WCU Staff Forum Meeting Minutes
November 8 , 2007
UC Cardinal Room
Members Present: Donna Welch, Colby Deitz, Lisa Frady, Lisa Surber, Carolyn Paris, Nancy
Carden, Debbie Justice, Walter Turner, Pete Lloyd, Roseanna Belt, Jed Tate, Akum Jamir, Teresa
Killian, Larry Hammer, Tim Inman
Members Absent: Tamrick Mull (excused); Dawne Coward (excused); Deborah Lovern
(excused); Kathleen Franks (excused); Lauren Bishop (excused); Cale Wilson
Ex-Officio Members Present: Kathy Wong; Dianne Lynch
Welcome: Jed welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Approval of Agenda: The agenda was approved as submitted.
Approval of Minutes: The minutes for October’s meeting were approved as submitted with the
exception of a correction regarding a duplication in the “Members Present” section.
Information Items:
The next Executive Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 6, 2007, 2:003:00, HFR 453.
The next Staff Forum meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 13, 2007, 8:30-10:30
a.m., Cardinal Room, UC.
Office of Human Resources: Kathy reported on the following:
HR Task Force – The Position Management Subcommittee met last week and they are making
several recommendations which will allow for better standards for position management, better
application of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and more autonomy.
Banner Implementation – It has been decided to implement all phases of Banner HR which
includes self-service, payroll, and electronic maintenance of time and leave sheets. This should
allow better efficiency and functionality while allowing HR to reduce their updates from 3 systems
to 2. Implementation has resulted in the inability of the HR Office to provide reports and labels as
usual but this function should hopefully resume around the beginning of the next year.
Career Banding – This is going well and should be complete by April 30.
New Approval Policy – A new approval process for personnel requires that all personnel, including
part-time be processed and approved through HR. Hiring authorities are still getting used to this
new policy and for now it has caused a bit of additional work on HR Staff. Centralization of this
process should be helpful in the future.
Chancellor’s Office: The Board of Trustees Retreat was held last week and most items brought
up at the retreat will be finished at the Board meeting on November 29 th and 30 th. The UNC
Tomorrow draft report was due yesterday and should be available on the website soon. It is likely
to include a branch campus in Henderson County for WCU.
Campus Committee Reports: Jed reported on the following.
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Planning – A report is being generated which will include all of the
processes we currently have in place.
Smoking Policy – New State Legislation may cause fairly significant changes to our on-campus
Smoking Policy. A meeting is being held next week to discuss changes to our current policy and
what this new legislation will mean for our campus. A member of the Staff Forum is invited to
attend the meeting with Jed. If anyone is interested please let him know as soon as possible.
Staff Forum Committee Reports:
Resource & Environment
A draft of the tables and benches proposal has been submitted to Wiley Harris for review. Hope to
have this ready for a vote at the December meeting.
Scholarship
This committee has no new items to report. They should meet soon to discuss how to implement
change to allow for children of retired staff to be eligible for the scholarship.
Human Resources
This committee is in the process of drafting a script and reference guide to begin welcome calls to
New Employees. They are also reviewing the Mentoring Proposal, which was started several years
ago, to see if it may be beneficial to our campus.
Governance
No report.
Old Business:
Resolution in Support of QEP – A draft resolution was approved as submitted with two minor
changes.
New Business:
Staff Mentoring as it relates to the QEP – This proposal is being reviewed by the Human Resource
Division. A similar proposal is being made to the State Staff Forum to be implemented systemwide. The Chancellor stated this proposal could be beneficial to staff morale.
Open Comments:
Meeting adjourned at 9:25 a.m.