Minutes from
UPSA Executive Board Meeting
Thursday, January 9, 2003

Attending:  Thelma Simons (president), Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Donna Hultine (secretary), Kathy Stiers (classified senate), Dan Consolver (treasurer), Jill Hummels, Joe Potts and Linda Fund.

State representative Tom Sloan was our guest.  Sloan is the chair of the Higher Education Committee.  He informed us of a meeting to be held on January 27^th from 3:30-5:00 p.m. where faculty, classified staff and UPSA representatives will be invited to talk to the committee for 15 minutes so that they can become familiar with our issues.  Sloan explained that this was a 17 member committee and that half of the committee were freshman legislators.

His committee will meet the first time on January 15^th and he has plans to make it something it has never been before.  It is his plan to break up this committee into subcommittees to look at vocational programs, community colleges and four year schools in the state and come back with an understanding of what they do.  He would like to have a subcommittee on distance learning and a subcommittee on the economic development value of education.

Johnson mentioned the issue of becoming uncoupled with faculty in salary considerations.  As a practice in the past, we had always been considered together.

Sloan asked for us to produce a sample list of who we are, what kind of education we hold. We should be able to convey that many unclassified staff have the same education as faculty and many actually teach for no extra pay.

Sloan asked us between now and the 27^th to consider what we want the legislators to do about our situation.

Consolver wants to reestablish that we are out here.  Johnson asked if we were to attempt to make our views known to legislators who do not have a Regents institution in their area how we should go about it. How do we get a general higher education agenda forwarded?  Sloan answered that honestly, when he hears from someone in McPherson about taxes, he might not necessarily respond.  He thought it would be easier to reach out through students and their parents in those areas or to our counterparts at other smaller schools.  Potts noted that if it is perceived as a KU/K-State issue, there probably wouldn't be a lot of sympathy.  Kaiser said our relations with students are a major contributor to retention.  Nesbitt-Daly wondered about a name change--we are referred to in the negative so much--unclassified, non-teaching, non-tenured.  He liked Professional Staff.

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

Treasurer's Report: No news, no new expenditures.

President's Report: Joe Sicilian, the chair of the Academic Computing Telecom Committee wants to know why an unclassified representative should be added to their committee.  Simons will respond that we should not be excluded from shared governance, we have knowledge of this campus that they need and that we interface day to day with students.

Committees: 

Governance and Representation: Nesbitt-Daly reports they are" in limbo" with WSU.  They are still trying to arrange a meeting.

Professional Development: Trying to confirm dates for future lectures.

Public Relations: Hummels working on the UPSA brochure that highlights UPSA/student interaction.  She needed to know what kind of paper quality we wanted to use, whether it should be black and white, and what kind of budget we had for it.

University Council Report : No report

Ombudsman Search Committee: They have finalized the position description.  It has been advertised and the first deadline is approaching.

Tuition Enhancement Committee: Has not met.

Classified Senate Report: No Report

Human Resources Report: No Report

The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m.