UC Chair N. Rothfels attended the in-person Faculty Reps. meeting in Madison last Friday.  At the meeting an informative update was given by UW-System legislative liaisons, but Rothfels was surprised by unexpected resistance during discussion about the library book return issue (see earlier posts).  Fortunately, there may be a path forward with further dialog, and the proposed changes will likely not affect UWM’s internal policy options on the matter.  Associate VC Dev Venugopalan has developed a discussion paper on the Academic Staff voting rights issue which surfaced at a Faculty Senate meeting last year.  Rothfels will share this document with the rest of the UC.  There will still need to be additional work to develop any policy revisions.  New appointees are needed for the Arts and Humanities Divisional Committee, nominees for the Chancellor’s appointments to the Information Technology Policy Committee, and the Student Government Finance Committee.

Academic Staff Committee Chair N. Oswald thanked the faculty for passing the TTC resolution at the September Senate meeting.  Both the Academic Staff Committee and the University Staff Committee are considering passing similar statements.  Some specific concerns beyond those previously mentioned are the removal of the pay progression system, and lack of detailed information on the appeals process (as well as any sense of how likely appeals are to be successful).

Member D. Misra reported that the APBC is starting to schedule 2023 budget planning meetings with individual campus units (these will all have one APBC chair and one other committee member in attendance).

The UC also discussed concerns raised about:  1) COVID reporting procedures; 2) Building ventilation concerns in relation to COVID; and 3) DEI training for graduate students.  Lastly, Rothfels will investigate inviting organizers of the gathering (at the fountain) last week concerning campus racial climate to attend a future UC meeting.