Classified Senate Meeting Minutes (2/13/13)

Classified Senate Meeting Minutes (2/13/13)

Classified Senate Meeting Minutes

February 13, 2013

Orchard Room

Opening: The Classified Senate meeting was called to order at 1:35 p.m. on February 13, 2013.

Present: Shevonna Blackshire, Shelly Charron, Chou Chasengnou, Breanne Holland, Alma Mejia, Eva Rhodes, April Robinson, Mary Thao

I.  Welcome/Greetings

1.  Shevonna welcomed the attendees and announced that she would be conducting most of the meeting this afternoon.

II.  Approval of December 12, 2012 Meeting Minutes

1.  The minutes will be approved at the next meeting

III.  Reports

1.  Classified Senate President

a. Breanne’s announcements can be found throughout these minutes.

2.  Classified Area Representatives

a. Shelly had no area update but discussed what went on in the Distance Education and Information Technology Shared Governance committee meeting (see below).

b. Alma reported that there has been a lot of talk in the Library department about the way that staff members from the Childcare department have been transferred to other areas. The process has been viewed negatively by permanent staff. Most feel that the candidates are not being screened properly. Alma said that she has discussed her concerns with H.R. and was told that they were placing the staff in Clerk I or II positions. She was also told that the staff members were being trained in the most common software, but the skills are not apparent. Alma pointed out that the staff stay for six months (a semester), get evaluated and then either remain in the position or move elsewhere. Lastly, Alma reported that she’s brought the matter to the attention of the Union and was told that they would look into it.

c. Mary announced that Parrish Geary is the new Interim Counseling Supervisor.

d. Chou reported that Kim Galloway’s last day was Friday, February 8th.

3.  Shared Governance Committee Reports

a. Shelly reported that the Distance Education and Information Technology Committee discussed the conversion of students from iMail to gMail. As of February 5th, 19,562 students had made the conversion in the District. If any students have “lost” their emails by not clicking Copy All Emails when making the conversion, they can be directed to the IT department. Shelly also mentioned that if a student has more than 1,000 emails, they won’t be able to convert to gMail until they delete some of them. She advised that there is a good FAQ page on the website. She also mentioned that the gMail program won’t move folders over intact. In other committee news, they are moving forward with updating the Master plan while Desire2Learn won’t be updated until the fall.

4.  Updates to Strategize/Plan Department Recognitions

a. Shevonna mentioned that we have asked for $2,000 in our budget proposal for the department recognition project. We are still waiting to hear if the proposal will be approved.

b. Breanne will check with Maricela, who is on the PD committee, to find out if the proposal has been reviewed yet.

5.  Classified Staff Newsletter

a. We will need to distribute two surveys for the department recognition project; one to the departments being recognized to gather information for the newsletter and one for after the recognition to gauge its success. Both of the surveys have to be developed and in place before going forward.

b. Breanne confirmed that our newsletter doesn’t have to be cleared by Kristie West or anyone else.

c. Breanne also stated that since we are still waiting on approval, the newsletter may have to be condensed and include more than one department.

6.  Strategize/Organize Planning Committee for Professional Development (PD) Day

a. Shevonna told the area reps that the senate had an earlier meeting to discuss updates regarding the Professional Development Day. There will be no district-wide retreat this year, so we’ll have to plan one for the CRC campus alone. We will be using the information obtained from the survey sent out to all staff to develop an agenda for the day.

b. The district-wide retreat will be scheduled for 2014.

c. A call for volunteers will need to go out to plan for our PD Day and the district-wide one next year.

d. The consensus among the Senate is that Spring Break is too soon to hold PD Day. Other alternative times are the breaks between spring and summer semester and summer/fall. A question that arose is: do we want to conduct two sessions (am and pm) to try to accommodate as many schedules as possible.

e. Breanne spoke with Debbie Travis about having the Managers hand “permission slips” to attend the PD Day to their staff as a way to encourage more of them to participate. Debbie liked the idea.

7.  Fundraising

a. Breanne mentioned that all we have available right now is $100.00, so more funds need to be raised for the senate to be able to accomplish some of our goals. We need to look at holding multiple events.

b. Any fundraising activities must include faculty as well as staff, but not students.

c. A fundraising committee made up of Shelly, Alma, April and Breanne was formed to come up with a plan. Alma will be the point person.

d. Here are some of the fundraising ideas that were put forth during the meeting:

1.  While we can’t sell raffle tickets on the campus, we can sell some other item and include a raffle ticket in the price.

2.  April mentioned that new Apple computers were installed in the Winn Center. Alma will give Breanne the name of the Apple computer vendor the college uses to ask if they would be willing to donate perhaps an iPad or some other item for a drawing.

3.  Alma suggested a Recycle saie and will check with Grace Corpuz and Ken Cooper about holding such an event. Breanne suggested that the raffle to be the first event we tackle.

4.  We can also approach local vendors and merchants for donations like coupons for free dinners, etc.

8.  Senate Goals

a. Breanne acknowledged that it feels like we’re in a holding pattern right now in terms of accomplishing the goals that we set forth at the beginning of the academic year. She said that we need to revisit and review our goals and make adjustments.

9.  Bylaws

a. The bylaws as written restrict participation due to term limits. Breanne suggested that we don’t have enough people involved to place such restrictions. She said that we need to review the bylaws to see if the term limits can be expanded. She wants everyone to review the bylaws by the next senate meeting in March.

10.  Miscellaneous Items

a. Breanne announced that a 4th rep is still needed for the state CLA and there is no representative for Los Rios. Breanne will speak with Monica Souza next week from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. in the PCR about the program, if anyone is interested. The requirements to become a rep are on their website.

b. Breanne implored the senate and area reps to let her know of any educational or other achievements by Classified staff that can be passed on to Kristie West for the CRC Insider.

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