March 6, 2008 Minutes

1. Call to Order

2. Roll Call

Present: Kelly Barnts, Casey Comoroski, Lenord McGownd, Cathy McFall, Cindi Barnett, Ron Boaz, Patrick Byers, Patrick Day, Roger Dulcos, SuzAnn Ferguson, Marian Green, Norm Griffith, Konya Knackstedt, Steve Lowery, Emily McGee, Sheila Morris, Rebecca Woodard

Absent: John Avery, Debbie Branson, Donald Clark, Sue McCrory, Dale Moore, Dennis Perry, Orlando Hodges

Guests: Vickie Younger, Steve Mills, Rob Viau, Mike Clark, Ann Orzek, Rob Martin

3. Approval of Minutes - The February Minutes of the Senate meeting were approved.

4. Announcements

  • Greg Burris, Vice President of Administrative and Information Services and Chair of the Employee Service Awards Committee, spoke to the Senate about the Staff Recognition Awards that are given each year. The following concerns were expressed by the Senate:
    • Limited criteria for this award when compared to other awards.
    • No clear expectations of what the committee is looking for in a winner.
    • The general public doesn’t know what the recipients have done to receive this award.
    • Certain Departments receiving the award each year.
    • Not enough publicity of the Award.
    • Nominees for the award are not aware that they have been nominated until after the award has been given.
    Greg said it would be difficult to establish exact criteria for this award due to its nature and the diversity of jobs we have here at the University. Greg assured the Senate that the Committee takes this selection very seriously and that the Committee does look at service outside of the person’s job description. Greg said that this is his first year chairing the Committee and that he
    is writing/developing the procedures of the selection process. Greg said that the publicity of the Award is the responsibility of the Senate. Kelly indicated that the publicity currently being done is mass emails to all staff members and flyers to Departmental and Administrative offices. It was suggested that reminders should be sent out more frequently to keep the
    Award in everyone’s mind. Greg said that it has been the tradition of the Committee to not notify the nominees of their nomination until after the Award Ceremony to maintain the secrecy of the nominations. He said that he agreed that nominees should be made aware of their nomination so they could be in attendance at the ceremony. At the end of the discussion four points were developed:
  1. Let nominees know they have been nominated before the award—Committee’s Responsibility
  2. Read a snippet from the letter showing what the person has done above and beyond—Committee’s Responsibility
  3. Clarify the criteria so that anyone receiving a 3 on the ADP is eligible—Committee and Senate’s Responsibility
  4. Advertise more--Senate Responsibility

5. Old Business

  • David Vaughn will be in attendance at our May meeting to talk to the Senate about recycling efforts here at the University.
  • Kelly reported on the monthly meeting that the Executive Committee of the Senate had with Dr. Nietzel and Paul Kinkaid. She said that they had talked about the staff ADP and how an employee can add a service component to their ADP. Dr Nietzel and Paul said that any employee has input into the factors in Section 1 of the ADP and one of those factors could be service performed for the University. They indicated that they are aware of some issues with the ADP being filled out properly. Dr. Nietzel has issued a memo to all Department Heads clarifying some issues in regards to completing and procedures related to the ADP. They stated that it will be awhile before this process is common nature with individuals and there will be growing pains and adjustments associated with this normalization. It was indicated that some supervisors do not allow volunteerism or professional development to be considered and
    reflected in the ADP. This should not be the case and it should be addressed when it occurs.

6. New Business

  • Cathy McFall brought before the Senate a national fund raising program called Sneaker Days. It is a fund raiser for prostate cancer. Individuals would pay $5 to be able to wear sneakers to work. Cathy was approached due to her overwhelming success in the fall with Denim Days to work with this event. It is planned that this event will occur the Friday before Father’s Day in June or it may be tied into a Men’s Baseball game. There was a concern expressed about few people on campus during the summer, especially on a Friday. It was suggested that we move our participation in the event to another day during the week when more faculty and students
    are on-campus. It was determined that we would establish an Ad Hoc Committee for this event and Cathy would chair it. She will be seeking individuals to volunteer soon…so see Cathy if you are interested in this worthy event!
  • Membership Drive—It’s that time of the year again to start soliciting individuals to become
    Senators in the Senate. To be eligible to be a Senator, the individual must have a strong desire to contribute to the Senate and the University and have been employed at the University at least one year. We have 8 positions to be filled:
    2 in the support category
    1 in the Technology category
    2 in the Secretarial/Clerical category
    1 in the Service Occupations category
    1 from Finance
    1 from Economic Development
    It was suggested that we contact alumni from the USA Program since they are already focused
    on serving and volunteering their time.
  • Summer Flex Hour Committee Report—The committee examined many different options for offering different operating hours during the summer months. The committee’s recommendation is that we encourage using our existing flex hour policy more completely than it is being utilized presently. The only addition that would need to be made to the existing policy is to add the option of an employee working 4-10 hour days a week during the summer. The flex policy indicates that all offices and administrative areas have to be covered between the hours of 8am – 5pm and that each individual employee must would at least 40 hours per
    week. The coverage of the office is a Departmental concern and something that can be worked out in each area.
  • Konya announced that if anyone can volunteer for the pilot focus group for the Worklife Committee that they should. It would be helpful for everyone!

7. Adjournment - The meeting ended at 2:38PM.

Submitted by Lenord McGownd