One day after refusing to open a Madison Initiative for Undergraduates Oversight Board meeting to the public, university officials reversed their position regarding media access Tuesday.
The Oversight Committee is one of two committees responsible for selecting from the 114 proposals submitted by departments and groups across campus, each vying for a piece of the $6.2 million left of the original $10 million Madison Initiative for Undergraduates budget.
In an e-mail Monday, University spokesperson John Lucas said the committee did not fall under Wisconsin open records law. The law states that, with certain exceptions, various government meetings and records must be made available to the public.
""Because this committee is advisory to the chancellor and is not a governmental body, it is not subject to open meeting laws,"" Lucas said. He referenced a passage on UW-Madison's Office of Administrative Legal Services website stating that ""ad hoc or standing committees created by university officials to advise them as administrators"" were not governmental bodies.
In a separate section, however, the OALS website states that ""campus-wide committees (ad hoc or standing) created by resolution or order of the Regents, the faculty or the academic staff"" are subject to the law.
It is unclear how the committee was created, but at a May 7, 2009 meeting, the Board of Regents proposed that all MIU's tuition increases ""be evaluated on an annual basis by the Madison Initiative Oversight Board, which will be comprised of students, faculty and staff.""
On Tuesday, the university changed its stance.
""In the spirit of transparency and openness in which MIU was created, tomorrow's meeting (at 9 a.m. in 260 Bascom) and all other meetings will be noticed and open,"" Lucas said in an e-mail.
According to the e-mail, the chancellor will make her final decisions on this round of proposals by February or early March.
