Newman calls on academic staff to support ASEC agenda

It took some encouraging words from a colleague to get Linda Newman involved in campus governance by running for the Academic Staff Association president-elect four years ago.

Now, as the new chair of the Academic Staff Executive Committee, Newman, senior student services coordinator in the School of Education, encourages others to get involved, too.

“Academic staff participation in governance at all levels is the most important thing. People worked long and hard to establish the Academic Staff Assembly,” she says.

The assembly was created in 1987 to give staff the same voice in campus governance that faculty already enjoyed through the Faculty Senate.

Newman, who was elected to replace Wilton Sanders earlier this summer, says ASEC will continue to set a broad agenda of improving campus climate and diversity, and helping Chancellor John Wiley lay out the university’s goals through the campus strategic plan.

But Newman says academic staff must help forward ASEC’s agenda at the departmental level. “[Academic Staff] has had strong support from chancellors, provosts and deans. But academic staff must work to change culture within departments and administrative units,” she says.

Newman says departments and administrative units should be the birthplaces of an improved campus climate. “Everyone on this campus should remember the value of the people with whom you’re interacting. Civility and affirmation are a must,” she adds.

Likewise, Newman says everyone on campus has the ability to improve diversity. “Members of search committees should seek out diverse pools of candidates. They should collaborate with faculty, staff and students of color for advice on how to improve climate,” she says.

Budgeted professorial titles for instructional and research academic staff remain a hot topic at ASEC meetings. In June, UW System leaders told campuses they could use working professorial titles for academic staff, after failing to reach a systemwide concenses on budgeted professorial titles. Newman vows to keep the budgeted titles on the table over the next year, as UW System evaluates the implementation of working titles.

In the meantime, Newman says academic staff members can improve their status on campus by working more closely with their assembly representatives.

“They must look at where they spend their 20 to 40 hours every week and realize that, that is where governance can be a resource for them. They must feel it is a resource where they are being protected and their concerns are of interest,” she says.