The University of Wisconsin Faculty Senate adopted framework Monday that will keep faculty, staff and administration privy to the progress of the outside consultation firm UW may hire to examine its efficiency.
The University Committee recommended a steering committee be created to keep faculty and staff informed about what the firm is doing should one be hired, UC member Brad Barham said.
The committee would be involved in all future actions involving the consulting firm, Barham said, from signing the contract to implementing changes.
“We developed this motion in order to ensure that faculty and staff have the opportunity to help shape the process that got underway really without too much of our (knowledge),” Barham said.
UW stopped accepting proposals from consultations companies on Sept. 23. Barham sits on the committee that is ranking the proposals and said the committee will be interviewing companies this month and should be finished ranking them by the end of November. He said he could not say more about the process at this time.
UC wants this committee to include representatives from the faculty, staff and administration, according to the proposal.
Results of internal analysis UW has already conducted will also be available to the committee, Barham said, which will inform the committee members as well as the consulting firm what has already been examined.
The areas specifically mentioned in the request for proposals obtained by The Badger Herald are information technology services, facilities management, procurement, financial management, grants management, auxiliaries, human resources, business services and energy conservation.
Defining the boundaries of these areas will help the committee and the consulting firm focus on areas in need of attention.
UW English professor Cyrena Pondrum said she was worried the tone of the recommendation sends the message UW already knows what a consulting firm would find.
The purpose of hiring a consulting firm is to have its staff delve into UW and find out where changes can be made, not by the university dictating what should be examined, Pondrum said.
“Our determining in advance what the priority areas are without having the areas examined…concerns me a little bit,” Pondrum said.
Provost Paul Deluca said the list of priorities is not exhaustive and should a firm be hired, its staff will examine other areas and the “element of discovery” will not be lost.
Another concern voiced by School of Education professor Kent Peterson is how the measures at UW will compare to those at other universities who have hired consultants, such as the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
If the firm hired has worked with other universities, Peterson said he did not want to see a template-style approach to this from a company copying and pasting what they did at one university to UW.
UW officials have looked at other universities and DeLuca said there is no reason UW would oppose innovations proposed elsewhere, but would tailor it to UW.
Barham said this is where going over internal investigations is useful because UW already knows certain areas need attention and can focus on those, regardless of what other universities have done.
Faculty Senate approved the framework with no opposing votes.
