities) conference this past weekend and chancellors who gathered there discussed post-election fall out and concerns in particular for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students and their families, international students, Muslim students, and other groups who have been specifically targeted during and after the election. Swarnjit Arora pointed out a Chronicle of Higher Education article predicting a decrease of international students. Inside Higher Ed and other sources have reported an increase in incidents of racial and ethnic harassment on college campuses.

Michael Brondino reported on a recent meeting of SPC (Strategic Position Control). They have received plans from campus units, which will be posted online, (password protected). In its first year SPC is supposed to be monitoring the process. Next year SPC will make recommendations of hires via metrics that aren’t yet developed.

Sue Cashin vice chair of the Academic Staff Committee came in to give the ASC report. They are convening a working group that will start meeting at the end of November to update chapter 104 and to review chapter 108.

Next week the UC is meeting with the editorial board of the Journal Sentinel. If you have questions for the editorial board or would like to suggest topics for stories related to UWM, please email John Reisel.

See you this Thursday at the Faculty Senate meeting: 2:30pm in Curtin 175.