Minutes from
UPSA Executive Board Meeting
Thursday, September 11, 2003

 

Attending:  Pam Houston (president),  Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, John Augusto, Ola Faucher, Mark Nesbitt-Daly, Angie Johnson, Jason O'Connor, Dan Consolver,  Jill Hummels, Kathy Stiers and Donna Hultine (secretary)

Minutes: 
Minutes from the July 10, 2003 Executive Board meeting were approved as amended.  Under the Human Resources Report, there is a clarification that "our exceptional merit pay was due to the tuition increase

Treasurer's Report:
Hummert was not present however he, Consolver and Houston have a meeting scheduled to look at the UPSA budget.

President's Report :
Houston provided a new committee assignment list. Augusto updated his phone number to 4-6161.  J. Johnson noted that we have good widespread representation on these committees.

SenEx - Committee charges have been finalized.  Houston would like to set up some kind of system of feedback from these committees back to the UPSA board.  SenEx will now meet once a semester with the Chancellor and more frequently with the Provost.  Next week the UPSA president, Classified Senate president, SenEx chair and University Council chair will meet with the Provost and then he will meet with SenEx as a whole.  Houston advised that if we had issues we wanted forwarded to the Provost to let her know.

Committees:
Governance and Representation - Nesbitt-Daly reported that he had two possible additions to the committee, someone from the research sector and Jonathan Perkins from Ermal Garinger.  Houston and Nesbitt-Daly met to set some goals for the committee.  One goal is to become more representative like the group at Wichita State called the Unclassified Professional Senate.  The name "senate"would be comparable to other bodies on campus.  It would raise awareness among our ranks and help us to be more representative.  J. Johnson suggested that we give charges to all of our committees.  Nesbitt-Daly wants to have a "post mortem" on UPSA members visit to the Legislature and to meet with Janet Murguia to get the ball rolling again and to have her apprise us of issues they are working on.  He advised that Wichita State uses a web site to highlight things going on in Topeka and thought it would be good if Murguia could provide this kind of information to key people.  J. Johnson thought it would be good if she could provide regular reports from Topeka to Presidents of all governance groups so we can maintain a united front.  If Murguia is not to be our contact to the Legislature it would be good if she could appoint one to us.

Houston advised that the president of the graduate student professional organization, James Owen wants to talk to us about our experience in Topeka.  Augusto mentioned that there will be a graduate student research day where KU students and K-State students participate in a poster session

We all agreed to pursue the model of Wichita State's unclassified group.

Professional Development - John Augusto chairs this committee.  Members are Molly Coplen, Ann Ermey and Julie Loats.  J. Johnson offered to draft others.  Augusto held a meeting on August 22^nd.  They decided to pursue the "mind/body"thing.  One suggestion was go have Diane Del Buono conduct a yoga clinic to help with day to day stress.  Augusto knows a part time comedian who might do a segment on office humor, in conjunction with a brown bag lunch, perhaps in the pre-holiday rush after Thanksgiving.  In the spring they might have HSES come to help people struggling with motivation to get fit.  Also in the spring Augusto suggested a session to showcase member's hobbies.

Public Relations - once dates and topics are finalized, Hummels will inform the Oread and prepare an e-mail for the distribution list.  She thought that a poster for the hobby day would be good and it would be cheap.  She also asked people to think about the UPSA brochure and whether we wanted to update it.

Human Resources Report:
Faucher advised that EEO, Career and Employment Services and Human Resources have invested in a new software called People Admin.  This will offer new web based services including applicant tracking and electronic resumes.

Faucher advised that the new health insurance contracts will have higher premiums and deductibles with fewer services and less coverage.  The open enrollment period is the month of October and it goes into effect January 1.

With a new governor, Faucher wants us to be aware of a trend toward a general decreasing of bureaucracy in Topeka.   There is more decentralization to other areas and fewer department heads.

Faucher advised that we do not have a formal wellness program on campus but that she meets with a group including Carol Seager from Watkins Health Center and Mary Chappell from Rec. Services to shepherd general wellness efforts Æ this is how the campus Weight Watchers program and the health page in the HR newsletter came about.  If we do some programming for a general meeting in the wellness area, they can help coordinate it.

Faucher advised the paper pay stubs will be going away soon.  Pay stubs will be viewable electronically.  The KU web site will allow printing of stubs for an entire department or for an individual.

University Council:
J. Johnson advised that the Provost did a presentation about how tuition increases were allocated and how tuition enhancement will be spent over the next three years.  Council expressed a lot of interest.  There was a lot of unhappiness because of the timing of the tuition increase happened late.  We got a copy of the Provost's letter explaining merit increases for this year.  Some departments didn't follow the Provost's guidelines for assigning exceptional merit.  We need to look at what was done last year in preparation for next year to see how other departments handled it.  Houston mentioned that she sent a letter to Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett asking for the breakdown of the new positions that were created from tuition enhancement dollars. Classified Senate

Stiers reported that the Alternatives to Civil Service surveys got a good response.  It sounds like most respondents to want some kind of change.  There will be more town hall meetings on this topic and another vote to decide whether to continue to pursue this change.  J. Johnson commended the classified leadership for continuing with this effort.  Stiers said that 72% of respondents were positive about this direction.

Old Business:
Houston asked for suggestions for future UPSA meetings. Suggestions were made to invite the Provost, to have someone talk about KU First, to invite legislators to talk about their vision for higher education.

Thelma Simons is continuing to update and maintain the UPSA Web site

New Business:
~Lew Perkins the new Athletic Director will be meeting with SenEx on September 16.

~The Board of Regents will have a meeting with SenEx on October 14.

~Houston advised that CLAS has a College Assembly that meets regularly and only 6 or 7 people out of a possible 600 or 700 show up.  They are revamping the make up of the assembly.  Houston was going to look into getting UPSA representation on this body.

~J. Johnson asked what we would like to ask the Board of Regents.  She was concerned that if we do not get a tuition increase again next year we will be dead in the water.  We should assemble figures about how many more students were able to get financial aid, and how many new teachers as a result of the increase.

~We would also be interested in knowing how the tuition waiver pilot program went at Ft. Hays.

Adjourned at 1:35 p.m.