Iowa State University
Professional & Scientific Council
Executive Committee Meeting
Regular Session
Thursday, August 21, 2003 2:00 p.m.
Room 248, Memorial Union
Attendance:
X
X
X
X
Kane, Kevin
Mumm, Lynne
Van Beek, Brenda
Riedemann, Trevor
X Woodin, Dan
Voting Members Non-voting Members
A Brink, Marcia
X Good, Cathy
X Jensen, James
X Marks, Del
X McCool, Kelly
X McManus, Barb
A (R&R Chair vacant)
X
X
Peterson, Teresa
Roberts, Kurt
Visiting Non-members: None.
Call To Order: Lynne Mumm, Vice-President, called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m.
A quorum was present. The agenda was approved.
Meeting Minutes: July 22, 2003 minutes were approved as amended.
President’s Report
Kevin reported:

Meeting with President Geoffroy – Cytation award is ready (and has been publicized). Dr.
Geoffroy and Ellen both suggested it would be more prestigious if there were 4 per quarter.
Kevin will ask the Awards committee to discuss it. Other topics: o P&S response on the Academic Calendar: Arne Hallam asked how we wanted our official response written up. In the draft document, it said we had a “slight preference” of A over B. Dan and Kevin decided to leave any adjective out, and just state that we preferred A over B (not slight or strong or overwhelming, etc). If Dr.
Hallam wants a vote, we will put it on our September agenda. o Priorities from the retreat: Geoffroy is still interested in seeing us move to a
President-elect/President/Past President format. He thinks the succession of leadership would be helpful. He also commented on our topic of becoming more involved politically, suggesting that it should happen primarily on an individual basis, but occasionally responding as a group on issues that affect us directly. He also thinks it’s good for extension employees to be politically aware and talking to the public on the university’s behalf whenever possible. o Speaking at convocation – Geoffroy invited Kevin to speak at convocation. o Book Club: Geoffroy likes the idea and asked to join discussion on the chapter related to Presidents. He also suggested inviting Dean Walter Gmelch (College of
Education) to participate in the discussion on the Dean’s chapter.

o We’ve been invited to make a P&S Council presentation at the President’s Council in
March. Ellen suggested we might be able to get funding to have ITC do a very nice presentation for us. Kevin will also pursue an invitation to Faculty Senate. o Budget for R&R and Tuition Grant: Kevin told Geoffroy that we are very interested in seeing these programs continue. Geoffroy has not heard any suggestion that they be discontinued, but he understands our concern in this tight budget. Ellen has asked for a specific report evaluating which type of R&R programs work best. We need to decide how to evaluate it, define types of programs to compare, and then begin doing the necessary tracking to see how successful each type is. Chair of the R&R committee hasn’t been chosen yet, but they will do that at their next meeting. We should to add wrap-up and program evaluation expectations to the R&R committee’s charge.

Meeting with Provost Allen and Ellen: o Ellen also mentioned changing the Cytation award from 8 to 4 per quarter. o Financial support for Council President: In the past, it has been about $3,000/yr and has usually been used for laptops, but some years, other things were purchased. Ellen suggested that the funds could be used to buy out some of the President’s time by transferring his duties to subordinates and using the funds to pay a student to support the President and his subordinates. o Secretarial support: Ellen didn’t remember the memo, but she is willing to pursue the issue. She said the personality of the current secretary and the willingness of the
Faculty Senate to give up some of her time could both be delicate issues. It may be a point of contention with Faculty Senate, so we need to be ready to justify it. Ellen understands that we have to deal with it, because promises have been made. o Ellen asked us to get develop a schedule for the book club. She suggested having some of them on Council day from 11-12 (to accommodate Extension employees) and others at Hawthorne as breakfast meetings. She is committed to being there every month. o President’s Council presentation: The Provost’s office will help compile info for the presentation. She gave Kevin some data they already have on Tuition Grants. Kevin passed them around for all to see. Ellen also encouraged us to write up a proposal to get funding for ITC to design the presentation. o Council Priorities for FY04 –

Ellen asked if the Information Security Task Force could have 15 minutes on a Council agenda this fall.

She suggested we look at the R&R projects and use an outcomes assessment model to evaluate them. We should always be ready to defend/support the program.

She will work on an email to Deans, DEOs and Center Directors in support of
P&S Council involvement.

She also supports development of a leadership training program for council to develop officers and leaders.
 Honor’s Presentation to President’s Council – if we get a chance, we will take a look at it. It was also developed by ITC, and could be used as a template for our presentation.

P&S Classification Review Committee: They have added an agenda item to discuss our
Compensation & Benefits motions from last year. They want to hire a consultant to help us/help them decide what to do first and what will net the best results for least cost. Carla and her office are going to begin with the list of action items from the Madden memo and prioritize what he said they could do. Kevin suggested that we prioritize them, too. We will

need to add the P&S/Merit overlap issue to the list, as that motion came after Madden had sent the memo. Teri (C&B) will put the list together and send it to all council members for ranking. Dan will review it before Teri sends it out to Council. It will need to have a short deadline, and we hope to get as much input as possible from Council members.

At their last meeting, Ellen reminded the Classification Review Committee that expectations are high for everyone to get more pay when a system-wide review is done. Kevin and Dan told her that C&B is very interested in meeting with her, Carla and Carrie at an early meeting of the committee. Teri and Jim decided to invite her to the second meeting of the year.
Officer’s Reports
 Brenda Van Beek: Treasurer’s report: Account balances:

General Fund $2,758.56.

Campus Orgs account $150.00.

Professional Development fund $845.03. Dan has info on how this fund was set up and will get it to Brenda. She will see if any deposits are in arrears. He thought the university Professional Development Committee also oversees spending on the account.

Dan Woodin: He needs more questions for the Campus Leaders Breakfast. He and Teri are working on one that has to do with expectations and average salary raises. The question will be posed in a generic way, and Kevin will look into following up informally in his meeting with the Provost.

Trevor Riedemann: o At the new employee Orientation session, one new employee asked “where do I start?” S/he wanted to know where to find everything else that a P&S employee needs to know, but hasn’t been told yet. Trevor thought this would be a valuable resource, and wondered if any of our committees would be an appropriate place to start. He also wanted to develop/revise a handout to use at Orientation. Perhaps we can add this to the proposal for ITC support of a
P&S info resource? o He also has a template for a 3-ring binder insert for P&S Council materials. Brenda will print some and bring them to the next Council meeting for anyone who wants one. o Tuition Grants: he did a comparison of our program to other Peer universities, and in a ranking, ISU would be in the bottom third. A summary of this information would be helpful as we prepare to justify the program.
Standing Committee Reports:
Awards:
Kurt: Inside ISU and the ISU website have advertised the Cytation award and it will be in this year’s first e-newsletter. FYI – NBC is on campus to interview Warren Madden about large tuition increases. Dan pointed out that he couldn’t nominate someone for the Cytation award because he’s not their supervisor/department head. He decided to write up the nomination anyway and send it to the person’s supervisor for further action. Kurt has received several calls on nomination procedures, such as whether groups could be nominated, etc.

Communication:
Barb: Rex has begun the web site redesign. He reported that the template could have info added at any point. He did get a suggestion to add a link to the Council documents. He wanted to get input from the Executive Committee before beginning to add content. He would like to get content changes from Committee chairs as well. Barb reported that profiles for new members and revisions to continuing members’ profiles should be part of the website update. Members will be asked to write their own profile, and Barb will edit as needed. Rex suggested we give some guidelines for content and length, so the profiles are somewhat consistent. Kevin asked the committee if we could use the October Open Forum time for gathering input on the Academic
Calendar. Barb will check with the committee to see if anything has been scheduled.
Compensation & Benefits:
James: A new committee motion on sick leave payout related to death benefits will be discussed at the next meeting. We also plan to invite Carla and Carrie to the October meeting. Ellen may be invited to another meeting. Dan suggested keeping Carla’s one-leave idea on the radar screen.
Peer Advisory:
Cathy: No contacts.
Policies & Procedures:
No report.
Representation:
Del: Recruitment for P&S Reps on the Retirees committee: one slot has been filled, and the other is still in process. Kevin asked if new members will take over committee assignments of the old members. He also asked that a revised roster be sent out.
Recruitment and Retention:
Kurt: Announcing the awardees has been somewhat delayed by a problem with someone’s computer.
Ad Hoc Committee Reports:
Budget & Planning (Kevin):
Officer Time (Kerry): Kerry has the information and will summarize it for us soon.
Academic Calendar (Dan): The committee has wrapped up its work and disbanded.
University Policy Committee (Dan): The committee has met a couple of times and proposed hiring someone to develop a searchable website of all the Policies. The second phase would be to hire a coordinator in the University Counsel office to check that all new policies comply with appropriate laws and communicate the policy to appropriate units on campus. Rex thought this fits with Geoffroy’s style of having open communication about all topics.
Old Business:
None.
New Business:

Administration Response to Outplacement Services Motion: The response from Allen and
Madden says we will need to work with them on doing it in the future. A better definition of who qualifies is needed. We expect them to have a good-faith effort to do this whenever it is

needed, but need to decide if a more formal policy should be pursued. Dan wanted to find out how to allow more campus units to take advantage of the outplacement contract. Dan will write it up as a question for the next Campus Leaders Breakfast. Do we also want to ask about layoff numbers at Campus Leaders Breakfast? If so, we need to come up with a positive question.

Motion on overlap between Merit and P&S salaries: Kevin reported that this motion was in limbo for a few months because of our officer turnover. He has now forwarded it, and a response was requested by October 1.

Orientation Schedule: October 22 and January 21 are scheduled, and they hope to hire a
Training Specialist in HR to coordinate other future dates. We hope to have a new P&S
Council presentation ready for the January Orientation.
For The Good of the Order:

Next Council meeting will be September 4 in the Pioneer Room, Memorial Union

Next Executive Committee meeting will be September 18 in Room 248, Memorial Union.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by:
Brenda Van Beek, Secretary/Treasurer, P&S Council