Recreational Sports Meeting February 13, 2008

Hi guys,

Sorry for the delay in this post. I've been having a rough time with technology and getting myself added. Below is my summary of the Recreational Sports Meeting.

Recreational Sports Board
Rachel Witt
13 February 2008
1) Nielsen Tennis Statement
a) Roof resurfacing scheduled for 2009
i) $1.9 million necessary
ii) $300,000 saved by Recreational Sports Board to date
iii) State has agreed to pay 50% of cost—still have to secure funds
b) New Furniture for lounge
i) $42,000 budget
ii) will replace temporary SWAP furniture currently there
c) Fee increase for tennis and squash courts
i) Indoor tennis and squash fees increased $1/hour/court
ii) segregated fees not allocated for Nielsen
iii) membership fees to increase based on % increase in segregated fees
(1) 3.7% increase allowed—Recreational Sports asked for a 2% increase
2) SERF
a) New 2008-2009 Expenditures
i) IT Hub- $37,500
ii) New Equipment at the Shell- $40,000
iii) Paint/valves for SERF swimming facilities- $50,000
iv) Red Cross class equipment- $11,000
v) New lockers- $441,800
vi) Replace track- $75,000
vii) Replace locker room plumbing- $175,000
viii) New aquatic sound system at NAT- $7,000
b) pay student employees more than $900,000 in wages annually
c) unusually high expenditures this year because Recreational Sports is moving from the Department of Education to Administration
i) increase in Group X Class fees
ii) student summer pass- $15.00
3) Cell Phone Policy in Locker Rooms
a) Cell phones not allowed to be used in locker rooms because they have camera features
b) future state legislature may also prohibit this
4) Next Meeting: discuss future renovation of the NATThe Recreational Sports Board met on 13 February 2008. The majority of members were present. The main topic of discussion was the approval of the 2008-2009 budget for Recreational Sports. The budget had been reviewed several weeks before by students on the board and recommended for presentation to the entire committee. In addition to the below minutes, several topics of discussion were considered at greater depth and seemed like important issues for students to consider.Under the expenditures for the SERF is a figure for IT consolidation. Instead of paying per service appointment by the IT department, the Recreational Sports Board will now be contributing in a set amount to an IT department that will provide service when needed. This should actually lower the cost of hiring per appointment.Segregated fees were addressed because there was discussion as to whether it’s fair to use the fees to cover half of the cost of providing Group X Fitness classes. It was decided that in other departments there are uses for the fees that are not actually used by all students. Students in the class are already required to cover half of the cost of classes. The segregated fee allotment per student per semester was $25.28 for 2007-2008. This amount is much less than other Big Ten schools.At the next meeting the board will discuss future renovations at the NAT.

Labor Licensing Policy Committee February Meeting

So, we had another LLPC meeting on Friday. It was actually a pretty uneventful meeting. We got an update on New Era (UW recently cut the contract). The union and New Era have reached a tentative agreement--yay!--but the University is sticking by its decision to cut the contract, even though New Era seems to think there are some legal issues. Nothing has really changed for Hermosa according to the former workers, we will get a report from adidas when Gregg Nebel visits us on April 4th, along with Scott Nova of the Worker Rights Consortium. A lot of our meeting, and most of our next meeting, was dedicated to planning for the April 4 meeting, figuring out questions to ask, etc. We decided to try and get an outside facilitator so that we can all play the roles of concerned students, faculty, staff, etc., rather than the role of unbiased facilitator. I'm still encouraging people to come to that meeting, or let me know if you have any questions you want me to ask Gregg or Scott, but other than that, nothing else really happened.

Reaccreditation Committee - Team 5 Meeting - Monday, Feb 18th

The Reaccreditation meeting for "Building a Welcoming, Respectful, and Empowered UW-Madison Community" met this Monday the 18th. This was our last official "retreat" meeting.
First, we broke up into groups and discussed what the "Wisconsin Experience" is for everyone on campus. We looked at the document that relates to students and talked about how we could change it to include faculty and staff.
Then we discussed first-year experiences and how we could potentially create a program for new faculty and staff on campus. My group brought up the idea of creating small groups of facstaff what will work together in the first year to learn and experience the UW and Madison. Other ideas were shared at the end which included a "Passport," which would be a document that all new facstaff would have to fill out in their first year with outside events.
Since this was out last formal meeting, we decided to meet every Wednesday at 3:30 in the Microcosm Cafe to talk about the next steps. I will try to make it to these coffee sessions, and will keep Shared Gov updated.

UW Admissions receives record number of applications

According to this WSJ article, UW-Madison has received a record number of applications (24,747) for admission in the freshman class. In addition, the Office of Admissions is cutting back the number of admitted students by 2,000. Could this steady surge in UW's competitiveness be a factor in whether or not UW moves from rolling admissions to a hard deadline? Kayla Stone reported on this possibility a couple weeks ago (see here). 

University General Education Committee, February 7, 2008 meeting

At this gen. ed. meeting we discussed in most detail the LEAP initiative. This program is all about working on defining and utilizing learning outcomes for a liberal education. Wisconsin is a pilot state, because it using this program at the system-wide level. There will be a learning session about essential learning outcomes for a select number of faculty (focused on those who teach large numbers of freshmen and transfer students). We also discussed long-range assessment planning, which again works in the idea of learning outcomes. Look for more information to come on the gen. ed. website about assessment done last summer on the library competency of incoming freshmen. Judging will begin soon for the Liberal Arts Essay competition; three essays will be submitted at the campus level (authors will receive $500 scholarships) and one for the system level (author will receive a $1000 scholarship).

Lectures Committee

The Lectures Committee meets once every semester to discuss policies; however, during the 2006-2007 academic year, the committee financially supported 87 lectures for a total expenditure of $80, 475. These lectures were sponsored by 73 different campus units.

The committee encourages student organizations (those formally registered with the SOO) to apply for lecture support with co-sponsorship from an academic department or program.

Lectures Committee Support Request Forms and more information are available at: http://www.secfac.wisc.edu/lectures/lectcomm/

Minutes for Febuary 14th

Associated Students of Madison

Shared Governance Committee

February 14, 2008

On Wisconsin A (Red Gym)

5:00-6:00 PM

Agenda

I. Introductions

Introduction consisted of name and what you want to see in the new Student Union

II. Announcements

a. ASM kickoff – February 20^th at 7:00 pm – 3650 Humanities

-There will be a meeting next Tuesday (we want to help with the recruitment drive)

-We need volunteers to help set up at 5:30 on Tuesday (talk to Adam) There was a sign up and there will be an email sent out from Adam to those that volunteer

b. Social – Friday, March 7 at 9:30 pm, La Ciel Apartments

-Huge ASM Social (You should come)

III. Standing Committee Updates

Gen ED Committee

PHD and Library sciences might want to help freshmen through the LEAP program (The group focuses on the liberal arts education and also on freshmen and transfer student)

Next meeting they are looking to asses Com B requirement.

There is a student essay contest (this time they will change to 3 students winner instead of 1) (Prize is $500)

Lectures Committee

(meet once per semester)

-Talked about award money (Placed a limit on award value to less than $1,000)

-They want student Organizations to use the money and every org can apply once semester ---huge lack of student org participation) (Funding is based on time year)

-If you are interested send your form you Jodie Brown

-It will be on the blog if you want more information

Rec Sports Meeting

-Looked over budget for the next academic year

-Nelson tennis center (rates go up by $1)

-They plan on spending $75,000 on track replacement

-They are going to replace the locker room in the SERF (estimated cost ~ $175,000)

-If you want a summer pass it will cost $15 (unless you are taking summer classes)

-Dance classes are going up $5

-All intramural sports are at full capacity right now (The most active group is basketball, which has 275 teams) Next year they want to increase to capacity to 315 team

-We will look into using the basketball for soccer. (response in later meetings)

BID Board (sp?)

-Frances street improvements are under way.

-They want someone to help chose the art that will be on the wall

-40 local artists submitted art work in hopes of being implemented.

-If you are interested in choosing what art work is used, send an email to Jeff

UHS Executive

(1^st meeting)

-Brought up the question what are the most important traits for the nominee to have?

-They want student input (educated input).

- It is up to us on how we go about the search for candidates

-March 5^th is the deadline for questions

IV. Grocery Store Campaign

a. Concept presentation on Monday, February 25

b. We will be presenting to the campus communities (union directorate is hosting)

c. Students/Staff will weigh in what they want in the union

d. We have the finalized version of the plans for the meeting but we need a presenting teem

e. This is the kick off project (it will be focused on information and motivation for the project)

f. This is a very important step and we only have 15 minutes to present (we need 3 people to present)

g. Presentation will feature how it got started, how the student feel, market studies, and more

h. May 5 is the dead line for the Design so we need to have people share their ideas if they want them implemented

i. If you want to get involved in the presentation email Jeff (rough draft will be presented for Tuesday’s meeting)

V. Current recruitment campaign: “An accessible, quality education”

a. Campaign is centered around tuition and legislative affairs

b. SO what role does Shared Gov have to play in this campaign?

c. BRAINSTORM: Our focus is getting students on committees, It will be hard to get higher spending BUT we have a deficit in the state, the state is cutting spending, Tuition has to go up to make up for the spending cuts, This is a conversation (tuition cost vs. facilitates) that we are constantly having,

d. we have a huge problem with getting more people from Milwaukee because of the socioeconomic status, Maybe we could focus on freezing tuition, We don’t want to “Freeze tuition” because the administration will cut the Quality of UW Madison, We need to make scholarships more available (the university give VERY little scholarship for incoming freshmen),

e. we need to make ASM more visible to the state, We need to target certain committees by getting more student representation,

f. ((we will have a future meeting specifically what committees will be targeted to act as our campaign))

VI. Discussion

a. Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc.

i. Alcohol Tax

-Elie Judge (sp?) talked about research on the alcohol in the area

-The city do not believe in the Capitol Neighbor’s demands (thus there is no huge worry at this point)

-One police officer even spoke in favor in UW Students saying that: 20%-30% arrests are made down town are UW students (the rest being Edgewood, out of state, etc)

-UW Madison has a huge alcohol culture and we can’t change that. The alcohol problem has drop DRASTICLY since the 1980’s.

b. Shared Governance Blog

-Can we improve it?

-How can promote it to the new nominees when appointed?

c. Chancellor SnS

-Talk about this next week

VII. Speaker on active student representation (Bill Cronon)

-Do students want to have an information session on how to be an effect student Rep.? (General consensus was it would be helpful)

Next couple weeks we will try to have Bill Cronon speak during one of our Tuesday meetings

VIII. Adjournment