March 19, 2026 – Faculty Senate Meeting – Minutes

Report will be posted upon receipt.

Since the last Faculty Senate update, the APBC has convened once. At our February 26^th meeting we welcomed Provost Daire, who provided updates on campus activities including the impacts of the grade forgiveness policy, retention efforts and best practices, upcoming key policy items from Academic Affairs, timelines for the College alignment working group, and Act 15 workload policy.

The initial data suggests the grade forgiveness policy was effective at reducing the number of students with an “Academic Warning”, but no clear data yet on retention. Next steps include exploring an opt-out policy and ensuring students that have grade forgiveness are followed up with advisors.

Upcoming policy items include compliance and enforcement of existing policies, placement exam reform, and late grade submission compliance.

The College Realignment workgroup was charged by the Provost’s office with exploring how to best position UWM and the sciences, which include parts of the College of Letters and Science, the School of Freshwater Sciences, and the College of Engendering and Applied Science to best serve our students and research endeavors. Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Canan Bilen-Green was invited to our meeting to give more context about the working group and a timeline for recommendations.

APBC members, along with many others across campus, have participated in two “Listening Sessions” on the topic. There have been broad discussions about the impacts on the teaching and research missions of L&S, SFS, and CEAS, with concern given the changes in leadership in L&S and Academic Affairs. Recommendations from the working group to the Provost are expected by the end of March.

Finally, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Dave Clark was available to discuss the Program Array Review policy, APBC’s role in review of the policy, next steps for implementation and review of low enrollment programs, and future policy updates to comply with changes in the UW System policy.

• Academic Staff Committee
  • Since the last Faculty Senate meeting The ASC met twice. Our Guests were Chancellor Thomas Gibson, Provost Daire, Associate Vice Chancellor M. Fessahaye, and Mike Schmit, PAC member.
  • In addition, Vice Provost Canan. Bilen-Green and Chief Legal Counsel J. Urdan presented on the Interim Faculty and Instructional Academic Staff Teaching Responsibilities Policy.
  • We completed and approved our Academic Staff Personnel Policies and Procedures (ASPPP) Chapter 105 Performance Management approving Chapter 105.03 with proposed revisions including the additional edit to move “Research” from under Instructional Academic Staff to under Non-Instructional Academic Staff information and timeline.
  • We discussed and are concerned with the merging of the new student focused centers, and the ASC agrees with the communication sent out that we need to step back a bit and gather more information as we are unsatisfied with the current communications and concept given.
    • Student needs and voices need to be heard. A sense of belonging and safety is important to each and every student on campus.
    • We feel that the university can improve their communication and transparency regarding where the directive for change is coming from and the reasoning for choosing the paths taken on this initiative thus far.
    • We are glad they held the listening sessions, but many feel that they were not enough to satisfy our understanding of the reasoning and objectives.
    • We are here to support our students and their needs, ultimately, they are our reason for being here.
    • We will continue to discuss and give our insight.
  • We also continue to discuss our contact types and where the university is going with Indefinite status and offering multi-year contracts. We have our sub-committees working on a peer institute review of contract types. We also discuss how often AS is the first to be cut from departments when it comes to budgetary issues.
• Academic Staff Senate has met once since our last presentations.

Over the course of the 2025-26 academic year, the Information Technology Policy Committee met regularly to review campus technology policies, monitor emerging issues, and engage with units across the university on major IT initiatives. Meetings were held throughout fall 2025 and early spring 2026 and engaged both committee members and a range of subject matter experts in UITS and across campus.

Digital Accessibility Work

A substantial portion of the committee’s discussions centered on new federal digital accessibility regulations requiring compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA by April 2026. Presentations outlined the scope of digital content affected, including websites, instructional materials, and public‑facing systems. Updates highlighted tools, remediation efforts underway, and campus‑wide responsibilities for ensuring compliance. The committee also reviewed a draft Digital Accessibility Policy designed to establish roles, responsibilities, and adaptable processes, with supporting resources and FAQs in development.

UITS Updates and Major IT Initiatives

Each committee meeting this year included updates on core technology services and significant campus IT systems. Here some of the topics and issues discussed by the committee included:

• Incident response processes and new guidance for running moderated online meetings.
• Progress on the Workday implementation, which had entered a stabilization phase with ongoing work on integrations, capacity needs, and change‑management strategies.
• IT outage communication practices, including how incidents are identified, assessed, and communicated, as well as the role of the Help Desk in early detection and reporting.
• Briefings highlighted common cybersecurity threats, the importance of reporting suspicious activity, and the need to use approved technology tools.
• The committee also received an overview of data governance practices related to data privacy and ethics clarifying what UWM user data is tracked, how it is accessed, and under what conditions.

Research Computing

Because of the role that IT infrastructure plays in supporting the research mission at UWM, this committee received an overview of current research computing services, infrastructure, and support available to campus researchers and updates on the status of research computing on our campus.

Lastly, the ITPC engaged in a review of Committee Operations and identified Process Improvements. This involved a review of the committee charter and an assessment of the flow of topics brought forward for consideration. We also reconsidered our liaison structure and discussed ways to streamline communication and reduce workload, with interest in experimenting with a revised approach to liaison activities.

The executive team and Senators have been busy with meetings and events. Individuals have had meetings with the Vice Chancelors, Deans of Students, and of course students! President Jeremi and VPAA Paul hosted Pizza with the Provost, Senator James hosted a Town Hall for students to speak freely about the Student Center Centralization, many of our members are planning for the spring election. The name change is on track and should roll out after the election when students can vote. The Course Material Cost Transparency initiative and Presentation are also going well.