Minutes from
UPSA Executive Board Meeting
Thursday, October 10, 2002

Attending:Ê Thelma Simons (president), Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Pam Houston, Donna Hultine (secretary), Kathy Stiers (classified senate), Dan Consolver (treasurer), Mark Nesbitt-Daly, Jill Hummels, Eric Jeppesen

Minutes:

Minutes from the September 12, 2002 Executive Board meeting were approved as submitted.

TreasurerÕs Report:

No news, no new expenditures.

PresidentÕs Report:

SenEx Meeting - Tom Mulinazzi reported the Regents are talking about a Òseamless transfer of courseworkÓ, meaning they believe that all coursework should be transferable within all Regents schools, including community colleges and vo-techs.Ê The Faculty Council of Presidents are trying to convey to them that this will not work, especially with the higher level professional and technical courses.

Simons reported that she has the dates for upcoming Regents meetings if anyone is interested.Ê Mulinazzi, the Faculty Senate president believes staff should be included in these meetings.

The Hall Foundation is raising a million dollars to promote higher education.

The tuition assistance program at Fort Hays State is going forward as pilot program for dependents of faculty members only.Ê Apparently thereÕs a major recruitment issue for Fort Hays.

SenEx has raised concerns about the on-line timetable and faculty members have been printing them out as a matter of personal convenience.Ê Johnson pointed out that with the paper catalog, faculty members could look at several courses at the same time.Ê Students have also voiced a concern because for example it used to be easy to just sit in front of Wescoe and thumb through the paper document.

The KU Faculty Compensation committee is working on a tuition waiver policy here.Ê Simons will sit on this committee.

Provost Meeting - The Provost is encouraging a coordinated approach to talking with legislators across different governance groups.Ê Janet Murgia is to come to Council and SenEx meetings in the next few months to discuss this.Ê Simons has told the Provost that the UPSA group would be happy to testify in front of committees.

Follow-up to an item mentioned last month regarding a Òno transferÓ of salary money rule, Duane Goose agreed not to interpret on a line by line basis but by aggregateÉbut weÕre still not off the hook.

Committees:

Governance and Representation ø Nesbitt-Daly asked for a response to the suggested topics for his meeting with our counterparts at Wichita State.Ê The consensus was that they move forward with their proposed questions.

Professional Development ø Hayden e-mailed her report.Ê She did follow up on the suggestions for speaker's from the last Board meeting:Ê Dennis Saleeby - on humor and managing change - not available this academic year; national speakers on similar topics too expensive. He's very interested in talking to us next year, if/when he returns to campus.

Kathryn Tuttle - History of the University - is available 12/3, 12/10, or 12/11 at 3 pm or noon; the Board decided that December 10^th would be the date and that 3:30 pm would be a better start time.

Kathy Reed confirmed that we cannot use any of our money for food or refreshments, as the funds are 003. If the Board thinks it's worth pursuing, Consolver could approach Lindy Eakin about switching the 003 money with another fund that would allow for a wider range of expenditures. There was some debate about whether we can pay an honorarium to any KU staff to speak to the group. And there are guidelines and limits to paying an outside speaker as well.

Public Relations - Hummels advised that she was working on a press release for the rumor control site but wondered if we knew whether rumors had been posted and answered.Ê We agreed that it would be nice to have some information already on the site before itÕs widely advertised.Ê Hummels says we can promote it in the Oread or possibly with a story in the Journal World.

She will promote our Òlecture seriesÓ once we have speakers and schedules finalized.

University Council Report

The following charges have been forwarded to the Parking Commission

1. Consider changing the expiration date for the annual (and summer) parking permits to the date of the beginning of the Fall semester, from the present expiration date of July 31.

2. Consider shortening the hours of restriction on parking spaces campuswide.

3. Investigate ways to ensure that parking is available during sporting events for persons in the University Community involved with University business such as attending classes or University Theatre productions, doing academic research, and living in residence halls.Ê

Jonathan NgÊ reported that the Tuition Advisory Committee will be meeting with the P&R Committee for discussion on tuition.Ê There is a new calendar web site at KUCalendar.com (the .com because the Union is responsible for the site).

It was pointed out that University Relations also has a calendar link on the main KU page.Ê Johnson and Mary Burg are working on a weekly broadcast e-mail with events from the University Relations calendar.

Students have also been talking about the possibility of on-line voting.Ê Kaiser explained that you have to be able to sort by type of studentÉthere are many categories an individual student can belong to.

There is also a big push by the students to save KU Info.

Finally, they discussed a proposal from Tim Miller who was upset about the money giveaways at the football game (KU First) being called scholarshipsÉhe said it was more appropriately called a lottery.

Classified Senate Report

Stiers advised that they are again opening up discussion about whether classified employees want to become ÒuniversityÓ employees.Ê They are trying to educate the staff about the options and what each of them means.

Human Resources Report

Faucher talked about the ÒTown HallÓ meetings with the Provost.Ê About 300 people attended the 2 sessions.

She discussed an effort to accept suggestions submitted, possibly through the web.

She also says theyÕre working on a workshop to deal with morale on campusÉthey might use UPSA as a Òguinea pigÓ.

Old Business

Our meeting with Marilu Goodyear and John Louis is scheduled for November 13^th in the Jayhawk Room.Ê The title should be ÒFuture Directions for Telecommunications and Computing at KU".

New Business

Nesbitt-Daly ø wanted to follow up on the ProvostÕs comment that when he goes to Topeka he talks about the unclassified employeesÉNesbitt-Daly wants to find a way to promote UPSA, that we need to increase their understanding about UPSA employeesÉ there was discussion about telling the story of who we are and what we do.Ê It was suggested that we could add to our website the topic ÒWho is UPSA?ÓÊ We also talked about having the unclassified nominations for employee of the month forwarded so that these employees could be featured on the UPSA website.

There was a suggestion to invite Janet Murgia to a meeting and to continue this discussion.

The meeting adjourned at 1:25 pm.