The Nov. 9 Academic Staff Assembly meeting focused on effects from the current search for a new chancellor and a new plan for the evaluation of payment. The assembly has the goal of helping to get all the departments, including the office of the chancellor, to be in agreement of their plans and actions they take. 

“Now’s the time to put something in place.” said Christine Hoover, the lead on the  “Joint Shared Governance Resolution on Shared Governance Processes,” which was discussed. 

The bill had been brought up because there has been an increase in the lack of communication between organizations and the chancellor – meaning that many organizations haven’t heard back because the office of the chancellor doesn’t know what the correct action is to take at this time. The search for chancellor has led to disorganization, according to attendees. The process of hearing back on certain bills and information that is sent and received from the chancellor has been lackluster.

“All action items will indicate whether or not they require a response from the chancellor,” as stated in the agenda. Having this concise decision can help the office of the Chancellor to know whether or not this topic is urgent, and can assist in the organization of the paperwork.

Along with working on their organization, the meeting officials brought up the search committee for the chancellor. A new concern is the diversity of views by trying to make sure that each organization is represented throughout this search. 

Along with many talks of the search committee and chancellor position, the meeting began to discuss the Resolution Against Pay Plan Use of Performance Evaluation, stating that these evaluations should continue to be in place therefore the departments each get a chance to be evaluated to see if they can improve. 

“I think that everyone should have that opportunity to have that feedback; but I feel that some departments just don’t have that and it is unfair,” said Michael Gorman. 

This would be in place to keep the evaluation process in check as the inflation begins to increase. And without a set of rules, some departments get more evaluations done leading to more consideration into their pay. This plan was only discussed partially, therefore the rest of the plan will be discussed at the Nov. 30 meeting, meaning that for the time being, the plan will be edited. This plan has the potential to affect each department separately, meaning that once it is completely discussed, there will be many changes to the evaluation process throughout campus for all faculty members. 

For meeting minutes and additional information visit https://www.uww.edu/asa/get-acquainted/agendas-and-minutes.