A University of Wisconsin committee unveiled a report Tuesday proposing reform to various campus committees’ structures in order to pinpoint underrepresentation in campus governance.

The Ad Hoc Committee on University Governance’s report emphasized shared governance committees’ representation of students on campus, but also looked at the representation of faculty, classified staff and academic staff representatives.

Focus was placed on the relationships between these different groups in terms of how they interact on various governing committees on campus and in what proportion each group was represented, Nicholas Brigham Schmuhl, member and graduate program assistant for the student government’s Shared Governance Committee, added.

The idea to form the committee and create the report came from Shared Governance Committee member Sam Seering, Schmuhl said. The initial idea focused on solidifying the role of students in shared governance and policy-making processes at UW.

“We certainly discussed all of the recommendations with other students, especially those involved in the student government,” Schmuhl said. “We tried to bring the perspective of all of our peers to the process and represent them well.”

While students initiated the process, the efforts grew to include concerns of representation in other groups as well. 

Schmuhl said all governance groups should be represented in the policymaking that is relevant to their constituents.

“When you have something like, for example, [recreational] sports that is partly funded by student fees and used by students, then students should be represented appropriately on that committee and should be making the decisions about recreational sports in proportion with their usership and funding of that organization,” he said.

Chair of the Academic Staff Executive Committee Heather Daniels said recommendations varied from creating a voting seat for a representative of a specific governance group to changing the entire structure of the committee.

“We all really worked together to come to a consensus and sometimes it meant that we were compromising,” Daniels said. “I think in most cases we were able to find a middle ground that at least works now for both sides.”

Department Administrator for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Debbie Weber said her focus in contributing to the report was to create representation on various committees around campus for nonrepresented classified staff.

She said the ad hoc committee thought there should be a member of this group on committees because he or she could act as a liaison for a large amount of campus employees.

“A lot of times we are being left out of the loop because we haven’t been allowed to be on different campus committees, so we couldn’t even contribute,” she said.

Implementation of the recommendations depends on whether or not the committee is codified in the Faculty Policies and Procedures. Those that are codified must pass through Faculty Senate, Daniels said.

Schmuhl said in the case that a recommendation does not have to go through the official process of the Faculty Senate in order to be implemented, it is only a matter of connecting with the active members of those committees and discussing the proposed changes.