Staff Senate 2013-2014 Staff Senate Minutes Wednesday, March 12, 2014-9:00 AM, Billingsly Boardroom 2013/2014 Executive Committee Alicia Hughes President Robert Frossard President Elect Patty Hart Secretary Members Present: Dianna Baker, Nicole Brown, Elisa Bryant, Karesa Burr, Josh Doak, Gary Edwards, Melanie Epperson, Robert Frossard, Patty Holder, Alicia Hughes, Aaron Lewis, Shavonne McCoy, Tonya Nickle, Lauren Powell, and Nancy Rainey. Member(s) Absent / Excused: Heather Arnold Determination of Quorum: Fifteen of Sixteen active members present at the beginning of the meeting, quorum established. Call to Order: A. Hughes called the meeting to order at 9:00 AM. Approval of Minutes: N. Rainey made a motion to approve the minutes; A. Lewis seconded the motion. The motion was approved. Administrative/Special Guest Comments: Ted Easley with the American Cancer Society discussed Relay for Life. Relay for Life is excited to be coming back to MSSU. Relay for Life is a volunteer program in support of cancer issues and in support of the American Cancer Society mission of eliminating cancer. The American Cancer Society has a goal of eliminate cancer before the end of this century. The research being done thanks to all the Relay for Life teams across the country and advocacy groups by making good things happen is what is helping meet this goal. Committee Reports: A. Hughes called for Staff Senate committee reports: 1 Communications Committee E. Bryant stated the Communications Committee will meet after Staff Senate. An email was sent out after February s Staff Senate meeting informing staff of what was discussed. E. Bryant stated that the Foundation has started a Benevolence Fund. The Foundation does not have it in their charted to be able to put money into the fund, but it is set up so people can donate to the fund. The process to apply for the Benevolence Fund is still being discussed. It will probably take a year to get everything established and able to help someone who needs it. 2 Elections Committee did not meet. J. Doak announced that Southern Service Champ nominations for this quarter are due at the end of March. 3 Executive Committee A. Hughes reported that the Shared Sick Leave Proposal taken to President s Council has not been approved. There is still discussion going on and there is no consensus at this point. There is more information to come on this matter soon. 4 Legislative Oversight Committee did not meet.
5 Staff Welfare Committee S. McCoy presented the Community Service Leave Proposal. This proposal will give full-time employees 40 hours and part-time employees 20 hours of leave to participate in community service. This is similar to what was available after the tornado in 2011. Could there be any negative that could come from this? The only thing that the committee could find that may be negative is if you worked for a smaller office on campus and weren t able to take the time they wanted off for community service depending on what was going on in their office at the time. This proposal makes it where you have to have your supervisor s approval to take off to participate in the community service project. However, this doesn t mean staff members in smaller offices across campus won t be able to participate. o Staff in smaller offices can still participate in community service from their offices as well. Project Stay sponsors food drives, Lafayette House, Watered Gardens, etc. The students even enjoy helping. Could MSSU designate two or three different community service events throughout the year to have staff participate in? This could to help keep people from taking advantage of using community service leave when they aren t actually participating in community service. o To receive the community service leave the staff member would have to bring back a signed document from the community service leader/supervisor stating that they did participate in the community service event. Would there be a blanket approval form or would every supervisor have to make their own? o There would be a blanket approval form to be used by everyone on campus to keep it consistent across campus. o It was discussed that after the tornado HR used red timesheets to have staff list community service or tornado related time on so it wasn t on the regular time sheet. This could possibly be established again. This would allow the community service hours to recorded and then at the end of the year MSSU could report that staff members participated in X number of hours in community service. It was discussed that 40 hours for full-time employees is not that much time in a year to volunteer for community service. If you divide it up into twelve months it is only a few hours a month which isn t that much if you do a little community service each month. What is defined as voluntary service? This is very broad. It was discussed that the policy was left more broad and it would be up to your supervisor approve it or not. If you just went with a nonprofit, not all organizations are registered as non-profit so that would limit some opportunities. It was suggested that the proposal be restricted to volunteering with non-profit organizations. The University could make a list of approved community service events for someone to participate in because there are service events that won t benefit our community. o It was discussed how this would restrict employees on being able to volunteer if a disaster were to hit somewhere else in the U.S. There could be a statement added that if there is a coordinated event to help another community that these hours can be used for the trip to pay it forward. Would this lead to an amendment to the staff handbook. Will new employees would know that this is available to them. It was discussed that the policy would be sent to all current employees and new hires would be informed about the opportunity as well. It was decided that the proposal be sent out via email for the Staff Senate to tweak on and then bring it to an electronic vote or vote on it next month. We will also present it to HR before the vote. A. Hughes called for campus committee reports: 1 Administrative Council did not meet. 2 Appreciation Committee did not meet. 3 Budget Advisory Council did not meet.
4 Diversity Committee Staff Senate representative not present to discuss. 5 Faculty Senate Dr. Talavara reported that Dr. Dworkin that there will be a faculty survey soon. There was a report from Dr. Marble on Senate Bill 492. Right now it looks like there will be only a 2% or less increase in funding to colleges. This may lead the University to look at an increase in tuition. The Senate Bill is looking at establishing performance measures to classify the higher education institutions for funding. Arabic and Russian language courses have been dropped as languages at MSSU. Presidential Search Committee is working through a slow process. This may lead to a problem since Dr. Marble s appointment is up in June and a new President will probably not be selected until November. The Faculty Senate has established a Domestic Partner subcommittee to look at changing our insurance policy to cover domestic partners, please contact Dr. Richard Laird for questions or comments. 6 Financial Stability Committee A. Lewis stated that Dr. Marble had the committee members read The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack. This is a book about a manufacturing company in Springfield, MO about his business model. Dr. Marble would like to follow a similar business model such as having an open book policy. This is not a higher education institution. It is a successful manufacturing company. There is a lunch meeting scheduled to meet with members from the manufacturing company and they are really interested in seeing how this business model can help higher education institutions. Maybe this company can help us find a new budget model to increase revenue and decrease expenses to be more stable. Senate Bill 492 was discussed and how MSSU won t be getting as much funding from the state. The University is going to be on the hook for how much money we raise, whether it be an increase in enrollment or increase in tuition. The idea is with open book management is to find a goal we can all know of and reach. No matter what we do because of Senate Bill 492 and our local legislatures how we work as an institution is going to change. The way we get our funding is going to change so we are going to have to stay on the top of the curve. 7 Presidential Search Committee A. Hughes reported that the Board of Governors Executive Committee approved the finalized job description for the President. The job advertisement will be placed within the next week. The RFP for the search firm says they will do a background check, that is even more in depth than what HR does, for the President and then in the event that we have a failed search or a search where we are not yielding any good applicants then we would look at going back to the search firm to let them conduct a search. This should not happen, with the way it is being advertised we should have a good pool of candidates. 8 Student Senate no representative present. K. Burr stated that Athletics presented the ROAR Proposal to Student Senate. This would charge students a fee each semester to help with the student experience at athletic events and part of the fee collected would be used how the students wanted to use it. Turfing the soccer fields for intermural games is one of the big priorities. MSSU is one of the few schools in our conference that does not currently have this fee. Old Business: 1 Southern Service Champ and Superior Service Award Nomination Proposal J. Doak discussed the proposal that nominations form the Southern Service Champ and Superior Service Awards be given to the person nominated without the name of the nominator. The proposal was taken to the chair of the Superior Service Award chair, Debbie Dutch-Kelley, and she shared some concerns. The nominations wouldn t be able to be sent out until at the end of January or beginning of February. Some of the nominations lack quality and tangible inputs; some are just someone s name as the nomination. There is a fear of backlash. There is also significant number of nominations which will take a lot of time as well. After discussion, it was decided to change the proposal to state that each person nominated be sent a certificate stating that they were nominated. The Appreciation Committee will be sent a list of
names for the people nominated for the Superior Service Award and they will send the certificate. The Elections Committee will send out the Southern Service Champ Award certificate. 1 Relay for Life M. Epperson explained that Relay for Life is an overnight event to raise money for cancer research. Generally, members of the team take turns walking at different times or you can walk all night. After discussion it was decided that Staff Senate will contact Penny Richeson to see about what the MSSU Relay for Life team needs. New Business: 1 Presidential Council Member Present at Meetings N. Brown asked about having a representative from President s Council (PC) present at Staff Senate meetings. It was noted that Rob Yust, the Staff Senate representative from PC has always stated if we would like them to attend to let them know and they will be here. In the past there has been a concern that people won t be as open with discussion in the meetings if a member from PC were present. J. Doak made a motion was made to have a representative from President s Council attend all Staff Senate meetings to give a report, answer any questions, and then if not needed for any other discussions, the representative will be able to be released after their report. N. Brown seconded the motion. By majority vote the motion was passed. 2 Pictures on the Website E. Bryant reported that she talked with Cassie Mathes from University Marketing and Relations about having all staff member pictures taken for the website and emails. She said that Curtis would have to be scheduled for about an hour a day and schedule each department for a specific day and time. The time frame for this would be during the fall semester. Anonymous Comments Staff Senate Comment Form Received 2/20/2014 9:57 AM Comments or suggestions: Dear Staff Senate, Recently Neosho School District announced their new school schedule of 1/2 Fridays to allow the teachers more time for development. Has MSSU every considered going to 1/2 day Fridays or a permanent 4 day work week with earlier arrival times like we operate in the summer and classes only offered Monday thru Thurs.? This may draw more students if they knew we operated on a 4 day work and school schedule/. Not to mention the morale this would give a lot of the faculty and staff. This could work very well, Just a thought to pass along. A. Hughes stated that this comment was taken to President s Council. They did not say it was an absolute no, but it would take significant consideration because course schedules would have to be completely changed. This would take quite a while and a lot of work to make feasible. o There was discussion about how this would make courses during the day run later in the afternoon which most students do not want. If the campus is closed on Fridays year round or even closed early then this would affect students wanting to visit campus for a tour. o Jim Sayles suggested that a flexible work schedule for staff members may be more feasible and work better. Staff Senate Comment Form Received 3/11/2014 7:27 AM Comments or suggestions: I believe that your service champ award is much more about who you know that what job you do. There our several workers on campus that do their job and go above and beyond what it is excepted but they don't ever seem to be picked it's not because they not nominated. There is several departments that have them but yet they go unnoticed so why bother nominating someone. I think your process needs help! Have a nice day J. Doak stated that there have been awards given to both people that have been not well known and well known. This is not a political process. There are Staff Senate and non-staff Senate members on the committee. The number of nominations varies from quarter to quarter. The way the process is done this year is different. The policy was changed last year to where the top three nominations will receive the Superior Service Award instead of one winner from each job classification.
Comments and Announcements/Guest Input Jim Sayles asked what ever became of the Staff Survey that was being worked on last semester. A. Lewis discussed that it was taken to President s Council who thought it was too long and needed to be reworked, so it was put on hold. A. Hughes then discussed that the Staff Senate Executive Committee and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee had a meeting and discussed having a joint faculty/staff survey maybe in the fall. Jim Sayles stated that the results from this survey need to be ready for when we have a new President so they can see what staff feels is working or what needs to be changed. A. Hughes stated that any staff can email her or bring by a comment or a concern that staff has so she can take it to the Presidential Search Committee. Tina Tracey asked how people are nominated to sub committees if you are not on Staff Senate. A. Hughes stated that sub committees members from Staff Senate are decided in the July meeting when the new members join. If there are any non-staff Senate positions open at this time then the subcommittee members would meet and look for someone who seems to want to be involved. If someone is interested to join a specific committee they can contact the chair or a committee member and let them know. There is a list of all Staff Senate subcommittees and their members listed on the Staff Senate website (www.mssu.edu/staff-senate). Adjournment: J. Doak made a motion to adjourn. E. Bryant seconded the motion. The motion was approved and the meeting was adjourned. Next Meeting: Wednesday, April 9, 2014 in Billingsly Board Room Respectfully submitted by: Patty Holder