CASI Minutes

Notes on academic staff organizations:

Helpful to me (Martin Rouse) as I tried to decipher what the various groups are up to were:  

http://wiscinfo.doit.wisc.edu/acstaff/FAQs.htm and

http://www.education.wisc.edu/casi/participation/governance.asp (flow chart) and

http://www.education.wisc.edu/AcademicStaff/CASI/default.asp (Education CASI web site)

Here are a few notes on the key groups:

Madison Academic Staff Association (MASA) http://www.wisc.edu//masa/
$10 annual fee. Organization for UW-Madison academic staff. Mission statement:

  • To further the professional status of the Madison academic staff.
  • To share ideas on items of mutual interest relating to professional status, conditions of employment, and compensation.
  • To establish communications with other identifiable university groups having similar objectives

Student Personnel Association (SPA) http://www.ohrd.wisc.edu/spa/
$10 annual fee. Networking and annual conference for all employees in student services at UW-Madison.

Academic Staff Public Representation Organization (ASPRO) http://www.aspro.net/
Dues are .0015 percent of monthly salary. If 40K per year gross, then $60 per year. Organization for all academic staff in the UW-System. Very nice web page and they appear to be working very hard on our issues.  

United Faculty and Academic Staff (UFAS) http://box20.bluehost.com/~ufasnet/
Dues are .005 percent of monthly salary. If 40K per year gross, then $200 per year.
Working on the right of faculty and academic staff to bargain collectively. UW-Madison and UW-Extension faculty, postdocs and academic staff can join. I was not favorably impressed by web page or newsletter activity. I think membership in this group would largely depend on your views of the effectiveness of the AFT and the AFL-CIO as national organizations. AFT web site: http://www.aft.org/ AFT locals are affiliated with the state and national AFT as well as with the state and national AFL-CIO: http://www.aflcio.org/. Dues paid through regular membership will include each of those organizations, as well as your own local. (You may recall that the AFL-CIO recently lost the affiliation of the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union.)

Martin