Approved Minutes For Meeting On February 19,2014

Date: February 19, 2014

Program:

1. The meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. by the Chair, Kathy Jones. Visitors and guests were welcomed.

2.  Roll Call

Members Present:  Todd Bryson, Jeannie Killian, Don Castle, Angela Cummings-Hunter, Jon Geiger, Jill Gobert, Kathy Jones, Colleen Kuczynski, Don Patton, Rod Sievers, Matt Sronkoski, Valerie Brooks Wallin

Members Absent:  Charlotte Sarao (Jon Geiger, proxy)

Visitors and Guests:  Tracy Bennett, JP Dunn, Karsten Burgstahler of Daily Egyptian 

3. Minutes

Motion to approve the minutes of the Council meeting on January 15, 2014, was made by Rod Sievers and seconded by Valerie Brooks Wallin, minutes approved as presented.

4. Adoption of Meeting Agenda:  

Chair Kathy Jones referred to the revision in the agenda. Under New Business, the approval of the Budget for FY15 was added. Todd Bryson made a motion to accept the agenda, Jon Geiger seconded. Motion carried.

5. Reports            

5.1  Chair
K. Jones reported that the Constituency Heads met in February.  The Chancellor reported that the retention rate of freshmen is up, spring admits of new students are up, and spring enrollment of new international students. The Chancellor Scholarship weekend produced 550 plus students on campus and received a lot of positive response. Retention Specialist Teresa Farnum’s visit to campus  went well. Ms. Farnum held a retreat in January, and out of that retreat, 12 groups were created for special projects on retention. T. Farnum will be back in March to help the University through the retention effort. The Chancellor reported planning for the Comprehensive Campaign is underway and meetings with the deans are taking place. The campaign will be formally launched at a later date.  The grand opening of the 6th and 7th floors of the library was held and it’s spectacular; try to visit if you can. Finally, the Chancellor discussed the Revised Smoking Policy for campus. Smoking will be prohibited on campus except for personal cars and parking lots by July 1st.  Employees are being asked for their feedback on the no smoking policy.  

5.2        Board of Trustees
K. Jones attended the February 13th Board of Trustees meeting in Edwardsville. The meeting agenda was primarily notice items on tuition and fee increases. Discussions will take place before the next meeting on April 10th in Carbondale. One of the fees presented was a $9 media fee for students to support the Daily Egyptian. President Poshard remarked that since the Governor has pushed his address to March 26th, we still don’t know what our state budget will be for higher education.  All current officers of the Board were re-elected at the meeting.

5.3        Human Resources (HR)
No report.

5.4        Representatives to University Committees
5.4a      Computing Advisory – JP Dunn
Last meeting was November 22nd. Some of the discussions included upgrades to Banner and Mobile Dawg tablets. The tablet will be offered again this fall to new freshman students. Dove Labs was the creator of the Dawg software that is loaded on the tablets. Around 1,500 desktops will be replaced on campus based on a 5-year rotation. IT is looking for fee increases, the network is being upgraded, and there is a 3-stage process for wireless: classrooms first, 2nd phase is academic areas, and 3rd phase is outside. Migration of email is still on-going. Security issues with on-campus networks were discussed. JP Dunn’s full report is attached (attachment A).

5.4b      Traffic and Parking Committee – Todd Bryson
Traffic and Parking Committee met on February 6. T. Bryson reported on the new business items:  new parking, expanded lots, FY15 decal price increase, and rules and regulations updates. The committee is also looking into taking meters off of lot 13, keeping it a pay lot, but installing a ticket/payment system.  The Council gave T. Bryson some traffic concerns for the lot by the Student Services Building and incoming traffic onto the campus first thing in the morning. For the full report see attached. (attachment B)

5.5 Standing Committees

5.5a      Executive Committee – Jon Geiger
J. Geiger reported that the Committee discussed the agenda and minutes.  They discussed the UCOL 101 staffing suggestions for fall of 2014. The committee looked at the new sector proposal for the A/P Staff Council from the Operating Paper Committee.  The Executive Committee added the Ad Hoc Elections Committee to the agenda under standing committees.

5.5b      Committee on Committees – Charlotte Sarao
No report.

5.5c      Constituency Relations – Rod Sievers
The Committee did not meet, but one of their goals was to change the name on the listserv and that seems to be taken care of and are coming from the AP Staff Council. J. Geiger reported that the dispute on the Moe Wallace charge has been refunded to the council permanently.

5.5d      Operating Paper – Kathy Jones
K. Jones reported that the Operating Paper Committee met on Feb. 19th. The Committee has developed a draft proposal for 8 sectors for A/P staff constituency. The draft is attached (attachment C).  Dividing the A/P staff into 8 sectors would bring the representatives on the Council to 18 with one representative per 30 staff members (with a minimum of 2 reps per sector).  This would help the Council move toward its two goals of: 1) increasing the size of the council to help with workload, and 2) providing more direct representation to the constituency. The Committee is also looking at the timeline and the procedure to migrate from the present Council to the new sectors and changes to the Operating Paper. The A/P Staff Council is updating its structure to keep up with the campus reorganization. R. Sievers made a motion to encourage the Operating Paper Committee to proceed with the proposed changes to the sectors and the Operating Paper as soon as possible, M. Sronkoski seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

   
5.5e      Staff Benefits/Staff Welfare – Don Castle
The Committee met once since last meeting. The focus of the committee over the next couple of months will be the policy that is written for moving term to continuing appointments and the lack of a policy for moving continuing to term appointments to see if they can develop language to recommend to administration.

5.5f       Ad Hoc Elections Committee – Valerie Brooks Wallin
The Committee met on Feb. 12th to look at the numbers for the two sectors.  The election will be for two general and two academic affairs representatives to replace the ones whose terms expire. The Committee also decided not to do paper nominations and ballots.  All nominations will be sent out via email, and paper will be sent to the few staff that do not have email addresses.  All election ballots will be online.  Nominations are due back by March 12th.  Balloting begins on March 28th.

6. Old Business

Recommendations for Staffing UCOL 101
K. Jones discussed the draft of a memo with suggestions to improve staffing of the UCOL 101 courses. Each point on the draft was discussed among the A/P Staff Council, additions and deletions were made, and it was decided that D. Castle would take the draft, edit and enhance it, and send it back to Council members before the next meeting.

7. New Business                        

The budget for A/P Staff Council FY15 was presented to Council members for review. Budget lines were discussed; total budget is the same for FY15. T. Bryson made a motion to approve the budget, D. Castle seconded. Budget was approved.

8. Announcements

The Executive Committee decided to schedule another Happy Hour at Pinch Penny Pub at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25th. 

D. Castle informed the Council that SURS appointments are getting backed up because of changes in pension. There are dramatic impacts on employees before July 1st. J. Geiger said he was told if you are 55 or over you could get an emergency telephone meeting as early as the first week of March. Otherwise it will be in April before a meeting could be scheduled. A lot of issues with pension reform are up in the air and nobody understands all the issues.

JP Dunn made an announcement that the library has set up two Webinars on SURS and pension information. They will be March 5th from 9:30-11:00 a.m. and March 18th from 2:00-3:30 p.m. You can sign up for webinars on SURS website. 

9. Adjournment

Motion was made by T. Bryson to adjourn and seconded by D. Castle. Meeting was adjourned at 2:51 p.m.