Labor Licensing Policy Committee January Meeting

We had our January meeting yesterday. We introduced a new member to the committee, a representative from AFSCME local 171. Next we had an update on the Designated Suppliers Program. Unfortunately, the letter we (the working group of schools that have signed onto the DSP) were hoping to receive from the Department of Justince stating that there would not be any anti-trust issues did not come through. Instead of a formal rejection that would hurt our case, we decided to withdraw the request until we get a less hostile administration. In the meantime, we talked about University Bookstores at DSP schools voluntarily doing a sort of "DSP-lite," that would be a step in the right direction, but just until the DSP goes through and can be implemented. Next we moved onto licensee updates. A student from our campus went on a USAS (United Students Against Sweatshops) delegation to New Era in Mobile, AL last weekend, and she reported on what some of the current and former workers have said about their issues including racism, favoritism, sexual harrassment, low pay, a bogus point system, as well as other concerns. Dawn Crim informed the committee that our university would not be cutting the New Era contract due to breach of contract over New Era refusing to fully cooperate with the WRC (Workers' Rights Consortium), because of legal issues, but we would instead be cutting the contract for no cause based on the fact that the University does not wish to have a relationship with brands like New Era who engage in these sorts of practices. Dawn informed us that the University would not be sending out a press release or anything about this issue but that she would answer questions that reporters or others may have on the issue. The situation for the former workers of Hermosa has not improved either. There are some things going on with the government that may recover some of the funds to give to the former employees, but those are still in the works. The hiring situation continues to point to a blacklist. On a day when an FLA (Fair Labor Association) ombudsman was to be at a nearby factory called Chi Fung, 21 former Hermosa employees went to try to apply for jobs. All of them but 5 or 6 were turned away immediately, told that they were not qualified even though they have been doing similar work for years, of the 5 or 6 who were allowed in to apply, only 1 was hired on probationary status and fired the next day. This left the workers humiliated (obviously), and only hurt the very limited trust they have in adidas. Next we discussed possible dates for Gregg Nebel (adidas big shot) and Scott Nova (director of the WRC) to come. It will probably be a mega-meeting on a Friday afternoon in March or April. I'll give an update on that when I find out for sure when it will be, because it might be interesting for other people to attend that meeting, and all our meetings are always open to interested students. The next regular meeting will be Friday 2/9 at 2:30 in 67 Bascom. That was pretty much all the interesting stuff.

E-mail us your comments about the next Chancellor

As we said in an earlier post, Erik and I are constantly looking for more student input and additional student perspectives to help us as we work with the rest of the Chancellor Search-and-Screen committee.

At Tuesday's Shared Governance meeting (Jan. 29, 5 pm, TITU), we will be beginning to cluster some organizations together to start planning manageable yet comprehensive listening sessions/open forums.

During the entire search process, we would love to hear what you have to say and what you would like to see in Mr. Wiley's successor. You can e-mail Erik and me at NextChancellorIdeas@gmail.com with your thoughts.

Student input for Chancellor Search and Screen

Erik and I sat down today and started talking about how best to hear from all different student perspectives during the selection of the next chancellor. We would like to do some listening sessions/open forums and solicit input and opinions from any student or groups of students.

We've brainstormed a list of groups that we would like to hear from. It's a rather lengthy list, and we won't be able to have a separate listening session for every group so we will be consolidating this current list into something a bit more manageable. And I'm sure that we have forgotten some.

Which groups should we be talking to that are not on this list yet? We need your help (and your input!).

Possible locations for potential forums:

• Red Gym/ MSC Lounge
• Memorial Union
• Union South
• Engineering Hall
• Chadbourne Main Lounge (or somewhere else in Housing)

Groups that we would like to approach through forums:

• MCSC
• International students
• LGBT Campus Center
  
• Special students
• Athletes
• Greeks/ IFC
• GSC (Graduate Student Collaborative)
• CALS (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences)
• School of Business
• School of Education
• College of Engineering
• School of Human Ecology
• School of Journalism and Mass Communication
• Law School
• College of Letters and Science
  
• School of Medicine and Public Health
• School of Music
  
• School of Nursing
• School of Pharmacy
• LaFollette School of Public Affairs
• School of Veterinary Medicine

Shared Governance selects student appointees

ASM received 43 applications for the student seats on the chancellor search and screen committee. Twelve applicants were interviewed tonight. Shared Governance selected two. Congratulations to Suchita Shah and Erik Paulson. More information on these these appointees will be posted here soon.

Beyond Chancellor Wiley...

When Chancellor Wiley announced his retirement last month, the Wisconsin State Journal wrote the next university head "will need the skills of a Fortune 500 CEO small-city mayor, big-money fundraiser, university professor and savvy politician -- all at once."

We can all agree that the next chancellor must be highly capable of wearing multiple hats, especially during this critical time for the university when biennial budgets are slumping, greater numbers of faculty are leaving, and research competitiveness is at an all-time high.

So, let's talk. What qualities should Wiley's successor possess, and what should be the university's priorities over his or her tenure?

Programs Committee: School of Education Meeting

The Programs Committee of the School of Education has the purpose reviewing proposed changes to the coursework of the school. These proposals include new courses, programs, or revisions. The Committee can initiate courses and delegate future action. It can be reviewed by all levels but it a source of an intermediate body that reports to all of the different departments.

The most recent meeting took place on Friday, December 21st. The meeting agenda consisted of several parts.
The first was to rework the course Counseling Psychology 270-810. The proposal creates a greater range of credits (1-9) to account for summer supervision of counselors. There was little debate, because such a course would increase student options, and the credit change was approved. Hopefully, the change will be implemented by summer of 2008 to allow 1-2 credit courses to be offered.
The second proposal was to raise the minimum GPA for admission into secondary English, math, science, and social studies programs. The GPA would be 2.75 which was the initial GPA for entrance to the school before holistic entrance was considered. This increase will better the odds that graduates from the secondary program will be able to maintain the regulated GPA for graduation, while decreasing exceptions. The committee approved of the change with the standard is aimed to go into effect by the 2009 admission. World Language and Communication is likely to follow suit with an increased standard.
The final agenda task was to approve a large stack of course material for the Art Department. As a massive clean up project, several of the changes were to delete courses that had never been offered by the university, or whose specialized professors had left the university. The committee debated whether it was necessary to delete courses, and several were pulled. Other changes involved adding an additional credit to studio courses because of their large time commitment. According to the Art department, there is a large amount of student support for this change. Yet, because art education majors need to take some of these courses as prerequisites, but cannot fit so many credits into their schedules, the credit addition was made optional with an additional project to correlate with the additional credit. There were also changes to rework the names and orders of course series by certain professors. The final type of revision was to clarify the prerequisites for Art courses. The department had not used timetable and the catalogue to demonstrate enforceable prerequisites, and students were taking courses they were not yet prepared for. With clarified requirements, students will be better placed and still have the option of instructor consent to skip to higher levels. The committee looked through the syllabus of each class, and approved the course changes while pulling out those that were unprepared for complete approval because of their incomplete information. The next step is for the changes to go to the departmental board, where the revisions must be perfected to pass. The Art department hopes that the proposals will pass and that the courses can be implemented as soon as possible. The change requires that timetable also make appropriate alterations so that the registration of Fall 2008 will prove easier for students interested in art. If you have any questions on the specific course changes, or need clarification on the reasons, just post it here and I'll be happy to respond.
The meeting was then adjourned and all were sent off for a wonderful winter break. Happy Holidays everyone!

Chancellor Search and Screen

ASM will select two students to serve on the Search and Screen Committee to select the new Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin - Madison. ASM (Associated Students of Madison) is the official student government of UW-Madison. The Search and Screen will be a significant time commitment beginning at the very start of the Spring semester. It will conclude when the new Chancellor is selected.

If you are interested in applying, prepare a one page, maximum, essay that addresses (a) why you feel you would be a good representative of students on the committee and (b) what qualities or attributes you think are essential for the new Chancellor to have. Also make sure to include your phone number, year in school, and program.

Send the essay as an attachment to an email to Jeff Wright (jawright2@wisc.edu) and Travis Weller (asmsharedgov@gmail.com). You may also attach a one page, maximum, resume (optional).

The deadline to apply is noon, Friday, Jan. 18. Late applications will not be considered.

From the applications, the ASM Chair and the Chair of ASM Shared Governance will select a small number of people to interview. The interview will take place between 5pm and 6pm, Tuesday, Jan. 22, Memorial Union TITU. The interview will occur in front of the entire Shared Governance Committee. This is the only time that interviews will be held. If you are selected for an interview but cannot make the interview time, your application essay will be read aloud to the Shared Governance Committee. The Shared Governance Committee will then vote to select the two student representatives.

The first meeting of the Chancellor Search and Screen will be Friday, Jan. 25 from 2pm to 4pm. If you cannot make that meeting, you are strongly discouraged from applying. Please indicate in your essay whether you are able to attend this first meeting.

If you have any questions, email Travis Weller.

Thanks!