STATE COUNCIL ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Minutes

February 17, 2016

Department of Administration Building

101 E. Wilson Street, Madison, WI

PRESENT:Christopher Zenchenko,SCAA Chair; John Magerus

Via Teleconference: James Parker, Lakshmi Bharadwaj

ABSENT: Yolanda Santos Adams, Roger Pulliam

STAFF: Eileen Hocker, Jeanette Johnson,Eric Barber

Minutes:

Chris Zenchenko recommended the minutes from the previous meeting be confirmed.

Outreach for additional submissions to Diversity Awards(Discussion)

  • Perhaps an invitation could be sent to the Wisconsin Technical Colleges and offer them the opportunity to apply for the Ann Lydecker Award. It was noted that these schools were involved with the Council for the Blind.

SCAA Annual Report(Discussion)

  • It was noted that Chris had a lot of suggestions for the Annual Report. Perhaps they should just focus on one or two items.
  • The Report is stale and needs revising. It gets sent to the leaders of the Senate and Assembly. It was recommended to also be sent to the minority leaders of the Senate and Assembly.
  • The Report could also be used for SCAA outreach if it is made content-rich.
  • It was remarked that the politicians have ignored the Council, and that the focus should rather be on hearing from the Affirmative Action Officers and staying current with them.
  • It was observed that the Report could be used to guide the Council’s discussions with Affirmative Action Officers (AAOs) and the Affirmative Action Advisory Committees (AAACs).
  • There was a big discussion by everyone about keeping the Council relevant to the AAOs.

Governor’s Report

The question was asked if there was a report from other states similar to Wisconsin’s Governor’s Report? Who would look for this report, who would do this? Along with this question was the request to Chris to send out a prioritized list of things he wanted the Council to work on.

Recruitment of New Members to the Council

  • It was recommended that the first priority for the Council be to get new members.
  • There was a discussion of the things needed to get the recruitment letter ready to go out.
  • Jim Parker suggested Stan Davis might be a potential new member.
  • It was suggested that Council members get names of those they’d like to recruit to Chris, and Chris will work with BAA to get these letters out. Also, BAA will keep track of the responses of potential recruits.

DPM / BAA Updates

  • The unit’s new name is the DPM/Bureau of Affirmative Action (BAA).
  • STAR PeopleSoft; BAA’s involvement with STAR: and how involvement with STAR has consumed a large amount of staffs’ time.
  • The New HR Bill that was recently signed by the Governor. May be several implications for BAA. Those will be shared with the Council as soon as they are known.
  • The recruitment activities of BAA staff around the state for SAAIP (Summer Affirmative Action Internship Program).
  • The SAAIP Employment Seminar scheduled for June 2016.

New HR Bill Signed by Governor (Discussion and questions)

  • How will the new HR bill affect Affirmative Action?
  • Jeanette Johnson announced to the Council she was assured BAA would be used as a tool to help implement the new bill.
  • What HR functions will remain at the agencies and what functions will migrate over to DPM?

Diversity Awards Discussion

  1. Honors Publication: Update with 2015 winners’ photos and information. Send this out with call for submissions for 2016 Awards. Publication will include winners from the last five years only. BAA will update the Publication.
  1. Tentative Dates:

-Date of Awards Ceremony = end of October 2016 (BAA to contact Capitol and reserve a date).

-Meeting of Council to review Award Submissions = September 8th

-Deadline for Award Submissions = August 19th

-Call for Award Submissions = last week of April ??

  1. Technical Colleges:

It was proposed to send Wisconsin’s Technical Colleges introductory information about the Awards and invite them to submit. There are (16) Technical Colleges. Chris will get the names of specific contacts at these colleges to BAA.

ACTION ITEMS:

  1. Chris will send to all the Council members a prioritized list of things to work on.
  2. Council members will send to Chris the names of people they’d like to see recruited as new members.
  3. Chris will send these names to Eileen (BAA) to send out using the recruitment letter.
  4. Eileen (BAA) will keep track of the responses of potential new recruits.
  5. Eileen (BAA) will update the Honors Publication.
  6. Eileen (BAA) will send out the Honors Publication along with the Call to Submission for the 2016 Awards.
  7. Eileen (BAA) will contact the Wisconsin State Capitol to reserve a date for the Awards Ceremony.
  8. Chris will send to BAA the specific names and contact information from technical colleges of those who should receive information about the Diversity Awards.
  9. Eileen (BAA) will send the Diversity Award information to the technical colleges.
  10. Council members will develop an agenda item to present at the AAO meeting (next one after March 7th meeting) where an invitation will be issued to join SCAA.

**Next Council meeting date**

April 21, 2016.

Today’s meeting was adjourned at approximately 2:15 pm.

SCAA minutes-February 17, 2016