The Meeting Was Called to Order at 3:05 PM by Chairperson Harriette Huggins

The meeting was called to order at 3:05 PM by Chairperson Harriette Huggins.

The Assembly roll was called by the Secretary. Assembly members who were not in attendance: Barnese Adair-Walker, Keith Camp, Amy Douglas, Lisa Fleming, Kale Hill (work commitment), Julie Nolan, and Melvin Smith.

The minutes from the 10/20/05A&P Assembly meetingwere approved.

Comments from the Chair

A special guest was recognized: Jenny Swaim, Staff Chair.

Since our last meeting the leadership of A&P Assembly has represented you at the following meetings:

October 24, the SGA Senate voted in favor of the bill to add an A&P Assembly representative to the Student Academic Grievance Committee. It will be presented to the University Senate, probably in January.

October 28, at the called meeting of the Board of Trustees, Dr. John Kuehnle of Korn-Ferry International, presented the report of 18 findings describing a level of distrust and discord within the University. He recommended the BoT retain a nationally recognized consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the state of the university; the report and its recommendations should be made public upon submission, and that the BoT consider the recommendations for implementation as soon as possible.

November 8,at the University Senate President Richardson outlined issues for upcoming Board meetings. Regarding the Strategic Planning process, he anticipated hiring a consultant to do external review by the end of the month. Harriette asked about A&P and Staff representation and Dr. Richardson indicated all constituent would continue to be part of the process.

November 18, at the Board of Trustees meeting Dr. Larry Fisher was hired to lead a team to conduct an institutional analysis and hope to have a report by mid-January. He noted his report would be candid and direct, and that it should be made public. University Senate passed a recommendation to hire an Ombudsperson for AU and Don Large took responsibility for the process having stopped. John Heilman agreed that there was strong support, but said that ultimately all resolutions from the Senate are recommendations to the president. He said there was not support for this position.

December 1, Drew Burgering and Harriette Huggins attended a meeting with leadership of the governance groups, Provost, Exec V-P, University attorney, AAEOO; Employee Relations, and Lynne Hammond. Lin Enlow presented a program on conflict management which is outside any grievance policy or procedure. It does not take the place of those policies or of mediation through Human Resources. It is a starting point, a resource facilitator, and proactive provider of education to avoid potential problems.

Dates to remember:

Dec. 13, 2005 – “Spectrum of Conflict Management” program, 9 – 11 am, location TBA

Jan. 2006 – A&P special meeting to prepare for upcoming elections, TBA

Feb. 2006 – A&P Assembly – officer elections

Action Items

A motion was on the floor to replace the Grievance Policy in the A&P Constitution with the proposed Grievance Policy that has been posted on the A&P web site for the past month. The floor was opened for discussion:

Cara Mia Pugh indicated that this revised policy was a good start but that the policy should not have references to staff. It should be specific to A&P.

Drew Burgering offered insight as to why there should be one policy for both groups: 1) majority of grievances filed are staff against A&P. A combined policy affords A&P employee in that situation some representation. Now, they have none. 2) Most grievances initiated by A&P are against another A&P employee and most initiated by Staff are against A&P. No grievances have ever been filed by faculty against A&P. 3) Staff and A&P have the same reporting lines so without a common policy there could be legal complications with a grievance filed. 4) The Assembly’s role is as an advisor to the President. It is not our role to make policy.

Marianne McKenzie expressed concern that there was no specific provision addressing an A&P grievance against a faculty member.

Pat Deery stated that regardless of who is being grieved against, any grievance filed by an A&P employee will be processed by the A&P Grievance Policy.

Harriette Huggins read the FAQ currently posted on the Web: “Any grievance filed by an A&P employee will be processed according to the A&P Grievance Procedure. This includes situations where an A&P employee files a grievance against a faculty member.
According to the Faculty Grievance Procedure a faculty member can only file a grievance against “…administrators or other members of the faculty.” In the unlikely event such a grievance is filed against an A&P employee, the Faculty Grievance Procedure would be utilized.”

Marianne still expressed concern that it doesn’t specifically say that the A&P policy is applied if the grievance is against a faculty member.

Cindy Selman noted that currently A&P employees are not represented in any way if a Staff person initiates a grievance against them. This proposed policy affords us that protection. The President requested one grievance policy for both Staff and A&P and that is what this proposed policy provides. Staff and A&P developed this policy together.

Marianne asks who monitors or certifies the number of days allowed for each step in the proposed policy.

Cindy replied that the form (which is new in the proposed policy) has the date the grievance begins on it, HR will date stamp the form when they receive it and the date will be recorded by the department when it is received there. E-mail and fax will make the notification processes faster and will provide records that track the dates – all improvements over the current process where there is no official monitoring.

Jenny Swain remarked that this proposed policy simplifies the procedure. It will take about ½ as long to complete a grievance under the proposed policy as it does now. The proposed policy is better.

Todd Storey asked where in the proposed policy it states that the Grievance Policy of the person filing the grievance will be used.

Pat Deery stated that is standard practice, employee law, so does not have to be implicitly stated in the policy to be so.

Todd followed up by asking if we can remove references to Staff.

Cara Mia asked if we can change this policy later if we approve it today.

Harriette stated that this proposed policy has already been forwarded to the Administration when the Staff Council approved it. It is likely to be endorsed by the President as policy regardless of our approval. Yes, we can change the policy later if we follow the Constitutional requirements of 30 days advanced notice prior to a ¾ vote for approval by the entire A&P membership. We can change it but it is not a quick or simple process to do so.

Jenny Swaim reminded everyone that this is not an A&P policy or a Staff policy – it is a University policy.

Robert Gottesman remarked that if the Administration is going to change the policy regardless of our approval we need to ask ourselves as a group “who are we” and “are there any differences between A&P and Staff?” A&P Assembly may no longer serve a purpose and it may be most practical to dissolve it and have one governance group for both. He accused the Assembly of changing the Constitution without notification or proper procedure by removing the need for Board of Trustee approval to changes.

Cathy Ramey stated that was untrue. As previously stated, the Board of Trustees elected to make that change when we last submitted our Constitution for their approval after more than a year of Constitutional Reform (Tony’s committee). The Board approved our Constitutional changes and made one of their own - to empower the President to approve future changes on their behalf. The Assembly did not request nor facilitate this change.

A vote on the motion was taken by ballot. The vote was 26 yes and 11 no. This motion was supported by a simple majority but because a ¾ majority is required for any Constitutional change, the motion failed.

Harriette noted that today’s vote not withstanding, it is likely the Administration will approve the proposed policy. If so, that becomes the official A&P Grievance Policy regardless of what is in our Constitution.

Information

The next A&P Assembly meeting is Feb. 9 for the election of officers. The Nominating Committee is drawing up a slate and Assembly members will be notified of candidates and provided with brief Bios by Jan. 15. Nominations may be made from the floor on Feb. 9 as well. Election shall be by secret ballot of the Assembly members with a majority of the votes cast required for election. If a majority is not received on the first ballot, a runoff election will be held immediately between the two candidates garnering the largest number of votes. The newly elected officers shall take office April 1 of the year elected.

Public Forum

The floor was opened for discussion on any topic in accordance with procedurespreviously outlined for the Public Forum.

Cara Mia urged the Assembly to examine our nomination process and to revisit the issue of redistricting for proportional Assembly member representation to be sure it is Constitutional.

Drew Burgering stated that this Assembly has done a great deal of good for the membership and accusations that we have not acted in the group’s best interest areuntrue and do a disservice to the organization.

Pat Deery expressed disappointment at today’s vote. Many people worked tireless on this policy and their hard work is appreciated. This group’s failure to approve the proposed Grievance Policy was a serious mistake and their reasoning was flawed. A&P and staff policies should differ from Faculty’s and it is logical to have a joint policy with the staff. Faculty members have “property rights” in their employment which is another reason why they have separate policies. Historically, A&P was formed from staff and non-tenured faculty, exempt employees who have no property rights in employment. There has never been any need to “protect” the Grievance Policy from Human Resources by keeping it in the Constitution and to do so is inappropriate. We have had the chance to participate in the formulation of a new Grievance Policy that is an improvement over the existing one. The vote today does a disservice to our A&P group and places the administration in a very difficult position.

Tony Ventimiglia asked those who voted against the proposed policywe are so against aligning ourselves with Staff. He does not want to be part of group with those kinds of elitist attitudes. It is counterproductive since one of the goals of this year’s Assembly was to increase cohesion between all employee groups. Harriette has done a great job to that end. A&P employees should participate in that process.

Cara Mia stated that there hasn’t been enough participation by A&P employees. The Assembly is doing more now and we need to be monitoring them.

Robert Gottesman remarked that the University is different now and maybe it is time for a change. The A&P Assembly should ask ourselves is we are accomplishing enough as an employee group to justify our existence.

This meeting was adjourned by the Chair at 4:20 pm.

Respectfully submitted by

Cathy Ramey, Secretary, A&P Assembly

Unapproved MinutesA&P Assembly12/01/2005

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