Advisory Board for the Office of Equity and Diversity

Update for Advisory Board for the Office of Equity and Diversity:

Meeting date: 03/26/2010

Main discussions:

- Chancellor Martin and Damon Williams, the vice provost for diversity and climate, are working on defining the university's visions on equity and diversity. This advisory board is interested to know what this vision is. Therefore, we are planning to invite Chancellor and the vice provost to one of our meetings so that we are all in the same page.

- We are also planning to invite other persons involved with diversity issues around campus to get their input and understand where they are at.

- WISELI (Women In Science & Engineering Leadership) will be holding 2 days workshops for faculty in 90 departments. The workshop is aimed to make faculty aware of unconscious biases that every person has in order to prevent these biases. There was discussion on that teaching assistants are not included, and where do they fit in terms of diversity workshops.

- WISELI also provides another kind of workshops called "Climate workshops" which targets department chairs and tries to make them aware of approaches that they can take in order to improve the climate in their department. Here is an interesting presentation regarding this subject: http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/docs/Present_STS_Sheridan_2010.pdf

- There were also discussions on that it is important that faculty get these trainings. However, these are not mandatory. We also discussed some of the issues that arises for students hired by the faculty that are not fully aware of what they should expect from their employees and how to treat them.

*WISELI Web site: http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/ You can register to be a member of this organization and get E-mails on the workshops that they provide for the students.

Posted by: Fatemah Panahi

Office of the Registrar Advisory Board Meeting

The Office of the Registrar Advisory Board meet March 24th.

Most of the meeting related to a presentation from on of the office's staff members. The presentation was a brief overview and explanation of FERPA or the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. FERPA is a federal law that guarantees students privacy of their educational records. The law also guarantees that students can have access to their records at any time and, if they chose, can chose to lock or release their records to third parties. The Advisory Board was told that we were getting the presentation about FERPA because, despite its importance for every student, the law is fairly unknown on campus. This can become a problem if a student does have a need or want to hide their records. The Office of the Registrar informed the board that students who want to lock or release their records can chose to do so right of of their Student Center. It can be found under the "Personal Information" tab if you scroll down your student center, and they click on FERPA Restrictions. Also the office pointed out that under "Personal Information" you can change your current address, phone number, and other pieces of information the University would like to have for their students safety. For more information of FERPA visit registrar.wisc.edu/ferpa

The rest of our meeting we used to continue talking about our ongoing conversation about both the Student Center and the DARS program. The Office of the Registrar is currently in the process of updating and changing the Student Center and is now focusing on what things they should fix to make the Student Center easier to use. The board suggested adding a new "Help" function. The function we recommended would be both located on the main Student Center page and also when students go to enroll for classes. This would connect the student to the area of the Office of the Registrar's page that give information about what the student is having trouble with. Specifically we suggested adding "clickables" next to some of the more specific areas of the class search page that students have the most trouble with. The members of the Office of the Registrar promised to take the boards suggestions into consideration as they continue to work with program designers.

If you have questions or would like more detail on either FERPA or the new plans for the Student Center let me know!
-Becky Brauer

Madison Central Business Improvement District (BID) Board, April 1 2010

The Madison BID Board met on April 1, 2010 and discussed the following items:

• The Madison Downtown Plan - Board members received an updated on the Downtown Plan from City of Madison Planning Director Bill Fruhling. The plan will hopefully be adopted in Fall of this year. More information on the Downtown Plan, including public meetings regarding the Plan, can be found here: http://www.cityofmadison.com/neighborhoods/downtownPlan/whatsnew.cfm
• The Madison Central Library - As many of you probably know, negotiations between the City of Madison and Fiore, the original developer of the new library on W. Washington have stalled and the Mayor is currently pursuing a renovation plan for the current library. The BID Board approved the following statement regarding their position on the project:
  Madison’s Central Business Improvement District (BID) represents business and
  property owners in the greater State Street and Capitol Square area. The mission of
  Madison’s Central BID is to increase the vitality and health of the District and promote
  business within it. BID programs support the economic vitality of central downtown as a
  regional destination for shopping, dining, entertainment, arts and culture. Both the
  current Central Library site and the proposed West Washington library site are within
  the BID.
  The proposed Central Library project on West Washington Ave. that included
  redevelopment of the current Library site had multiple benefits for not only the block but
  also the central downtown: a much-needed new Library; leveraging private investment
  with city dollars; adding to the downtown tax base and business activity; and more
  lighting, parking, and activity in a key area near Overture Center, State Street and the
  Capitol Square.
  The BID strongly encourages the City to further explore the West Washington Ave.
  Central Library project, and vision for the block, before abandoning it in favor of
  renovation of the current Library.
• Peace Park - Construction has begun and should be finished in Aug/Sept.
• Alcohol License Density Ordinance (ALDO) - The ALRC Subcommittee meeting regarding ALDO is this Thursday, April 8. The Board is interested in making several amendments to the ordinance, as well as analyzing the statistics currently used to support the ordinance.

If you have any questions, let me know. - Nicole

SGC Minutes

Draft minutes of the 3/25/10 Shared Governance Committee meeting are online. Please send corrections to Andrew.

Have a good break everyone!

Health Care Advisory Committee - 15 March 2010

Budget Update

It looks like that the 6.1% increase will be approved. Final word will be given in late may. There is some on how segregated fees will be handles.

The new prevention director Tom Sieger is very seasoned public health experience. High hopes for him, served as state-wide instant adviser during h1n1. Starts on april 12.

Mental Health Models:

There are 5 finalists, committee will be invited to interviews.Mental health issues need to be connected to physical health problems. VA (being able to meet with someone anytime) program is most successful modal to deal with mental health.Not serious counseling, just lighter counseling is in demand.Drinking behavior is another mental issue that needs to be slid back a bit. UHS screens for high-risk alcohol use and possible depression; also relationship/domestic violence. It is in the form of a green slip. A lot of negative feedback from students about screening for alcohol. Depression has better feedback.

Student Health Survey:

They want to do a survey of students to find how UHS is doing. The survey is almost done, but some two new questions were proposed for adding, and one question would be rearranged.

March 22 L&S Curriculum Committee

In the Monday, March 22, 2010 meeting of the L&S Curriculum Committee, we touched upon coverage of the potential Liberal Arts major/degree proposal from the Badger Herald (http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/03/11/liberal_studies_majo.php) as well as approved the creation of the course East Asian Languages and Literature 361, an Advanced-level course titled Masterworks of Japanese Literature: The Tale of Genji.
We will potentially be implementing a policy change for the Curriculum Committee regarding course overlaps after positive discussion at the Faculty Senate. We will hopefully work with the Registrar and academic departments to use prerequisite requirements to regulate course overlaps. More discussion on this topic is coming, and it will be looked into over summer.

There was further discussion of Liberal Arts proposal – looking to incorporate information from existing Integrated Liberal Studies program, and have invited a professor from the department to a future meeting.
This brings up evaluation of essential learning outcomes for UW and whether or not existing programs are serving the purpose they are intended to. Topic of how do we assess the efficacy of existing programs – survey recent alumni? Faculty? Graduating seniors? Based on previous institutions UW-Madison is further along the path of assessing learning outcomes compared to peer institutions.

We need to consider the infrastructure necessary to support such a multi-dimensional program – possibly creating a directive with core values and goals for the program. There is concern about whether or not existing programs have served the purpose they were intended to and if we are thinking about such a program, we need to establish the incorporation of values. There is potential for Liberal Studies to incorporate addressing social concerns. It shouldn’t become “just another degree.”

Moving forward we will prepare a written statement for the Faculty Senate. Eventually if we decide to proceed, we’ll write a request for permission to plan which includes addressing the need for the program, learning outcomes, how the program relates to the institution, relation to other academic programs, need for unusual resources (ex. Special tuition funding; probably not necessary for this option). It’s a long process to begin a new program, involving many steps going up to the Board of Regents, and is very complicated and detail-oriented – shortest period of time is three years, can be up to seven years which is a huge time commitment. Need to look at what other programs are doing and translate it into a realistic program for Madison.

Need to be conscious of the fact that we are not a small liberal arts college; we are a large research institution. how social and natural sciences integrate with humanities and have students ask why they are here – mechanisms to invite students to reflect in a regular way on the extent to which they are accumulating skills (i.e. integrating knowledge and learning to draw connections across academic areas).

There are still many questions about the program and nothing is decided, it’s an ongoing discussion at this point about how to best proceed. If created, what students would this program serve? How are the academic values we are instilling into students translating outside of the classroom? Is there a way to create a shared experience for all L&S Students? Questions of specialization v. general education and open program v. enclave of “bright students.” Is there value in a common curricular experience? And of course, a question regarding funding exists.

If you have questions or comments, please let me know – once there is a more firm vision/proposal we’ll look into student feedback.

Emily Kesner ekesner@wisc.edu

Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee - March 15, 2010

The meeting last Monday started off with a review of the updated plans for Gordon Commons. At the previous meeting in January a few committee members voiced concerns about the appearance of the facade facing Dayton St. They felt that it lacked a suitable amount of windows and wasn't appealing to pedestrians. In response, the design team added more landscaping and increased the amount of windows. They also incorporated the use of different surface materials to make the facade more interesting. The committee seemed pleased with the updates. The final plans will go before the city Planning Commission on March 23 and construction should start in December of this year or January of 2011. If this happens then the entire project will be completed in the spring of 2013.

Next, the board reviewed plans for the Charter Street Heating Plant. This new facility will replace the old heating plant and will run on natural gas and biomass making it much more environmentally friendly. The project would add rail lines and remove unneeded spurs between West Washington and Dayton. A draft of the plans will go before the Planning Commission on May 10 and the Urban Design Committee on April 7. There will be more specific plans drawn in the summer with a potential fall demolition. The start time is still unclear, 2011 at the earliest. The committee voted to approve their recommendation of the project.

Other updates:
Chazen Museum of Art - on schedule, opening fall 2011
East Campus Utilities - Park St. portion started 4 weeks ago
Hockey Swim Project - on hold for funding purposes
South Campus Union - a few weeks behind schedule, catching up
WI Institute for Discovery - on schedule, the exterior will be done in May and the sidewalks will be restored

Joe Klosterman, jfklosterman@wisc.edu