Wilt Sanders: Raising the profile of academic staff campuswide

Wilt Sanders uses rockets to conduct science, but he doesn’t consider himself a rocket scientist. A senior scientist in the Physics Department and the Space Science and Engineering Center, Sanders performs NASA-funded experiments using rockets every few years and juggles multiple data analysis from the projects.

Yet this academic year, he is focusing his attention on things not only space-related but campus-related. In July, Sanders took over as chair of the Academic Staff Executive Committee, considered the top staff position at the university. He replaces Barry Robinson of the Theatre and Drama Department.

“The (ASEC) chair needs to be visible and responsible to the academic staff as a whole,” Sanders says. “I will speak as well as one can for the academic staff.”

No small task, considering that UW–Madison employs 5,800 academic staff as researchers, lecturers, outreach specialists and student service providers, among other positions.

As ASEC chair, Sanders leads the committee that sets the agenda for the Academic Staff Assembly, the counterpart to the Faculty Senate. He represents staff interests and issues with faculty, students, the university administration, UW System, Madison and the state.

Academic staff legally have an official position in shared governance, the decentralized form of administration at UW–Madison that gives staff, faculty and students a role in setting university policy.

That authority was included in legislation that became law in 1985, and the Academic Staff Assembly was created in 1987. About that same time, Sanders became more interested in improving the climate for staff in specific departments and across campus and was nominated to serve in the assembly.

He had been working at the university since 1976 after completing a Ph.D. here and is now finishing his second term on ASEC.

“Once I got in the assembly, I realized the need for people to stay interested for the long term – to learn enough about the governance process to be a part of it and to have an effective voice in it,” he says.

As the university has grown and evolved over the last three decades, so has the scope of academic staff duties and responsibilities. Some teach full time, some serve as principal investigators on grant-funded research, and some work in outreach-focused roles. These are all areas that at one time were the purview only of faculty.

To reflect these changing roles, ASEC this summer proposed a new title series for academic staff working in instruction and research.

The proposal would create assistant professor, associate professor and professor titles followed by the designation (instructional academic staff) or (research academic staff) to more accurately reflect job duties. The titles are intended mostly for staff possessing Ph.D.s in their respective fields.

The title series has been submitted to the university administration for review. Academic staff leaders are discussing the topic with the University Committee, which has developed its own proposal. The Faculty Senate is expected to discuss the proposals this fall.

Other priorities for Sanders during his tenure as ASEC chair are to increase academic staff participation in governance at the school and department levels, provide more professional development opportunities for staff, reconvene the university’s sweatshop advisory committee, and work with the new chancellor when that person is hired.