Academic and Nonacademic Misconduct Board

This committee is a little different than other committees. The non/academic misconduct board acts as the force which places academic sanctions, suspends, and when required, expels students. We only meet when there is a hearing to judge if a student has committed misconduct, and what punishment is required.
Just before break several of us attended a 2hr training seminar, and in the coming weeks I will be taking up my first case. Over the past few days, I have been trying to get ready by reading a HUGE binder full of regulations, which we as students must follow. It will be difficult to bring a report back from these meetings since I am bound not to discuss what took place. However, I will keep trying to post what I can. Feel free to post questions or ask me personally and I try to answer to the best of my ability!
On a related note because I may be involved with this case on Tuesday, I apologize in advance in case I am unable to take notes!!!
Talk to you soon!
Ben

Dean of Students Advisory Board-Campus Safety Communication

This came up at the Dean of Students Advisory Board meeting last week, and I briefly mentioned it at last night's Shared Governance Committee meeting...BUT...

Does anyone have strong opinions regarding a cell phone text-messaging system that would send out details/instructions to students in the case of a campus-wide safety emergency?

The majority of members on the Board seemed to think that the general student body would most likely not sign-up for the service and therefore it would be a waste of time and effort to continue to pursue the initiative.

Personally, I would probably sign-up for it. I bet a significant portion of incoming freshmen would as well if it was part of activating their MyUW account. Sophomores through grads? Not so sure. So, worth continuing to pursue?

Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee - reports for 25 Oct. and 15 Nov.

Click here for general information on the Office of Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee.
The Shared Governance Appointees for 2007-2008 are Noah Theriault and Rachel Witt.

Report for 15 October 2007 meeting:

On Thursday, 15 November 2007, at 12 noon, Rachel Witt and I attended the second meeting of the Office for Equity & Diversity Advisory Committee (OED-AC) for the 2007-2008 academic year. The committee discussed the following issues of relevance to students:

• According to Luis Piñero from the OED, the university is to be audited for Title 9 compliance by the Department of Energy. Given Energy’s focus, the audit will likely focus on hiring practices and gender in the Department of Physics. A committee member mentioned for my and Rachel’s benefit that the Department of Education does auditing for student accessibility compliance.
• The OED is closing the search for the new Data Manager, which is an important position when it comes to working with external auditors. The replacement will be a transfer either from the university or a different state office.
• The Theater for Cultural and Social Awareness (TCSA) will again be joining with OED to perform didactic skits at TA trainings and other OED awareness events. OED is currently working on securing funding for this purpose.
• OED is changing the process for coordinating sexual harassment inquiries and complaints. Up until recently, there was a network of coordinators throughout the campus who were delegated to act as resource people and liaisons with respect to sexual harassment issues among faculty, staff, and potentially students. While the process is being revised, coordinators names will no longer be listed on the website. In the meantime, the hope is that everyone knows they can as always take any sexual harassment issues directly to OED staff. As mentioned at the previous meeting, students are entitled to take their issues of this nature to the OED; however, the agreed upon procedure is for the Dean of Students to handle discrimination issues concerning students.
• The search committee for the new Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate has narrowed the list down to three candidates: Damon Williams, Seema Kapani, and Kenneth Durgans. They will be interviewed on 26 November, 5 December, and 12 December respectively. AC-OED members have been invited and strongly encouraged to attend. Those who are able to do so will consolidate their thoughts at the next committee meeting for submission to the search committee by 17 December. AC-OED will be among several SG committees submitting comments to the search committee as they finalize their review. Open question-and-answer sessions with each candidate will be held for all university affiliates on 26 November (2:30-3:45pm, TITO), 4 December (2:45-4:00pm), and 12 December (2:30-3:45pm). More information on the candidates can be found at http://www.news.wisc.edu/14420. According to the announcement on the university’s website, “The vice provost for diversity and climate serves as the senior diversity officer, working closely with deans, directors and other campus leaders to promote the recruitment and retention of minority faculty, staff and students, as well as providing leadership and fostering a positive environment for living, learning and working.” Climate in this case refers to the socio-cultural milieu of the university, not the climate in a meteorological sense. This position used to be held by appointed members of the faculty, but it will now be filled by a professional administrator.
• An initial draft of a campus-wide survey of Equity & Diversity Committee activities between 2003 and 2006 will be prepared by 1 December. These surveys are supposed to be conducted annually, and the current push is to get the data up to date for a prospective review in 2008 of the policy that established EDCs.
• The next OED-AC meeting is scheduled for 13 December at noon.

Both Rachel and I had to leave the meeting at 1pm in order to attend classes starting at that time. I’ve pasted the remainder of the agenda on the second page. The meeting was scheduled to adjourn at 1:30pm.

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7. PLANS FOR THE YEAR (Discussion)
8. ANNOUNCEMENTS
9. ADJOURN

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__________________________________________

Report for 25 October 2007 meeting:

On Thursday, 25 October 2007, at 12 noon, I attended the first meeting of the Advisory Committee for the Office for Equity & Diversity (AC-OED) for the 2007-2008 academic year. Including me and the other ASM student representative (Rachel Witt), twelve committee members were present, and at least three were absent. The meeting was coordinated by Committee Chair Nelson Balke (Professor, Department of Agronomy) and began with formal introductions, which took in excess of a half-hour to complete. Following the introductions, Committee Member Luis Piñero (Assistant Vice Provost for Workforce Equity and Diversity) gave a presentation summarizing the mission, objectives, and recent news of the OED, and provided a hand-out detailing the OED’s scope and functions. In sum, the OED’s functions fall into two general categories: (1) monitoring the university’s compliance with anti-discrimination laws/policies and investigating complaints related to possible violations of the same; and (2) providing education and outreach that promotes awareness of OED-related issues and compliance and with anti-discrimination laws among students, faculty, and staff. A major component of the latter function is the program of “learning communities” coordinated by the OED. Funding shortages remain a major challenge for OED initiatives, including the learning communities; however, the OED recently scored a “major victory” by persuading the university administration to budget in a new full-time staff person, responsible for coordinating the learning communities and providing other administrative support. This was vital because the OED’s administrative staff and functions have grown significantly in the last ten years without receiving additional administrative support. Also related to funding, the OED will soon finish up and submit a funding proposal to the University Foundation. In other news, it appears that the UW system administrators are currently formulating their vision for the 2008 academic year and have suggested that they will be giving individual universities more leeway in “determining priorities for initiatives.” If strategically leveraged, this change has the potential to increase the importance of the OED in UW affairs throughout the system. Due to my unfamiliarity with the UW system and its administrative machinations, I am unable to be any more specific as to what exactly this particular bit of news means. Following Mr. Piñero’s presentation, Committee Member Stephen Appel (OED’s Assistant Director and Complaint Investigator), noted for my and Rachel’s benefit that the Office of the Dean of Students is responsible for handling students’ complaints against other students. Students are, however, entitled to lodge complaints with OED and with the federal government should they so choose. Both Rachel and I had to leave the meeting at 1pm in order to attend classes starting at that time. I’ve pasted the remainder of the agenda below. The meeting was scheduled to adjourn at 1:30pm.

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3. THE OED ADVISORY COMMITTEE (OED-AC): CHARGE, ROLE & EXPECTATIONS (Balke)
4. REPORT: THE DIVERSITY FORUM
5. STATUS: VICE PROVOST FOR DIVERSITY AND CLIMATE SEARCH
6. SUMMARY OF 2006-2007 COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES (Balke)
a. Equity and Diversity SubCommittee (Lewis/Balke)
b. Learning Communities SubCommittee (Stephens)
c. Awareness SubCommittee (Finster)
7. PLANS FOR THIS YEAR (Discussion)
A. COMPLETE 2003-2006 "EQUITY AND DIVERSITY SURVEY"
B. SUBMIT 2005-2006 COMMITTEE REPORT TO THE FACULTY SENATE
C. ISSUES & SUBCOMMITTEES
a. New issues and subcommittees
D. INVITED GUESTS
E. OTHER
8. ANNOUNCEMENTS
9. ADJOURN

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Health Care Advisory Committee - 11/27/07

The Health Care Advisory Committee (HCAC) is a non-voting group of students, University Health Services administrators, healthcare providers, and faculty. HCAC serves in a discussion/advisory role for UHS, particularly its budget.

Today's meeting covered a series of updates on UHS projects.

1. Budget update.
The budget will be discussed at the next meeting (1/29) for HCAC input before being presented at SSFC in February. The segregated fee threshold this year for UHS is 3.7%; a greater change than that needs to provide additional justification. Most of the changes from last year to this year involve the physical building move and one-time costs associated with that, including IT needs, equipment purchases, personnel additions, etc.

2. UHS Director search update.
The University is close to finalizing a Search-and-Screen committee to find a new Director of UHS. The committee, containing student representation, will be announced in the next few weeks.

3. Administrative Services Manager search.
An official Search-and-Screen will be postponed until after a Director is announced so the new Director has input. Until then, newly-retired former Director Kathleen Poi will serve in this role in an interim part-time capacity.

4. Electronic Health Records.
UHS has bought software to transfer medical records from a paper form into electronic versions, in addition to bringing various services online. It will be going live in part in January 2008 for scheduling, registration, insurance information, billing, and ordering for labwork, radiology, etc. Patient communication and web-based appointments will be coming in the spring, with the full paperless system in place by June (targeted).

5. Construction update.
UHS will be relocating from the west end of campus to the University Square development in winter 2008/2009 (targeted December/January). Currently, staff are planning for the move, selecting furniture, equipment, etc. Many pieces of older equipment and furniture will not be moved to the new building. Those will go to UW SWAP; it was also suggested that medical equipment be donated to programs like Engineering World Health. Questions about parking arose, especially in terms of handicap accessibility nearby to USquare. The University is not purchasing any parking spots in USquare so choices would be the city lot at USquare or other nearby parking ramps. However, the central location should alleviate some of the parking concerns because more people can walk to the facility.

Welcome!

Welcome to the ASM Shared Governance blog!

Appointees may begin posting reports by following the directions in the blog author invite emailed to your wiscmail account. Please label your posts with the name of your committee.