The Wisconsin Union Council weighed potential changes to their officer selection policy, as well as the MUR Enumeration at their meeting Thursday.
Prompted by a survey released to all members of the council asking for recommendations on how to improve the selection process, the Union Council and Leadership Development sub-committee sought approval for changes on a Wisconsin Union policy procedure.
The current goal of the procedure is to provide criteria to be used by nominating committees and the Union Council in evaluating applicants for officer, director, and summer coordinator positions, Annie Paul, Vice President of Leadership Development, said.
The criterion includes knowledge of the mission of the Wisconsin Union and the University, educational partnership with professional staff and the content area of the nominated position, Paul said. A major change that would be implemented would include providing an information session for officer selections, to give them a better idea of what they are interviewing for.
“By offering this session, candidates will get a better understanding of what they’re interviewing for and we’ll be able to conduct more thorough interviews,” Paul said.
The policy would also require interviewing candidates to have a letter of recommendation, instead of the formerly required list of references, Paul said. Letters of recommendation allow for a better understanding of what a candidate has accomplished, she said.
The policy asked that the vice president be included in the nominating committee, instead of just public relations.
“It would be more convenient to have the vice president involved, because it would increase their leadership position, and move the process forward,” Paul said.
Secretary of the council, Mark Guthier, also spoke on the rising enumeration of the Memorial Union Reinvestment. The State Building Commission must enumerate every capital project that goes through the state system, Guthier said.
Funding for MUR has primarily been from student fees, private gifts and fundraising, Guthier said. The enumeration for Phase Two of MUR was determined by what was left over from student fees from the 2012-2013 school year, he said.
Guthier said he predicts the new enumeration number will be higher than the original.
“Our original enumeration was in the high eighties, but then the design process began, and now we don’t think we can build it for anything less than $94 million or so,” Guthier said.
The last design workshop for MUR provided more budget information, and allowed for talks with campus leaders, to see if they would approve of the enumeration, Guthier said.
Guthier said he could not give an exact number as to how much the enumeration would increase by, but he said it would not raise student fees and a large portion would come from fundraising.
Wisconsin Union Alumni Representative Jeff Haupt questioned how fundraising would occur, as no members of the council have a wide range of fundraising experience.
The MUR enumeration increase is set to go forward for approval sometime in the January-February timeframe, Guthier said.
