University Honors Committee - 18 February 2010

The University Honors Committee met on Thursday, February 18. The first topic of discussion was the upcoming Teaching and Learning Symposium, where the Committee was planning to present some findings from the recent Honors Assessment project. Unfortunately, this plan fell through, and the Committee is now looking for other venues to communicate the Assessment data and its implications to a larger audience.

The Committee also discussed the upcoming allocation of monies from the Regent Scholars Fund, which is a resource for projects benefiting high-achieving students on campus. The size of the Fund is directly related to the number of National Merit and All-State Scholars who enroll at the University each year. For this reason, the significant downward trend in the size of the Fund over the past few years is rather troubling, because it suggests that the University is having a difficult time recruiting top students. Some Committee members postulated that this might be a result of the lucrative packages offered to top students by other universities.

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the future of the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Planners would like to see the Symposium continue to build on its multidisciplinary character and perhaps eventually become a multi-day event. They are currently seeking ways to encourage greater representation of the humanities, visual and performing arts, and service-learning projects. Past student participants have also expressed disappointment at the size of the audience, so I would encourage you all to go check it out if you get the chance! The Symposium will be held April 15, and you can learn more at http://www.learning.wisc.edu/ugsymposium/

LGBT Issues Committee meeting summary

The LGBT Issues Committee met this Monday, February 15. Highlights of the meeting are as follows...

• UW Madison is hosting the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgendered Ally College Conference this weekend at Monona Terrace. Details are available at www.mblgtacc.org.
• Point Foundation Scholarship, the nation's largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBT students of merit has announced the opening of its 2010 application season. Students who will be enrolled in the 2010-2011 school year are eligible to apply for the prestigious multi-year scholarships. Details: http://www.pointfoundation.org/instructions.html
• Committee chairman Professor Thomas Armbrecht presented the committee's annual report to the University Committee and the Faculty Senate earlier this month. Key recommendations included full funding of a faculty position for the LGBRT Studies Certificate Program (which serves an average of 25 students per year), University participation in formal LGBT admissions recruitment fairs held in the Midwest, the formalization of a faculty/staff mentor resource for LGBT students, among others. Feel free to contact Dave or Elliott for a full version of the annual report.

Additionally, the committee spent a productive hour meeting with Vice Provost for Diversity Damon WIlliams. Dr. Williams reviewed the committee's recommendations, discussed some strategic ideas for moving the recommendations ahead, and offered some valuable perspective on his ongoing efforts to improve diversity programs and address attendant diversity issues on campus. Dean of Students Lori Berquam also participated in the meeting as a regular member of the LGBT Issues committee.

The next committee meeting will be held in March, most likely on a Monday at 2:30. Exact date is still to be finalized.

--Dave Wilcox (Graduate student representative)

--Elliott Rezny (Undergraduate student representative)

Labor Licensing Policy Committee (LLPC)

First off, I apologize for not publishing this post earlier. But here we go:

The LLPC addresses issues of workers' rights violations by UW licensees. First, some background:
If a company wants to maufacture clothing with the UW logo or buck badger they have to secure a contract from the university. Part of this contract is the Labor Code of Conduct. This code of conduct states many things but the most important three are:
1. Companies must pay workers a living wage
2. They must obey local labor laws
3. They must respect the right of freedom of association of their workers
About 100 universities accross the country have the exact same code of conduct with each of their licensees. To monitor these companies, each university uses an organization called the Workers' Rights Consortium (WRC). Also in the code it states that in each factory there must be contact information for the WRC in the native language so workers can report labor violations.

Last year Russell Athletic, a former UW licensee, closed two factories in Honduras, employing 1,200 workers. They said the factories were closed because of "economic reasons." However, upon investigation by the WRC, a report showed that the workers in these factories were trying to create a labor union and that the company was sending t hem death threats and was actively repressing rights of freedom of association. The report cited the factors as the cause of the close of the factory.

As a result the LLPC reccomended that the chancellor cut the contract with Russell. She did along with about 100 other univresities (we were the sixth). These contract cuts cost Russell about $40 million and eventually forced them to reopen the plants wuth the original workers and to allow the union to organize throughout all of its factories in Honduras.

Now for this year: In January of 2009 Nike closed two factories in Honduras and did not pay the workers severance pay (as is stimpulated under Honduran law). Currently the workers are still owed $2.1 million (the average annual pay of a Honduran rural worker is $400). Upon a report from the WRC, Nike was proven to be liable. The LLPC urged the Chancellor to put Nike on notice (give them a time period in which to remediate the violation), which she did (UW was the first university to do so). We continue to urge her to do so and to take swift action. We also have started to outreach to other universities' LLPC's throughout the country to develop a working relationship in which we can develop a collective effort to push for workers' rights together.

Shared Governance Committee Minutes

DRAFT minutes from the Thursday, February 11 Shared Governance Committee meeting are online at http://www.asm.wisc.edu/shared-governance-minutes-2009-10-2.html. Please send any corrections to Andrew Briddell by Wednesday, February 17.