2-14-12 Educational Innovations sharing session hosted by the School of Education
I just wanted to let you know that I’ve just posted another blog summarizing the School of Education’s Educational Innovation sharing session held Tuesday, February 14.
Thanks for taking the time to inform yourselves about some of what was discussed at the session. The link is: http://wp.me/p23zQj-D .
Tola Ewers, M.S.
Healthcare Advisory Committee (HCAC) Update: 2/21/12
Greetings from the ASM Healthcare Advisory Committee! We are a branch of the Shared Governance Committee and our jobs as appointees are to ensure representation of the UW-Madison student body during discussions of UHS programs and the annual budget. My name is Scott Lee and today I am going to give you an update on some of the recent happenings in the committee as well report news concerning some specific changes to UHS programs.
First off I would like to mention that we have recently voted on and approved the 2012-13 UHS annual budget on January 19, 2012. I am happy to report that the UHS student segregated fees will not see an increase for the next academic year. Other changes include the addition of a 24-hour on-call service for mental health crises provided by a contracted provider. Advantages to this program include a lower total cost given the need to provide on-call staff with compensation time as well as offering an immediate answer to student calls rather than through a page-out and call-back service. This program is seen as a standard in mental health care and UHS is seeking to provide medical on-call service in the future as well. This service has been frequently requested by students and is also seen as an appropriate standard of care for UW-Madison students. Finally, other changes include the ending of the sport’s medicine and dermatology programs. UHS explained that the cost of the dermatology program would have tripled given changes to staffing from the Department of Dermatology. Many of the services provided by the Department of Dermatology can also be provided by UHS for a much lower cost. Many of the services are now provided within primary care. The same applies to eliminating the sport’s medicine program.
After approval by the HCAC, the budget was then sent to the Student Services Financial Committee (SSFC) to receive additional feedback from students. The focus of today’s meeting was to address this feedback and to make it known to the rest of the committee. There was also a presentation from the director of patient satisfaction about recent data collected from surveys sent out to students regarding the quality of students’ experiences with UHS.
After being approved by the HCAC, the UHS budget was sent to SSFC for further review. One of the key changes that the new budget addressed was the need for new mental health staffing and services. In recent years there has been a significant need and growth of mental health services, and the SSFC asked for further comments from HCAC on how to describe these needs in a more substantive way. A figure of $200-250k was formulated and shared with the HCAC.
Next, recent data collected from student satisfaction surveys intended to evaluate students’ experience with UHS was presented. The results from the surveys deemed to be an accurate representation of the UW-Madison demographic. Notable results included a significant increase in the satisfaction about the ease of access for care, and a 90% overall student satisfaction rate in 2009-2010 and a 93% overall satisfaction rate in 2010-2011 with regards to the overall UHS experience. In addition, 90% of students who responded said that they would recommend UHS to another student. The HCAC would like to remind everyone that these critiques are always appreciated and that surveys have been and will continue to be used to make changes areas where concerns are expressed by students.
So in summary:
- 2012-2013 UHS annual budget has been approved and critiqued by SSFC
- Dermatology and Sport’s Medicine were ended last year since many of these services are now provided within primary care
- UHS will now provide on-call mental health crises services through a contracted provider than by UHS staff members.
- No increase in UHS student segregated fees for next year
Sincerely,
Scott Lee
Student Football Tickets Could Increase By $2/ticket. Do You Care?
Hello all. I am your student appointee to the Athletic Board. On Friday Febrary 17, 2012, the Board will vote on a proposed increase in ticket pricing on football and basketball tickets. Among the proposed increases is a $2 increase in student ticket prices for football games, going from $22 to $24 per ticket. To read the Athletic Department’s statement on the increases, follow the link at the end of this post.
Earlier this week, I voted against a recommendation to increase the prices because I hadn’t had a chance to solicit student opinion on the issue. So, I’ve put together a poll to see what the students say so that the student voice can be heard on Friday before the Board votes on the proposed increases. To let your voice be heard, please complete the poll below.
Thanks!
Valyncia
Link to Athletic Department’s Statement: http://www.uwbadgers.com/genrel/021412aaa.html
Global Education Committee
Hello everyone,
My name is Saili Kulkarni and I am a newly appointed graduate student member of the Global Education Committee in the School of Education. This committee has had two meetings so far this semester and below is a brief description of the minutes from our last meeting divided up by section.
Website: The School of Education is going to be seeing an updated version of their website sometime during the summer (likely July or August). We had a presentation from Rebecca Quigley on what this might look like and also how Global Education would be framed on the site. The committee will be making suggestions about the links for Global Ed within the next few months. Updates to follow.
Visiting Scholars: We are trying to get a consensus around what the School of Education policy should be around visiting student scholars. For example: where will they stay, what fees do they pay, what should be provided for them, etc. The Ed Leadership and Policy Analysis has a good model to begin developing this area.
Program Funding: There are calls going out for innovation in the area of International Education. For faculty and grad students this includes development of new conference ideas, research proposals and programs. For undergrads this might be funding to go abroad. Attached is a flyer for a new program opening up in China that will be geared towards undergraduate student teaching.
Thanks, please feel free to email me sskulkarni2@wisc.edu with suggestions/questions or to comment on this post 
What have your experiences on Academic Advising been?
What will help you plan for your college career? What would you like to have access to? What do you need from your advisor?
Council for Academic Advising update
Currently in CAA there have been some big changes. Wren Singer has been hired as the new Director of Undergraduate Academic Advising. She’s working on getting up to speed with this recent change.
A few different subcommittees have been formed with the intention to improve academic advising for students. Overall, the hope is that gaps between advisors and students will be lessened and that correct and clear information is provided on the academic course lists to make the transition from Freshman year to graduation a welcoming process where students and advisors are fully engaged.
Limited Enrollment Program Group:
Working on terminology– how to define “limited enrollment”
Chronicle.com/section/Jobs/61/
Working on updating this to make sure it is understandable and helpful for students.
New Academic Advisors have been hired! Training for these new hires is happening. A core team will be working on how best to train these advisors.
There has been some discussion as to how to promote student interaction with advisors to open discussion about your time at UW. Any students have anything to say about this? What have your experiences with your academic advisor been? HOw do you best utilize your advisors?
February 2012 School of Education Administrative and Academic Planning Councils meeting
Please follow this link to enjoy my latest blog posting, “On being connected, unintended consequences, and digital learning”
Thanks!
Tola Ewers, M.S.
Dissertator
Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
ASM appointee to School of Education Dean’s Student Advisory Board and
School of Education Administrative Council
Council for Academic Advising
Council for Academic Advising
Meeting this morning. I’ll be filling in on meetings for the past 3 months. I’ll give short synopses of each and let you know where we’re at in terms of new projects that will affect especially undergraduate students in terms of registering for courses, good tips for students on how to take advantage of advisors and advising tools.
Later on,
Kara Westmas
Graduate Student Representative on CAA
January 2012 – School of Education Administrative and Academic Planning Councils
To see my latest blog “Educational innovation is interwoven into the fabric of life in the School of Education”, please follow this link:
Thank you!
Tola Ewers, M.S.
Dissertator
Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Shared Governance Appointee
Healthcare Advisory Board
It’s been a while since students from the Healthcare Advisory Board have posted on the ASM Shared Governance Committee blog, so I will try to recap what we’ve been up to during the fall 2011 semester.
At the first meeting in late October, the Healthcare Advisory Board, composed of faculty, staff (including those who work at UHS), and seven student appointees of the ASM Shared Governance Committee discussed the charge of the committee while the Director of UHS, Dr. Sarah Van Orman, gave us an overview of University Health Services. Our main responsibility is to draft and approve the UHS budget, totaling over $12 million. Broken down, students pay approximately $340 per year through segregated university fees (student activity fee) for UHS. UHS employs 100 full time employees and 50 student hourly employees in four service areas (administrative, clinical, counseling and consultation services, and prevention). In addition, HCAB will discuss the impact of the Affordable Healthcare Act (also known as Obamacare) on students, the Student Health Insurance Plan, the UW System Growth Agenda and the impact of a larger student population on UHS, insurance billing at UHS, and competitive staff wages and salaries.
At the next meeting in November, HCAB went through the budget for the current academic year (FY12). UHS has tried to limit the increase in its annual budget to 4% or lower, which is especially difficult because of the high rate of inflation in the healthcare fields. As a result of high competition between hospitals in the Madison area for primary care providers, the market rate for primary care physicians has increased dramatically, and offering competitive salaries to healthcare providers at UHS has become increasingly challenging. Also, HCAB had an engaging discussion about the implications of insurance billing at UHS. Insurance billing would greatly reduce the amount of segregated fees students pay to UHS, but students would have to have health insurance to afford the services of UHS. Considering that many students’ health insurance plans do not cover the Madison area, this may be problematic. In addition, insurance billing would significantly increase the amount of administrative work for UHS. In sum, insurance billing would have major costs and benefits for UHS.
At the last meeting of the fall 2011 semester, HCAB discussed the UHS budget for the 2012-2013 academic year (FY13).
