STAFF SENATE MINUTES
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016
Cameron Hall 214
2:00 – 4:00
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Call to Order 2:05
Did not have a quorum (16 members needed for quorum)
Approval of minutes from February meeting tabled until next month
Reading of Conflict of Interest Statement: 2:05
CHAIR’S UPDATE
 Governor's forum on ConnectNC is being held on our campus today. And U-shop meeting is also going on today.
Both of these conflicts have caused low attendance at this meeting.
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Staff Assembly update
Terry attended Tuesday's Staff Assembly meeting. We (Linda, Lauren, and Dawn) were able to remote in on
Monday. Hopefully, we will be able to remote in for some future meetings.
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There was some discussion on the new implementation of the state's employee evaluation tool and process.
Expecting it to launch in April but will not go live on campus until summer.
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Staff Assembly will hold the golf tournament again this year and this provides a great (effortless) fund raising
opportunity for our Staff Senate. Money raised in golf tournament awards $15,000 annually in professional
development scholarships.
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5/24 and 5/25 is next Staff Assembly meeting. Expecting salaries to be discussed as a follow up to the
"letter" Staff Assembly sent to president spelling.
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Inconsistent salary practices and policies were openly discussed in a general fashion. Anticipating more
formal discussions to follow as a result.
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President Spelling will be visiting our campus within the next two weeks.
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Over an hour and a half of the discussion (at Staff Assembly meeting) was dedicated to the health plan
changes that were recently considered and many questions and “what if” scenarios were asked.
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President Spelling would like a list of staff Assembly's priorities (state wide consensus as to what Staff would
like prioritize). Dawn will email us for feedback.
NEW BUSINESS:
 Constituent Outreach
o Surveys are one way to reach constituents. Over 400 responses to 2nd survey.
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Senators should email team members "important" information covered in our meetings.
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Challenge is how to consistently inform staff. We may not be able to address entire staff directly but we
definitely can do a more grassroots approach. Be more responsible to our constituents. Discussion to
continue and once approach is decided, it can be added in July with new senators and new Senate year.
After discussions, Idea-->the Executive team will review the minutes and send one communication with
meeting summary "what we do" talking points that can be shared with co-workers along with an invite to
next Staff Senate meeting.
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Goal of constituent outreach is not to know all the answers but give staff a voice (and an ear).
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One suggestion was that we sponsor a movie at Lumina and give out information to staff in attendance.
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If we participate in and off campus events, we need shirts so we are recognized as senators.
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Role of Staff Senate in educating and advocating use of Community Service Leave
o Q: Does Staff Senate have a role to play? After much discussion, the Senate decided it was best for us to
lead by example and not dictate or monitor what people do for community service leave.
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Spring Staff Senate Community Service Event
o Erin St. Ledger proposed idea: May is global health and wellness month. Pick a day in May after
graduation and encourage a "walk" for wellness and maybe a charity. We could use the Charity Miles
APP. Individuals can pick a charity and that charity receives a donation. Erin reached out to
Advancement and OUR to get permission. Advancement wants to "sponsor" or connect with our
initiative, however, the Senate agrees that we do not want our mission to be altered by having
Advancement as a sponsor. Much discussion of appropriate prizes and use of funds for prizes. Decision
was made to discuss "spending of staff senate money" at later meeting and determine "prizes". It was
also decided to invite Chancellor to participate in this event. Erin will begin working on event details and
we will discuss progress and plan at next meeting.
SIDENOTE FROM DAWN: Did not meet with Chancellor today because waiting to share survey results with Senate first.
We will meet with him soon after this meeting.
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Elections
o Nominations are coming up. This committee is getting support from Kevin Farver who did this last year.
Nominations open March 17 and are open a month. This information will be up on our website. One
difference is we are adding option to self-nominate.
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Another idea for community service event was proposed by Meagan Jolly: We could help with “Move
Out” by collecting food from students who are moving out and give it to food bank. Proposed plan is to
set up donation stations and send out info to students by posting flyers in dorms and partnering with
HRL. Meagan will ask HRL what they are doing. It was also suggested that we connect with SGA and
Campus Dining for support. Senate supported idea and Meagan will move forward with this initiative.
We need better records of what term and division Senators serve. Last year, several Senators extended
their terms to balance the number of new and old senators on this year’s Senate. Dawn and Courtney
are working to identify what term Senators are serving to determine the number of vacant positions.
Once this is done, it will be easier to hold elections every year moving forward.
Today’s Bond meeting with Governor:
Note: this was not an original agenda item because event was added after agenda went out. Because attendees
returned before our meeting was over, we allowed this discussion to be added.
Lauren Auton, Colleen Opalka, and Terry Ismert attended on behalf of Staff Senate. Lauren Auton shared the
following summary:
Forum covered what bond will be used for. Bond is very strategic approach to address what NC needs especially
the infrastructure needs of universities and community colleges. As of now, we will not have an additional tax
increase because other bond is expiring.
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Spring survey summary by Lauren Auton and Megan Allred:
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This second survey was requested by Cabinet. 410 complete responses. Because some divisions had a very
small percentage of responses (like the Chancellor’s Division) in comparison with other divisions (like
Student Affairs), we will go back and try to determine what percentage each division is to the number of
staff we have and study this correlation to the number of responses.
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Long discussion of sharing comments followed. In summary:
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We can't sit on this for weeks or months.
Decision made by show of hands was for the summary power point to be shared campus-wide and the
unfiltered results be given to Chancellor and/or Cabinet without a formal presentation from Dawn or
Lauren.
Dawn asked for a day to discuss this matter with Executive team and she will send an email out to all
Senators to let Senators know how it will be presented and get feedback before sharing it.
Dawn will put “Thank you for participating in survey” and link to result summary in SWOOP.
BECAUSE OF THE TIME, WE DID NOT DISCUSS THE OTHER ITEMS ON AGENDA:
OLD BUSINESS
TREASURER’S REPORT
HUMAN RESOURCES REPORT
COMMITTEES REPORT
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM DEPARTMENTS
Dismissed at 4:00
Minutes taken by Melissa Cox, Staff Senate Secretary