Participants broke into groups and brainstormed ideas for finding opportunities, efficiencies and strategies for preserving campus excellence into the future.
Some of the ideas:
- Prioritize campus programs, enabling tough decisions to be made on eliminating initiatives that have minimal value.
- Close little-used campus buildings during breaks.
- Allow all but essential employees to work from home on Fridays to save energy in campus buildings.
- Establish more cooperation with Wisconsin’s technical school system.
- Consolidate information technology functions across campus.
- Lobby for more administrative flexibility from the state, especially in the area of purchasing.
- Encourage more split appointments for faculty and staff, to spur cross-disciplinary cooperation and save money.
- Standardize the ordering of supplies.
- Align the strategic plan to the resources that are likely to be available, to ensure the plan is realistic and achievable.
- Conduct a comprehensive organizational overhaul.
- Reduce layers of administration.
- Ask: “How does what we do affect students?”
- Assess the number and nature of the publications the university produces to save money on printing and postage.
- Establish more professional development opportunities for employees who have not traditionally had access to them.
- Use metrics to assess whether ideas for improvement are having the desired effects.
Let us know what you think of these ideas or share one of your own.
10:02 a.m.
Start charging fines for students that are found in violation for breaking the Student Code of Conduct. Currently, students are not charged, however at every of other university I’ve worked at they are. Especially in the case of underage drinking, if a student can afford to go out and buy alcohol, then the student can afford to pay a fine if they are caught with it.
12:49 p.m.
Do everything possible to maintain our research infrastructure and our “sifting and winnowing” tradition. Maintaining our preeminence in research should put us in a good position to reap benefits when the economy turns around.
2:41 a.m.
While it may provide a nominal increase in available funds, charging additional fines (heavy legal fines being already enforced) for drinking violations is probably detrimental to student opinion of the administration and may lead to student unrest. Overall, it contributes almost solely to the net increase in negativity among all those affected (students will not stop drinking, will be more frustrated and upset, and take it out on the administration).
Maintaining a strong research program is definitely important, but focuses must be placed on efficient use of resources including the preferential distribution of funding to areas of societal concern such as renewable energy and reduced environmental impact (aspects of global sustainability).
11:09 a.m.
I’ve worked for the UW System for 23 years. (14 at Extension and 9 here in OBPA)
I believe that you would get much more support for “Catch Up” salary increases for Faculty if you did not include Academic Staff in your requests. It would also be much better for the morale of the Classified staff at UW.
Ron Amerson,OPBA
3:13 p.m.
Departments can save money by simply changing the configuration of their phone lines. When our department was charged $988.80 in 2008 for just 2 phone lines and a fax line, I asked DoIT what could be done to reduce the cost. I was told we could make a configuration change on our two phones that would help reduce the monthly charges. The two lines we’ve had are called point-to-point. By consolidating these lines (called multi-point), we can save $286.92 per year (and we won’t even notice the change!). There’s a $50 charge through AT&T to make this change, but we’ll still save more than $225. If other departments can make the same changes, these savings would add up quickly!!
3:01 a.m.
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