WCU Staff Senate Meeting Agenda
March 8, 2012 (8:30-10:30 am)
Cardinal Conference Room (University Center)
Members
Tammy Ammons-Hagberg
Present
Excused
Suzanne Baker
Kay Benson
Mike Corelli
x
x
x
Keith Corzine
William Frady
Sheila Frizzell
Jeff Gunter
Homer Harris
Heather Hoyle
Alison Joseph
Jason LaVigne
Amy McKenzie
Caden Painter
David Porter
Kathleen Prindiville
Will Shivers
Carrie Shuler
Jeff Tatham
Walter Turner
Shawna Young
Dianne Lynch (Ex-Officio Member) – David Belcher
Kathy Wong (Ex-Officio Member)
Erin McNelis (Faculty Senate Chair)
TJ Eaves (SGA President)
x
x
I.
II.
III.
Not Excused
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Approval of the Meeting Agenda (Jason LaVigne)
Approved
Approval of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting (Jason LaVigne)
Approved
External Informational Reports
a. Office of the Chancellor Updates (Chancellor Belcher/Dianne Lynch)
Not present
b. Human Resources Report (Kathy Wong, ex-officio member)
Annual enrollment for state health plan will open soon. Employees can make changes and
update the later part of March. Dependent care will increase 5.3%.
Comments/Questions:
Homer: People are still confused about why we can’t implement a bi-weekly pay period for SPA.
Can you send out an email to clarify?
IV.
Kathy: Yes. We operate on a monthly, current pay period. A bi-weekly pay period is a delayed
pay period – your pay is always one pay period behind. It would be costly to implement the
delayed pay period. WCU participates in the UNC system standard model.
Alison: You could include this information as a FAQ on the HR website.
Kathy: We can do that and we can send a targeted email to staff.
Homer: It’s the grounds keepers and housekeeping staff that are particularly concerned about
this issue.
c. Faculty Senate Report (Erin McNelis, ex-officio member)
The Faculty Senate (FS) finished an overflow meeting 3/7. SGA has brought the FS the A+
request. FS is reviewing the request for new grading policy. FS is reviewing the gender equity
salary survey and will be requesting faculty involvement in the study. The FS has invited Henry
Wong and Melissa Wargo to meet with them to discss but neither have been able to attend a FS
meeting.
Kathy: The gender equity study will take 1.5 to 2 years. The study will focus on faculty then SPA
then EPA non-faculty.
Erin: I know that Henry presented to the AAUW. We think people need to remember that there
is expertise on campus to work with the statistics. We don’t need to outsource this project.
Kathy: Study will take a long time because the investigators will need to pursue and clarify
variances in salary when they appear.
d. Student Government Association Report (TJ Eaves, ex-officio member)
Not present
Internal Informational Reports
a. Treasurer Report (David Porter, Treasurer via email)
Scholarship Fund as of February 21, 2012
$28,197.72
Staff Senate Luncheon raised February 17th
$
74.40
Scholarship Fund Total for February 2012
$28,272.12
Discretionary Fund
$ 1,404.63
b. Staff Assembly Report (Jason LaVigne
i. Review Principles Email
SB 575: GA has developed a statement of ‘guiding principles’ for developing the
implementation of SB 575 if it’s voted in.
Kathy: Will meet with Jason and Erin to work out details on how to properly distribute.
We will be scheduling a forum for staff to discuss if they have questions or concerns.
Jason: We just need to be prepared to answer questions. Points 2, 4, 5 and 7 are
particularly important.
Kathy: Propaganda type flyers against SB 575 are cropping up on larger campuses. We
need to be prepared to educate our colleagues.
c. Committee/Council/Task Force Reports
i. Budget Advisory Committee
Suzanne: When will the budgets be final?
Erin/Jason: Recommendations and prioritizations will be made and finalized by the end
of March. The final budget decisions will be made once the 2012-2013 budget
allocation from the state is received in June/July.
ii. 2020 Commission
The investing in faculty and staff sub-committee report turned their report in to Melissa
Wargo. Goals included improved communication, salary increases, etc.
V.
iii. Installation Committee
Encourage people to attend installation events especially the blood drive on 3/27 11-4.
Updates from Sub-committees
a. PR Committee (Alison Joseph)
i. Welcome to new employees
Will be getting the HR and PR committees together to craft welcome email to new
employees and potentially host some FAQ online pertaining to employee orientation.
The newsletter will be coming out in April. Will have a ‘state of the university’ from the
chancellor, update from FS/SS chairs, Coulter Faculty Commons information, and
information about flex scheduling.
b. Scholarship (Will Shivers)
i. Faculty/Staff Lunch Report
Lunch appreciation went well the $74 we raised is equal to what we’ve raised during
staff appreciation in prior years. It seems to be popular and we’ll probably look at doing
this more often.
ii. Scholarship Application Review
The committee will be meeting soon to determine award winners. We currently have 8
applications. Will need to discuss with Development the size of the awards we’ll be able
to make.
iii. Yard Sale March 17th
1. Set up 3/16 3:00-5:00p – have 6 volunteers but can use more help; if you know
people who will be dropping stuff off that afternoon have them come in after
3:40p.
2. Need more volunteers for day of the event
3. 3/15 1p moving bikes to Ramsey – meet at the impound lot on Old Speedwell
Road. There isn’t parking there, people will need to park in the handicap lot
behind Ramsey. Cat will bring an air compressor to inflate tires.
The committee will be doing a last push for donations with information in the Reporter.
iv. Silent auction for the trailer at yard sale
Jason will be hauling the trailer over to the Ramsey Center. To earn more money on the
trailer, we’ll run a bidding process and sell the trailer to the highest bidder.
Tammy: We might make more money in an open bid process.
Walter: We might want to do a hybrid process – closed bidding but let them know what
the current highest bid.
Jason/Tammy/Amy/Alison: That’s complicated, let’s just have a clip board and let
people bid openly.
Jason: I’ll talk to the print shop to see if they can print a big picture of the trailer to
advertise.
General discussion regarding placement of bikes and trailer during the yard sale. Will is
going to see if we can place them outside.
c. HR Committee (Jeff Tatham)
i. Update on SB 575 – Not much to update but we have met with Kathy regarding flex
scheduling. Office of State Personnel already has guidelines for flex scheduling and
telecommuting. The committee may propose a new leave category for employees
interested in returning to school – educational leave.
VI.
VII.
Will: Would it be possible to partner with SCC to see if we could use our tuition waivers
at there?
Jason: There are discussions about that but no decisions have been made.
Amy: What about release time for university service like serving on the SS and other
university committees?
Jason: Discussions with the chancellor are ongoing regarding providing support for those
who serve in university leadership positions.
d. Resources and Environment (Homer Harris)
Looks like the bike donation for the yard sale will be recurring.
e. Governance (Caden Painter)
i. 2012 Election – Committee is testing the election website and nominations are being
solicited.
Jason: Currently have 19 people nominated. Don’t have any nominations from
Craftsman or the Maintenance and Service classifications. We will be resending the
nominations email to everyone. We will also need to be thinking about officers for the
upcoming year.
Old Business
a. Suggestion Box (Jason LaVigne)
i. March launch – Currently have 26 responses. At this time, we’re not seeing any
surprises. Responses are showing us that we need to better communicate what we’re
already doing.
b. Job Shadowing/Mentor Program (Alison Joseph)
We met to discuss the possibilities of creating a professional development program that will help
students connect with staff and learn about their jobs/careers. We’re hoping that Career
Services will manage the program but we will write up guidelines for staff participation. Staff will
be asked to complete a functional/skill oriented survey (types of skills used in their jobs: public
speaking, people contact, accounting, etc.) to match staff with student interests.
Will: Career Services already collects that skill set type information from students in their 1:1
meetings.
Suzanne: Mardy teaches a LEAD career exploration class that would fit this model well.
Tammy: UPD already has an arrangement with CJ and accepts students for shadowing and ride
alongs. We don’t currently track participation
We wiill need to follow up with departments to see which ones already have UPD/CJ type
arrangements in place.
c. Full Spectrum Farms (FSF) – volunteer opportunity update
Jason: February donations were disappointing. FSF will need volunteers to help prepare the
gardens in April/May. We can continue to collect garden tools throughout the spring.
Alison: Face to face works best. We may want to piggy back on monthly staff appreciation
lunches. It could be a good opportunity to collect food, etc.
Jeff: We could collect regularly throughout the year and report in February.
Erin: May want to partner with February blood drive and make it a competition with another
schools.
New Business
Erin: Any comments or thoughts on the Millennial campus? The purpose is to partner the university
with businesses. The area is exempt from the Olmstead act.
Adjourn: 10:15
Information Items:
1.
Next Staff Senate Meeting:
[April 12, 2012] (8:30-10:30 am)
Cardinal Conference Room (UC)