In the Chairperson’s Report K. Dolan reported that 59 assistant professors (more than half the number currently at UWM) have so far requested tenure-clock extensions due to the pandemic. The Provost is considering making an additional extension of a year available for tenure-track faculty who request it. The Scenario Planning Workgroup is deciding whether the fall 2021 semester will be a bridge to a normal schedule or will be a fully normal semester. This will depend on the vaccine situation and whether departments can be persuaded to offer F2F courses at pre-pandemic levels with the understanding that if the pandemic is not under control by September it will be easier to pull back to online instruction than the reverse. It is likely that 15 rather than 30 minutes between classes will be the norm for F2F classes in fall. Instructors and students in F2F classes must be tested bi-weekly; objections on the part of some faculty are anticipated.

In New Business the UC discussed passages in Chapter 4 of Policies and Procedures that deal with promotion to full professor when a subcommittee of the Departmental Executive Committee is responsible for making the decision of whether or not to recommend promotion. Currently such subcommittees are not explicitly required to report their decision to the Executive Committee. There have been instances in which a Departmental EC was unaware of the actions of the subcommittee and no obvious appeal procedures are provided for faculty not recommended for promotion in such cases. The Codification Committee has requested input from the UC on how to revise the relevant sections of P&P to cover such contingencies. The Codification Committee members will attend the UC meeting at 2:00pm on January 19 to discuss the issue in more detail.

There were no Members’ Reports.

Provost Britz will attend the January 19, 2021 meeting.