ALUW Winter Quarter Meeting: Wednesday, March 9, 2006
Executive Board Members Present:
Approximate Headcount: 60
The meeting was called to order by ALUW president
Program: Provost Phyllis Wise and Dean Betsy Wilson
Betsy Wilson
The program began with Dean Betsy Wilson speaking to her involvement and interactions with Provost Phyllis Wise. Betsy also provided a context of the role of UW Libraries within the UW system, including the following highlights:
- Recognition of Academic Library of the Year by ACRL two years ago.
- Working on Library's 2010 Plan and will be launching new strategic plan this fall.
- Task Force on Biosciences
- Undergraduate experience involvement
- Sandpoint remote shelving facility
- Scholarly communication involvement
- Digital scholarship and research
- Organizational development and diversity work
- UW Bothell and
- Salary and compensation issues
Betsy also discussed her attendance at a recent GWLA meeting were a talk on the "24 Imperatives" of the research library was given. Betsy shared that the UW Libraries is already addressing these imperatives such as: accountability, library spaces, assessment, etc.
Betsy then introduced Provost Phyllis Wise.
Provost Wise
Provost Wise talked briefly about the honor of being invited to talk with ALUW and her experiences getting to know the UW system thus far. She was impressed with the UW early on because of the fact that the Dean of Libraries was part of the Search Committee for her position. She was also impressed that we had an iSchool, dedicated to management and use of information, and the number of libraries on campus.
What has taken up a lot of her time recently has been:
- LCV (Leadership, Community and Values) Survey that has just been completed and is being analyzed. Some results of the survey include:
- UW is a workplace of choice
- There is perception of no transparency and lack of trust and respect for higher level administration
- Another survey is expected in the next few years
- Analyzing the undergraduate experience
- Betsy served on this committee
- Report presented in November
- Need to understand that teaching is not the same as learning-much of the learning is done outside the classroom
- Looking at why some students remain at the UW longer than 6 yrs.
- Need to fill current administrative vacancies: Vice Prov. and Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Vice Pres. for Student Affairs
- Mike Eisenberg chairing new committee to review IT needs of UW
- We don't have best practices when it comes to info. tech.
Our libraries are not a collection of books and journals anymore. They are now ways information is organized into knowledge. The UW Libraries are a model of this change.
At this point the floor was opened to questions.
Some questions included:
Storti lawsuit: will librarian salaries be adjusted too?
Haven't figured how to include librarians in this, but realize that they have been traditionally included in past faculty raises. Aware that this is a long term investment that me must make. It will be under discussion, but probably not as rapidly as one would like.
How do you juggle both research and your role as Provost?
It is all part of the fabric - there are no defined boundaries. But her 1st mission is
as Provost.
How do you account for the growth of Extension students?
UWEO: a blessing that carries great cost, created due to limited enrollments and high demand. There is income from UWEO and some goes to libraries but not directly. More could probably been done for both libraries resources as well as the UWEO classes. We insist that the faculty in Extension must be accepted as regular faculty (recruited based on the same quality of CVs as dept. faculty).
State Legislature?
Feels confident - successful funding achieved this year in supplemental budget:
Got funding for Global Health and Nano Technology
Got funding for increased enrollment sciences/math/engineering
But in general state funding has been stagnant for the past several years. Working
toward tuition delegation authority.
Salary Strategy for next legislative session?
We've been successful in separating ourselves from other state employees. The UW has been able to give additional increase beyond state legislated increase out of the Operating Budget.
Is there a danger in the future direction of the UW as we become more dependent on outside funding?
It's important to have a Vision Statement to guide us in what we do. There is a
danger , but that's why we need a Vision Statement.
What is the Role of the Provost in educating the public and political leaders when dollars are being spent on other things (health care, etc.)?
The UW Pres. is out 75% of his time touting higher education. But it is also the
job of all UW employees.
International students decrease?
It is not for lack of interest. We need to increase our efforts to go to them to be able to teach. New VP of Global Affairs. Teach at foreign universities.
Financial aide and online learning?
Impressed w/how UW does this already, it shouldn't effect our core student population.
How do you see a balance of obligations to students vs. community in budgets are decreasing?
We are a partner of the community, but we must also serve our faculty, students and staff. Trusts the Dean of Libraries to handle this.
Are there other standards of metrics beside US News & World Report rankings?
Yes: AAMC, law ranking, Shanghi Ranking, etc. but hopefully they do not guide
what we do. However, we should be aware of them because the world is aware of them and use them.
Provost Wise closed with comments on issues such as: diversity, Pell grants, K-12 and the value undergraduate education to high school students, and her role in library personnel (promotion and hires).
Winter Quarter Business Meeting
Carole started the business part of the meeting by reminding members that donations to ALUW are accepted anytime. She also mentioned that the salary survey report was ready to go out to ALUW members. It will be the focus of the next meeting on
Treasurer's Report (forthcoming)
Faculty Council Reports
University Relations (
Women in Academia (Susanne Redalje): This is now an official Faculty Council. Susanne is designing their web site.
Educational Technology (
Educational Outreach (Thom Deardorff): The Council is working on developing faculty senate legislation (Class B legislation) to remove the DL designation from business(?) classes and working towards providing better descriptions of classes in general.
Student Affairs (Jill McKinstry): Report on undergraduate experience on the web that includes a nice summary of who are our students - Political Science now has the highest number of majors.
Faculty Affairs (
University Libraries (Jessica Albano): Sand Point facilities tour; issued reports on digital scholarship, diversity, org. changes, and budgets.
Academic Standards (Carla Rickerson): Newly appointed to this Council and reports that they are reviewing the proposal for Environmental Studies at UW Tacoma.
No other Council reports were given.
WLA Legislative Committee
Janice Thomas (new to the committee) reports that they did not meet since the previous ALUW meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
The next ALUW meeting is scheduled for May 18, from
--Submitted by Matthew Parsons,