April Meeting Minutes

April 13, 2016

Location: Brantly Hall/Corbin

Welcome & Call to Order

PresidentZellmer-Cuaresma called the meeting to order at 10:04am.

Roll Call

Attendees: Luke Alford, Andi Armstrong, David Crowley,Kris Csorosz, Karin Fried,Mark Fritch, Rozlyn Haley,Rochelle Krahn,Carlie Magill, Maria Mangold, Denise May, Maggie McCarthy, Shaunagh McGoldrick, Edi Stan, Renee Valley, Sarah Wade, Angela Weisenburger, Kellyn Younggren, Jennifer Zellmer-Cuaresma, Judy Wellert (Administrative Associate)

Absent: Cindy Ferguson, Kiley Gage, Jefferson Heath,

Excused:Matthew Cragwick, Grace Gardner, Candy Patrick, Gloria Phillip, Caitlin Sager

Quorum Present

Public Comment – None

UM Minute

1)Senator Valley is retiring and wants to invite all of Staff Senate to the party. She will let everyone know when that is.

2)Judy passed around a promotional piece from Printing and Graphics that recently won an award.

3)Senator Krahn – There is a new study on campus by the GSK group, made up of Chemistry, Pharmacy & Biology. Email Senator Krahn if you are interested. They are studying viruses, like to use human blood vs. ordered blood, and will pay cash for your blood donation. You can do the blood draw at Community and the results are confidential.

Approval of Minutes

Senator Crowley moved to approve, seconded by Senator Stan.March Minutes approved.

Financial statement

1)Senator McCarthy - We will have raised $1700 from the Diploma Dash.Waiting until the end of May to do a lump transfer to the Scholarship fund.Kudos to Senator Krahn for all of her work on this event.

2)Plug for the Giving Campaign –You can donate to anywhere on campus and this is especially important in times of low morale. Donate to where you care about, that’s how we get UM back to where it needs to be. The goal of the campaign is participation (head count), not money count. The code to donate to Staff Senate is 2GW.

Resolutions - None

Reports from Standing Committees

1)University Committees

a)Shared Governance – President Zellmer-Cuaresma - The University is involved in a ‘360 review’ of President Engstrom. 40-50 people are involved from different departments. This happens every 2 years via the Commissioner of Education. Not sure if there are similar reviews for other VPs at the University.

b)University Library Committee –Senator Younggren – Based on FTE reductions as of July 1, the library will lose $345,000. Not sure yet what the percentage reduction will be. The Dean is asking for a flat budget, no inflationary increase. This budgetary reduction will come from collections. Library is going through unit reviews and looking at cutting library hours because it can’t be fully staffed as of July 1. The Library Committee is drafting a resolution against further cuts and will send this to ASUM.

c)CVC – Senator Weisenburger delivered an official Kudos to Senator Krahn for her efforts with the Diploma Dash. Nothing else scheduled for CVC for the rest of the year.

d)Professional Development –

(1)Senator Armstrong – The deadline was today to comment on the new PD website. Feedback will still help! The website will be under the umbrella of Staff Senate, but we’renot sure how we will administer it in the future. Senator Armstrong is meeting tomorrow with Cindy Boies about the Financial Development certificate. Becky Christiaens in Admin. & Finance is enthusiastic about the certificate and volunteered to teach some courses. She is also adamant about the mentoring component and would be interested in seeing resumes of those who complete the certificate so she can hire them. Senator Armstrong also met with Adrianne Donald in the UC to talk about the masters in leadership. Talking about making a complementary LeadershipU program for staff.

(a)President Zellmer-Cuaresma – The Cabinet is in support of these efforts.

(b)Senator Armstrong – Goal is to implement this certificate by the fall.

(c)Senator Fried – The website looks really greatbut FAM is a turnoff to some who are not in it. What about the rest of the University having a mentorship group?

(d)Senator Armstrong - Tried to revive a community of practice, TAG – Technology Associates Group - mostly administrators who wanted to stay apprised of technology changes or opportunities on campus. Senator Armstrong wants to revive mentorship, community of practice groups.

(e)Senator Mangold - CHS has their own sort of admin. group. It would be good to have a list of all these groups and what they do so they can talk to one another and expand beyond departments.

(f)Senator Armstrong – The certificate says you can change mentors so you can have a mentor from different institutions within MUS system.

(2)Senator Haley - Survey overview – Emergent themes were time, support, finances, & enthusiasm.

(a)President Zellmer-Cuaresma - Finances were the most negative part, paying for these PD opportunities is an issue. The majority of responses were more positive though than expected. Many people want to engage in PD but there are still some that feel tapped out with opportunities. Go through the survey, it is enlightening.

(b)Senator Haley - Office coverage is a challenge for PD. Is there an area where we can do something?

(c)Senator Mangold – We should digest this further. Let’s have it on the retreat for July and honor all the work that went into it by actually doing something with it.

(d)Judy will send an email to all of Staff Senate about the next PD meeting - next Tuesday at 12noon in GBB.

(e)President Zellmer-Cuaresma - We will take this summary and 4 themes to the cabinet and indicate that we will take the next 6-8 months to work on how to move forward with this. We’lleventually disseminate to the entire campus.

(f)Seantor Armstrong – Have you ever talked to the cabinet about summer courses for staff?

(g)President Zellmer-Cuaresma – Cindy Boies wasn’t opposed but was not sure what she can do, her hours have been cut. Senator Armstrong will follow up on this as well.

e)Nominations & Elections – Senator May - We have a good group who are interested in joining Staff Senate. Ballots just went out for professional, clerical and technical through email and ballots will go out for others today. 29 people are interested right now and we have space for 1 more (according to categories). We elect officers in June and outgoing senators still go to the June meeting.

New Business

2)Volunteers needed for Graduation. Please contact the Registrar’s Office if interested.

a)Senator Krahn – It would be nice if we could get comp. time for this.

(1)Senator Mangold – They just raised the graduation application fee and late fee, where is that money going?The problem is comp. time comes from departments, how do we do this?

(2)Senator Crowley – There are departments that give overtime for this.

3)Employee Appreciation Day is April 29th from 3-5pm in the UC ballroom. President Zellmer-Cuaresmaneeds 3 volunteers to host the kissing booth. At the booth, you guess the number of Hershey kisses in the bucket. Senators Weisenburger, Krahn & Judy volunteered. Anyone else can join.

Guest Speaker- 11:00 – 11:30 – ASUM President Cody Meixner – Indigenous Peoples’

a)Changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day is something many universities and cities around the country are already doing and something students are pushing for. We have an active and vibrant Native community on campus. President Engstrom requested Lucy France look into legality of changing the day, it all checks out.

b)Senator Mangold – American Indian Heritage Day is also in September. Is there a programming expectation with this change?

(1)Cody Meixner - Unsure what the President wants, but ASUM does want programming. Not sure what that will look like at this point.

(2)Native American Student Council brought this to ASUM.

c)Judy – Do they realize there is already a Native Heritage Day in November?

(1)Cody Meixner – The point of this resolution is to get away from celebrating atrocities committed by Columbus.

d)Senator McCarthy – When moving forward, keep in mind there is an MLK Day committee with a budget. For equality, there should be budget line.

e)Senator Crowley moved to support the resolution. Seconded by Senator Weisenburger. The motion carried unanimously.

  • Judy is out in July, the retreat will be delayed to late July or August.
  • Senator McCarthy – Can continuing senators mentor new senators?
  • Senator Haley – Let’s create a set of questions to guide conversations with new senators.
  • Toastmasters Demo is April 27th at noon in the UC.
  • Senator Weisenburger – Plug for the Alumni Association – This year we’re doing a campus tour walk (50 & 50+ year reunions)

Meeting Adjourned at 11:21am for the Scholarship Presentation.

NEXT MEETING: Wednesday, May 11th, in UC 330/331