Good morning, colleagues. Here is this week’s update from Academic Affairs.

Faculty/Staff Town Hall

A virtual town hall meeting for faculty and staff will be held via Microsoft Teams on Wednesday, July 29 from 9-10:30 a.m. Chancellor Mone and other campus leaders will provide updates on the university’s plans to reopen campus in the fall and answer questions. Questions may be sent to uwm-townhall@uwm.edu. When submitting a question, please indicate whether you would prefer to remain anonymous. Also, please check the Fall 2020 Reopening website before submitting a question; it may already be answered there. Live viewing with an interpreter is available by making advanced arrangements with Amy Hogle in the Accessibility Resource Center.

Kudos

Yin Wang (Civil and Environmental Engineering), in collaboration with Shangping Xu (Geosciences), was awarded $73,646 by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to research PFAS absorption by selected Wisconsin aquifer sediments. Well done, Yin and Shangping!

Wilfred Tysoe’s (Chemistry and Biochemistry) article, “Measuring and modeling mechanochemical reaction kinetics,” was selected by the handling Editor as one of the most interesting articles published in Chemical Communications, the leading journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and is being promoted as a ChemComm HOT article. This selection is based on the significance, impact, and quality of his research and the positive reports his manuscript received during peer-review. Congratulations, Eddy!

Kim Blaeser (English and American Indian Studies) and recent UWM Creative Writing PhD graduate Alessandra Simmons Rolffs have poems included in the new publication, “Rewilding: Poems for the Environment,” a volume of contemporary poetry that encourages us to reevaluate and restore our relationship with the nonhuman world. Congratulations, Kim and Alessandra!

Milwaukee Athletics

Guided by its core value of student-athlete well-being, the Horizon League Council decided on Thursday, July 16 to delay the start of the fall competition for all sports (championship and non-championship) with the understanding that if competition occurs, it will not begin before October 1.

The Week

Monday

I start the week with my daily Crisis Management Team (CMT) Leadership meeting, followed by a budget meeting, the Chancellor’s Executive and Expanded Cabinet meeting, a CMT Crisis Management meeting (this is the larger group), my weekly staff meeting, and my daily check-in with Dev Venugopalan and Laura Pedrick.

Tuesday

In the morning, I have the CMT Leadership meeting, the Connected Systems Institute UWM Steering Committee meeting, my standing meeting with Dave Clark and Kay Eilers, and my monthly meeting with Tom Luljak, Kay Eilers, and Dave Clark. In the afternoon, I meet with the UC, then I have a Town Hall rehearsal, my weekly meeting with Chancellor Mone, and my weekly virtual meeting with UW System Provosts.

Wednesday

Today, I once again have a CMT Leadership meeting, followed by the Faculty and Staff Town Hall meeting, my one-on-one with Dave Clark, the monthly Integrated Support Services Project Executive Steering Committee Update, an enrollment management meeting, my monthly meeting with Scott Emmons, and my end-of-day meeting with Dev and Laura.

Thursday

In the morning, I have another CMT Leadership meeting and a Campus Budget Planning meeting. In the afternoon, I have my standing meeting with Joan Prince and a meeting with Adam Jussel.

Friday

Today, I have the final CMT Leadership meeting for the week and then I will attend to administrative tasks.

Announcements

Milwaukee: Past, Present, Future

Join us for the final live event from UWM’s free summer course, “Milwaukee: Past, Present, Future.” The panel presentation will be on Teams at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 29. This week’s panel, “Art, Culture, and Community Engagement,” brings together faculty from the Peck School of the Arts and the English Department to discuss how art programs and community engagement are helping activism and art combine forces to create change in Milwaukee’s communities.

Toward an Anti-Racist Campus: A Call for Action Mini-Grants for Faculty and Staff

The Office of Research and the Division of Global Inclusion and Engagement are allocating funds for action mini-grants aimed at ideas and specific actions to address systemic racism on our campus. Details are available here. A Q&A session is scheduled for July 30 at 9 a.m.

Virtual Tutoring

The Center for Community-Based Learning, Leadership, and Research will once again offer its Virtual Tutoring Program this fall. The program seeks to provide academic and social support to elementary and secondary students impacted by distance education, continued professional experience for college students, and an opportunity for the UWM community to support the education of young people. This is a free service for tutees and their families.

Teams Tip

Making all meetings Teams meetings.

Other 

England is on its way to another series victory . . . depending on the rain.

Take care,

Johannes