Members at an Academic Staff Assembly meeting Monday discussed the lack of participation among shared governance group representatives, highlighting possible reasons for the problem and brainstorming solutions.
Academic Staff Executive Committee Chair Jeff Shokler noted the meeting had such low attendance the assembly barely met the minimum requirement of members necessary to hold a vote.
Shokler said the lack of participation was evidence the assembly needs to address issues and consider structural changes.
“I think what we’re seeing is the manifestation of much bigger problems,” Shokler said.
Members cited many reasons for the decline in engagement, including increased time demands from the assembly and structural issues such as the creation of districts. The structure of the committee has not changed in 25 years, according to Shokler.
Members of ASEC said an unequal balance between ASEC and the general assembly could also cause the low attendance.
Shokler said ASEC is often where issues are presented for analysis and preliminary decisions, adding the committee needs to recruit assembly involvement more often.
Assembly member Michael Moscicke said the lack of involvement might also be due to the way the college approaches shared governance.
Moscicke said governance groups at Madison are often seen as having more of an advisory role, whereas members at other campuses are more likely to attend meetings “because they know the campus can’t move forward without their participation.”
“The work of governance is largely very dry, very mundane, very nuts and bolts, often boring,” Shokler said. “But it’s very, very important.”
Although Shokler said the assembly is probably too involved in other issues at the moment to conduct a complete review of the engagement problem, he encouraged members to continue examining the issue.
The meeting also featured a presentation about the campus-wide transition to Microsoft Office 365 as an email and calendar software system. The switch was introduced in order to combat inefficiencies currently caused by the use of multiple systems across campus.
Some assembly members were critical of the plan, questioning the usefulness of the new system to certain departments and necessity of spending money to implement the program.
Alice Gustofson, a representative of the initiative, said the change is predicted to save $11 million in operating costs over five years and will also save time.
