Provist Britz reported that implementation of 2030 recommendations will begin soon with visits to schools, colleges and departments to explain priorities and actions and implications for the future. Campus is waiting to hear whether funding from the Federal government may be available for the Moonshot for Equity initiative. Budgets for administrative units and schools & colleges will be finalized on Friday. The outlook is somewhat better than anticipated but this will vary depending on the unit. There has been no update on the implementation of the 2% payplan scheduled to begin January 1, 2021 so the assumption is that it will be happening as anticipated. It is unclear at this time whether more furloughs will be necessary but that would be preferable to layoffs. Applications are up but so are admits; the latter is more significant because of the absence of application fees this round. Reenrollment numbers for Spring 2021 are up about 1.3% compared to this time last year. It is anticipated that more people will be taking advantage of the VSIP than in the last round but the numbers have not been determined yet. The Board of Regents meeting next week overlaps with next week’s Senate meeting so the Provost and Chancellor may not be on the Senate agenda. About 400-500 students are on campus currently for f2f instruction for the rest of the semester. On-campus rapid COVID testing as a community resource has been received very positively by community members. Holding spring break as planned includes the possibility that testing requirements might make it difficult to maintain the current schedule for the break. A contingency plan for the second half of spring semester might be necessary if an unfunded mandate for student testing is imposed on UWM by the UW System President. It is currently unclear whether the CDC will continue to support the rapid COVID testing program that ends on December 18 but the possibility is being explored.

K. Dolan reported that based on a conversation with R. Beck as of November 30, 2020, 98% of students have signed up for Multi-factor Authentication.

T. Turner led a discussion of standing committee service and the possibility of reducing the number of committees based on documented activity. Reviewing the way service on certain types of committees is currently classified is warranted given the challenges posed by filling open positions on standing committees as faculty numbers continue to shrink. Temporarily shelving some committees rather than disbanding them entirely would require changes to Chapter 6 in Policies & Procedures and would have to be approved by the Senate. The UC is the appropriate body to initiate the process of identifying committees that could be temporarily shelved and will take on this task in the coming months.

There were no Members’ Reports.

Chancellor Mone will attend the December 8 meeting.