Faculty Senate

The Faculty Senate is the legislative arm of the faculty. As such, the faculty delegates to the senate its powers and responsibilities as affecting the academic policies and programs, faculty affairs, and the general welfare of the university in accordance with the provisions of Article III.

The Faculty Senate has a dedicated email for agenda items, questions, and other business pertaining to Faculty Senate.  Please send your information or questions to facultysenate@uwrf.edu

   

Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda

Date: Wednesday, May 8^th, 2024, 3:30-5:00 PM.

Location: Willow River Room, UC 334. Physical attendance is strongly encouraged. Via Zoom, please use the link below.

http://tiny.cc/faculty-senate-meeting

1. Call to order.
2. Seating of substitutes.  
3. UWRF land acknowledgment.

The University of Wisconsin-River Falls sits on the shared ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe and the Dakota Nations and Tribal Communities. Acknowledging our university’s historical contributions to the disenfranchisement of indigenous communities, we declare a standing commitment toward campus-wide education, increased awareness of current indigenous issues, and the development of sustainable partnerships with indigenous nations of the area.

4. Chair report
   1. A Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for May 15 (3:30—5:00). This will be devoted to the election of the new Senate leadership.
   2. Chancellor Gallo rejected Motion 83, approved by the Senate on January 24, 2024 (the creation of the First Year Seminar category for the Gen Ed program). The final Senate vote was: 14 (Y)-3(N)-6(A).  The Chancellor wrote: “I understand the importance of FYS and its future impact on retention, however I cannot accept the motion at this time due to the limited funding the university received”.
   3. The current state of the Faculty Senate Website. The FS website was not set up by the standard practices of web design. While the front end is relatively well developed, the back end has never been developed properly. I included a couple of screenshots to help everyone understand its current situation. See the document linked here. In my opinion, the site cannot be fixed. One way to move forward is to work with someone who understands the principles of web design and rebuild both front-end and back-end structures based on the current front-end configuration. This would take place when the Drupal project is implemented (an administrative promise made more than a year ago). Then one could archive the current website as the “old website”. 

As a side note, the idea that one can promptly announce committee meetings on the Faculty Senate’s website is not rooted in reality. As you can see from the screenshots, the UCC meeting announcements for the first term of 2020-2021 were all posted after the term ended. At the time, the FS had a 25% FTE assistant. Essentially, after 2020, most committee pages were updated by me over the summer/winter/spring breaks, with short periods of help from Gina Vento and now Annaka Isenberger. I want to thank both for their work. Updates must continue in the fall. The HLC report referred to our committee’s websites and will probably do so again.

 

 

5. Officer reports.  

 

 

6. Approval of old minutes.
   1. Minutes of 04-24-2024 (AY 2023-2024).

 

 

7. New Business.

 

1. Motion, from APP, to approve a program change to the Montessori Education Degree program. Link here.
2. Motion, from the Compensation Committee, regarding the $100 K compression fund.

Whereas, the Faculty Adjustment Plan has three components – compression, Post-Tenure Review and Dean’s Discretionary Merit;

 

Whereas, faculty are being asked to suspend the Faculty Adjustment Plan for two years;

 

Whereas, faculty salary compression remains a large issue at UWRF;

 

Whereas, once the rank of Full Professor is achieved, no additional raises other than pay plan are possible;

 

Whereas, the “Dean’s Discretionary Merit” for FY25 is projected to be between $22,500 and $28,000 for FY25, and this amount is expected to exceed the across-the-board amount to cut that is being asked of other campus units;

 

Be it therefore resolved that the Faculty Compensation Committee moves to suspend the “Dean’s Discretionary Merit” portion of the Faculty Adjustment Plan for FY25 (2024-2025).

 

 

3. Motion, from the Calendar Committee, to approve this Schedule for the 2025-2026 AY.
4. Motion, from the Calendar Committee, to approve this Schedule for the 2026-2027 AY.

 

5. (Second reading) Motion from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee:  Realign the Duties of the Academic Standards Committee and the Academic Program and Policy Committee. The full text of the motion is here. Auxiliary document available here.
6. (Second reading) Motion from the Executive Committee to revise the membership of the Academic Standards Committee as formulated below. This will be included in the Faculty and Staff Handbook.

Current language (will be entirely removed and replaced by the new language)

 

1. Membership: Six faculty; The Dean of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of the College of Business and Economics, the Dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies, or their designees; the Registrar; the Assistant to the Chancellor for Equity, Compliance, and Affirmative Action (ex-officio, non-voting); and four students.

 

Proposed language (it replaces the current language)

 

1. Membership

1. 1. Two (2) faculty from each college (CEBAH, CAFES, CAS) with at least one who is a member of the graduate faculty.
   2. Dean, or designee, of each college (CEBAH, CAFES, CAS).
   3. Dean of Students Office representative, as an ex-officio, non-voting member.
   4. Registrar or designee.
   5. Up to three (3) students.

 

7. Motion from the Faculty Welfare & Personnel Policies Committee to revise immediately upon Faculty Senate and the Chancellor’s approval the Faculty and Staff Handbook CH. 4.5.2 (e) by deleting the words “a one time” as follows:

Current Language with proposed language markup 4.5.2.e e. If the faculty member’s performance is deemed to “meet expectations,”

The Department Chair will recommend to the Dean an appropriate recognition for achieving a “meets expectations.”

Recognition may be in the form of a one-time additional compensation, reassigned time for professional development, or another appropriate recognition.

If approved by the Dean, the recommendation will be forwarded to the Provost.

---------------------- END of HANDBOOK LANGUAGE------------------------------

 

Proposed Language 4.5.2.e e. If the faculty member’s performance is deemed to “meet expectations,”

The Department Chair will recommend to the Dean an appropriate recognition for achieving a “meets expectations.”

Recognition may be in the form of additional compensation, reassigned time for professional development, or another appropriate recognition.

If approved by the Dean, the recommendation will be forwarded to the Provost.

---------------------- END of HANDBOOK LANGUAGE------------------------------

 

RATIONALE (to include with the motion)

1. FW&PP discussed PTR and the language of Ch. 4.5.2.e at two meetings (2/15/24 and 3/14/24). The committee invited Brenda Boetel, Chair of Faculty Compensation, who explained the 100k Faculty Adjustment Plan. Further, Dave Ruhland, the AVC of Finance & Administration, shared BOR and UW SYSTEM policies regarding compensation with the committee. Based on these documents and discussions, the committee felt that the original FS Executive Committee recommendation to delete the incorrect information from CH. 4.5.2.e provided the best course of action.

 

8. Motion from the Faculty Welfare & Personnel Policies Committee to revise immediately upon Faculty Senate and the Chancellor’s approval the Faculty and Staff Handbook, (a) Ch 5.2.1 Responsibility, (b) Ch 5.2.12 Across-the-board Adjustments, (c) Ch 5.3.1 Merit Rating Procedures, (d) Ch 5.5 Sick Leave, and (e) Ch 5.13 Employee Assistance Program as described here. 

 

 

8. Adjournment.

 

Notices.

• The remaining schedule for Spring 2023-2024 is below.      

All meetings are held in the University Center, Willow River Room (334)

 

May 15, 2024, from 3:30—5:00 (elections)