Campus Connection

[caption id="attachment_25822" align="alignleft" width="550"] Chancellor Joe Gow gave his annual address Wednesday in Valhalla, Cartwright Center-Gunning Addition.[/caption]

Gow talks awards, achievements and faculty and staff pay

UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow highlighted the numbers and the people who give UW-L plenty to be proud of in 2013-14 during his All-University Address. Gow spoke to a group of primarily faculty and staff who filled Valhalla, Cartwright Center-Gunning Addition Wednesday morning. In addition, he answered a series of questions submitted online. One person asked how UW-L plans to deal with salary compression. UW-L will welcome the largest freshman class since 1986, which provides the university some internal resources to work toward keeping salaries more competitive for faculty and staff, explained Gow. “Your work is what makes this place great,” he said. “So we need to continue our salary equity efforts.” A total of 2,007 first-year, freshmen and an additional 564 transfer and second degree students are registered so far. But these numbers — above projected goals — are likely to change as UW-L’s enrollment is not finalized until the 10th day of classes, explained Gow.

How pay will change for faculty and staff:

• Classified staff: UW-L will continue to do discretionary merit compensation, a system that was used the last time pay increases were implemented for classified staff. However, last time only one-time awards were distributed. Now they will be base-building increases.
• Academic Staff: Funds will be available to continue to ensure all academic staff receive 88 percent or more of the College and University Professional Association (CUPA) median salary range for their position.
• Faculty: There is not enough funding to obtain 88 percent of CUPA for faculty. However, Gow anticipates the university will be able to get faculty into the low to mid-80 percent of the CUPA median salary range for their positions.

[caption id="attachment_25823" align="alignright" width="347"] UW System Regent Gary Roberts[/caption] UW System Regent Gary Roberts also addressed the crowd. Roberts spoke of the need for reforms in higher education, particularly in the communication of how funds are used and distributed. The Board of Regents should create more accountability for campuses, he said. “We have some problems and that excites me because a problem to me is an opportunity to make things happen,” he said. “Let’s all accept the challenge as a System and a university to make things happen.” Roberts, a UW-L alumnus, also expressed his pride in pointing out UW-L awards ranging from the biology department’s recent 2013 UW System Regents Teaching Excellence Award to UW-L’s development of a Massive Open Online Course, a first in the UW System.

Awards announced

Provost Heidi Macpherson announced awards for faculty, followed by the chancellor presenting a series of other awards and achievements. [caption id="attachment_25826" align="alignleft" width="550"] The UW-L men’s team won the NCAA Division III Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 23-25.[/caption]

Teaching Awards

Macpherson acknowledged the great teaching on campus by presenting the 2013 Provost Teaching Excellence Awards. Out of nearly 200 nominations, six faculty members were selected for the award. Learn about the winners.

Academic Staff Excellence Award

Chancellor Joe Gow announced Mo McAlpine, associate director of Recreational Sports, won the Academic Staff Excellence Award. She will receive $750 in professional development funds and be honored at the Academic Staff Annual Meeting Monday, Sept. 16.

Track Championship

The UW-L men’s team won the NCAA Division III Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 23-25— the 12th time the Eagles outdoor team has won. The championship win was Head Coach Josh Buchholtz’ third national championship as head coach. The other two were indoor championships. UW-L has more Men’s Track and Field NCAA National Championships than any other school in Division III history.

MOOC award

A UW System College Readiness Math MOOC — a Massive Open Online Course developed by faculty and staff at UW-L —won a national award for collaboration. The 2013 Desire2Excel award is given to individuals, groups or organizations that display exemplary ingenuity, creativity and collaboration in empowering students to achieve their academic goals. Gow also spoke of the success of UW-L’s MOOC and showed a UW-L video on the MOOC.

Strategic goals

Gow demonstrated how the university has made progress on strategic goals, including consistently high retention and graduation rates since 2006. About 86 percent of UW-L’s new entering freshmen return for their second year and the school has a six-year graduation rate of 69 percent. UW-Madison is the only school in the UW System to have a higher graduation rate than UW-L.

The people

[caption id="attachment_25828" align="alignleft" width="550"] The crowd watches the UW-L video "Faces of UW-L."[/caption] Gow shared videos presented to the Board of Regents last April that put faces to the successful campus initiatives and statistics. In addition to the MOOC video, the crowd watched a video on Awareness Through Performance and learned about Professor Tom Volk’s story — a professor with two hearts — who uses his personal experience to teach biology. View more photos from the event online.