Minutes from
Unclassified Senate Meeting
Thursday, September 14, 2006

Attendance: John Augusto, Beth Baca, Jennifer Brooks, Angie Claussen, Audrey Coleman, Ronda Consolver, Paul Farran, Allyson Flaster, Ed Foley, Diana Frederick, Megan Gannon, Frederic Gutknecht IV, Danny Kaiser, Noelle Kurth, Paul Liechti, Hannah Love, Angie Loving, Mark Nesbitt-Daly, Jason O'Connor, Mary Ann Rasnak, Heidi Simon, Thelma Simons, Dee Steinle, Susan Teague, Rick Whitmore, Phil Wilke, Maxine Younes

Guest: Roger Heimerman

The meeting was called to order in the Student Recreation Fitness Center at noon by President Jason O'Connor.

Guest Presentation:

Jason introduced Roger Heimerman, Assistant Director Facilities and Membership at the Student Recreation and Fitness Center (SRFC). Roger talked to us about the history and facility information, the staff, and the membership opportunities for Unclassified Staff at the Student Recreation Fitness Center .

Presentation Notes:

History and facility information: Opened fall 2003. Includes 4 gymnasium courts, aerobics studio, cardiovascular equipment, climbing wall, outdoor pursuits equipment checkout area, racquetball and squash courts, resistance training equipment , free weights. They are in the planning stages of a new edition to be complete spring 2008. Hope to expand again and have an indoor pool in 5-7 years. Office hours are M-R 8:00 a.m. ? 8:00 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. ? 6:00 p.m. and weekends 11:00 a.m. ? 5:00 p.m.

Staff

• Mary Chappell, Director ? Recreation Services:
• Jason Krone, Associate Director ? Programs/Sport Club Director
• Contact for reservations and questions regarding the Shenk Sports Complex: Rick Rosenstengle, Associate Director ? Facilities
• Contact for questions regarding equipment check out: Kurt Schooley, Assistant Director ? Sports Programs
• Contact for questions regarding intramurals: Jill Urkoski, Associate Director Fitness and Staff Development
• Contact for questions regarding KU Fit (aerobics) there is a $50 fee to participate in KU Fit
• Personal training is available with each one hour session being $10: Roger Heimerman, Assistant Director Facilities and Membership
• Contact for reservations and questions regarding the Recreation and Fitness Center and membership:  Judy Greenberg, Accounting Specialist/Payroll: Mike Dickey, Assistant Director ? Outdoor Pursuits
• Contact for reservations and questions regarding the Adams Campus or the climbing wall
• The SRFC just recently took over the Adams Campus from HSES: Mike Sinclair, General Maintenance and Senior Repair Technician: Open Position, new position being filled for a Fitness Coordinator

Membership

• If you were a student during fall 1998- summer 2003 you are eligible for free semesters at the SRFC, contact Roger for verification
• Staff are able to use the facility for $20.83 per month or $250 per year
• Spouses of those employees on the Lawrence campus are also eligible for membership at the staff rates
• Staff are eligible for a one week free trial
• You can sign up for pay deductions of 20 pay periods if you apply by late June, they are thinking of going to 26 pay periods
• Need a KU ID in order to use the facility
• Can use the Shenk outdoor facility without being a member
• Intramurals are open to staff and faculty
• For Robinson information call x3385
  Jason thanked Roger for the information. 

General Meeting Notes

The minutes of the June 22, 2006 meeting were approved as submitted.

Brief Standing Reports.

1.)President's Report

Jason O'Connor reported that we each had a nametag that listed the department we represent on campus.

This was done to show the diversity of the Senate. If you have changes please make them on the current nametag.

Senex: Met all summer and Mark Nesbitt-Daly, past president and Jason attended and they worked to make charges for each of the governance committees. The Ombudsman in the past has been a faculty member but Doug Whitman's term is done so now Kellie Harmon is the only one in the office. She is an unclassified staff person and so she will be using faculty and Senex as a resource. NCAA violations and infractions ? there were many academic dishonesty issues and so Senex is looking at how that affects them and how it reflects on the faculty. They have done their research on the University of Baltimore so now we just have to wait and see what the NCAA will say.

Jason and Dennis Constance had their first meeting with the Provost: Jason would like the Senate to let him know what issues should be taken to the Provost in their meetings. Mary Ann Rasnak suggested that he talk with the Provost about the inability to promote within our offices and how you have to get a search waver. Currently there is no way for promotion and we need this to be a healthy marketplace. They discussed the Unclassified Staff turnover rate and Provost Lariviere said that he felt if the staff were leaving for other opportunities within the University that he saw this as a good thing because we are a great training ground and that it is nice to have a strong internal market. Jason mentioned his concern over the people that leave for opportunities at other institutions. Also discussed was the purchase of meals outside the University of Kansas . They discussed how some groups are able to bring in outside food and others cannot and that if private money is being used the food can be catered for things like staff meeting. Lariviere said that we should be buying exclusively from KU. There have not been discussions of penalties for those that do not use KU for food purchase. Another topic of discussion in their meeting was communication and how to improve this across campus.

Jason asked if anyone attended the Faculty/Staff convocation September 7 th as we were still listed at UPSA. Jason will get this changed. Thelma will take the UPSA link off the web site as the group agreed it had been long enough since the change from UPSA to US was made.

2.) Treasurer

•  Angie Loving reported that we have $3,151.53 in our budget. This includes our annual $2, 000 allocation as well as the $1,151,53 that was rolled over to this year from last.

3.) USS report

Maxine Younes reported that they are trying to standardize the merit increase notification across all USS. Right now, some offices do not even notify at all and the other offices are following all different procedures. They would like to have someone explain where the money came from so they would like to come up with a standardized letter with the information. Since USS cannot force the offices to do this, it may have to come from HR.

The received the results of the tuition survey and Maxine passed this around along with a copy from K-State about grants and how they provide tuition assistance to spouses/dependants.

USS is still working on a brochure to explain who they are. Their work group is meeting with Lindy Eakin, Ola Faucher and Linda Fine to define their position.

4.) Student Senate

Hannah Love reported that they are continuing to work on making us a wireless campus. They are looking at where routers need to be placed on Jayhawk Blvd.

They are planning events for Civic Engagement (formerly Civic Literacy) and these are all being done around constitution week. They will have a table on Wescoe Beach with information on voting, advance ballots, etc.

Student Senate has created a task force to work on the cost of textbooks and how to keep these down.

5.) Committee Reports

A.) Governance and Representation

Paul Farran reported that Unclassified Senate Executive Committee approved the survey to go out to all unclassified staff. The purpose of the survey is to determine the needs of the staff, to find out what it is that unclassified staff would like the Unclassified Senate to do for them. Carrie Towns from Institutional Research and Planning is working on the survey for us. Staff will be sent an email asking them to complete the survey during October 2 -13 with a reminder email mid-way. The committee will meet to interpret and publish the results of the survey. Hopefully, we will then be able to focus on the top two ideas. If you want to see a draft of the survey email Paul. The cost of the survey is $1,000. This money helps to pay for the hours that Carrie's staff puts in working on this. Jason asked us to encourage everyone we know across campus to complete the survey as this is information that will go to the administration and influence his discussions with Provost Lariviere. Mark Nesbitt-Daly gave the background on the survey. This started in January when an ad-hoc group formed to put this together and there have been lots of hard work and input contributed to this final product.

The will be scheduled and coordinating our annual visit to Topeka . Paul will be talking with Keith Yehle soon to get this scheduled.

B.) Public Relations

Thelma Simons handed out copies of the brochure that was designed three years ago to show us what her committee will be working to update. A second hand-out with information about a few of the unclassified staff members was another piece used in the visit to Topeka three years ago. This was to show the variety of jobs in unclassified staff and the variety in the board members and to make it seem personal.

She has sent out a meeting request for September 29 th and currently has 7-8 people interested. Mike Krings, the editor of the Oread is on the committee and will be writing an article on Provost Lariviere's meeting with unclassified staff. Robin Bedenbaugh, who works on the University Relations Web support team, is also on the committee. Thelma hopes the committee will be able to do good things with such creative minds on board.

The new numbers for unclassified senate have not been reported yet for this year but last year we had 1,600 and we are growing. USS includes 1,400 employees so unclassified is by far the largest group on campus.

C.) Professional Development

John Augusto reported that a sub-group of this committee met two weeks ago for a jam session/brainstorming. They were addressing the questions ?What is professional development and what opportunities to do have to use?? They discussed what had been done in the past and where to go in the future.

One idea the committee has is to help unclassified staff get to know KU, get to know different facilities on campus and pasts of campus that they would otherwise likely never see. This can help professionally by knowing more about areas where you might have an interest.

John also reported that he wants to continue with some health awareness opportunities similar to those done on humor or yoga in the workplace in the past. He would like to do something for physical health and ways to care for self.

The committee is also going to look at the diverse type of professional development that is needed and how to get those that have been on campus a short time connected with those that have been at KU for longer periods.

Another idea the committee has is to have a volunteer day where staff could participate as a group so that we can work together but not have to give lots of time up to do.

Tuesday October 10 th is when Provost Lariviere will be speaking to unclassified staff in the Big 12 room of the Kansas Union from noon ? 1:00. There will be a press release in the Oread and an email sent to all unclassified staff about this event. The last time the Provost came to talk to the group was during tuition enhancement and there were between 100-150 people that attended. This is currently up on the US web site and on the KU calendar. We would really like to have many people there so that we have a good representative. Lariviere talked mostly to faculty at the convocation so we want to remind him of US by our numbers at this meeting.

Some other ideas that were given to this committee were to visit the Campanile and Elizabeth Berghout and to have Kip Gorsshans give a walking tour of campus.

D.) Elections Ad-hoc

Rick Whitmore reported that nobody had volunteered to be on this committee so if you are interested please let him know.

Unfinished Business

Committee representation: Jason reported that we were overwhelmed by the number of volunteers we had. Some of these names were given to the Provost (employee recognition, parking and judicial) as they are appointed by his office. As far as the volunteers for the committee within Unclassified Senate ? the more the merrier. Please contact the people who volunteered for your committees and get them involved. If you volunteered and were not selected for a committee, please volunteer again in the future.

The Executive Board discussed the nominations for the committees and the following were selected:

• Academic Computing & Telecommunication ? Susan Zvacek
•  Academic Procedures & Policies ? Kim McNeley
•  Calendar ? Bridget Bradley
•  International Affairs ? Alexis McKinley
•  Libraries ? George McCoy
•  Organization and Administration ? Danny Kaiser
•  Planning & Resources ? Jason O'Connor
Jason will be emailing them all today to let them know they were selected and will email those not selected.

USS Disciplinary Action Hearing Board Nominations

Jason reported that Dee Steinle's term ended in July so we need to select someone else to sit on this board. Angie Loving is currently on the committee. This group has representation from all three groups (faculty, USS , US ) on campus and they are the appeal process for disciplinary action (demotion, termination, etc.) for USS if they disagree with the decision made by HR. Last year there were three appeals and there have not been any since. Noelle Kurth was selected as our representation on this committee.

New Business

Ed Foley asked the reasoning behind staff only being able to take one class with tuition assistance each semester. He would like to see more than one class covered. He recommended that this be brought up to the Provost. USS is currently looking into tuition for spouses but not changes for employees. It was mentioned that Fort Hays uses the staff tuition as a retention tool and was clarified this is for faculty. Thelma Simons said this is something that UPSA has been dealing with for years. She thought the reasoning was that you could take one class and not have it affect your job. Also discussed was the fact that most classes are offered during the day, as KU is not designed for the working student.

Announcements

November 9 th is our next meeting at the Multidisciplinary Research Building Room 116, the 1 st floor conference room with an optional tour from 1:15-2:00. Danny mentioned that we could ride the blue buses to the meeting for free.

Having no further business, Jason O'Connor adjourned the meeting at 1:21 p.m. so that we could have a few minutes to meet in committees.