Members of both oversight boards for the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates presented their top ranked second-round proposals Tuesday to University of Wisconsin Chancellor Biddy Martin.
Representatives from the MIU Oversight Committee as well as the MIU Student Oversight Board presented 31 top-ranked proposals to Martin.
Provost Paul DeLuca began the discussion by informing the attendees that funding the recommended proposals would cost $10 million in money spread over the next two years, as well as $3.7 million in one time funding.
This round of funding has little more than $6.2 million left to dole out.
He added the MIU Oversight Committee made an effort to trim the proposals down, but he does think more trimming needs to be done.
Vice Provost for Teaching and Education Aaron Brower said the rankings of the Oversight Committee were compiled by each member of the committee ranking each proposal one through four, one being the best possible ranking and four being the worst.
Scores were then averaged together. The rankings presented to Martin reflected the Oversight Committee’s opinion on the trimmed-down versions of the proposals.
Associated Students of Madison Chair Tyler Junger said the Student Board worked differently. The student committee assigned its rank as a whole body.
He added the committee did not trim the proposals at all, and instead voted on exactly what was presented to them.
The proposals presented to Martin were those the Oversight Committee ranked over a 2.0.
The top ranked proposal, which was given the highest possible ranking by both oversight bodies, would give $835,000 to the chemistry department to fund the hiring of four new faculty members and four new 50 percent teaching assistants.
Martin said she thought this proposal was important because many majors require chemistry classes before they can be completed, and these new faculty members will allow more students to complete these requirements.
The second ranked proposal would provide for two new faculty members and two 50 percent TAs to the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. The proposal will cost $314,000.
The Student Oversight Board’s opinion did not always match up with that of the Oversight Committee. Junger said the difference was sometimes a result of the fact that the Student Board voted on the proposal given to them, not an edited version.
He added other times the Student Board did not always have as much information as the Oversight Committee.
One proposal where the rankings were vastly different would give $31,000 to improve the first year experience for transfer students. The Oversight Committee ranked the proposal 1.11 and the Student Board ranked four.
Junger said the Student Board — none of whom are transfer students — did not think this was something of high importance.
“At some point you have to ask the students to take some responsibility too,” Junger said.
ASM Vice Chair Tom Templeton disagreed. He said he works for the Center for First-Year Experience, and first year freshmen have a much better and more comprehensive orientation program than first year transfer students.
After talking through all but two pages of all proposals ranked above 2.0, Martin turned the discussion toward the long-term goals of MIU.
“I think this is inevitably harder than the first round because there are so many proposals,” she said, adding she thought the ranking might be easier if they knew the greatest needs of students.
Junger said he thought a large issue MIU could solve was the problem of students not graduating in four years due to a lack of sections in required classes.
Templeton said he thought it is equally important to use these funds to make sure UW offers opportunities to learn that are unavailable at other schools.
