Minutes from
Unclassified Senate Executive Board Meeting Minutes
August 23, 2007
Kansas Union, Alcove C

 

  Attendance: Angie Claussen, Paul Farran, Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Heidi Simon, Rick Whitmore, Phil Wilke, Maxine Younes

 

The meeting was called to order by President Danny Kaiser.

 

• The minutes of the July 2007 meeting were approved as amended.

 

• Standing Reports:

 

1. President: Danny Kaiser
Danny received no additions or changes to the committee objectives and goals beyond what was discussed in the July meeting so he will send the final copy to committee chairs.

Student senate spoke at SenEx requesting a review of the credit/no credit policy. The request has gone to AP&P for review. Right now under this policy if a student earns a grade of A, B or C they are given credit and if they earn a D or F they receive no credit. They want this to be reviewed to see if D’s could be given credit. They would also like to have consideration given to having an opportunity to opt out of the credit/no credit toward the end of the course if they earn an A or B grade

University Senate Rules and Regulations 2.9 is being reviewed. The current policy states:

Exceptions to University Wide Academic Policies
2.9        Under exceptional circumstances, a student or individual may petition for an exception to a University-wide academic policy.  The petitioner must first contact the chair of the department or program involved.  If the department Chair believes there may be exceptional circumstances, the petition shall be forwarded with a recommendation to the Dean of the College or School.  If the Dean (or his/her designee) believes there may be exceptional circumstances, the petition shall be forwarded with a recommendation to the chair of the Faculty Senate Executive committee (FacEx).  For purposes of this provision, lack of knowledge of the appropriate policy is not an exceptional circumstance.  The decision of FacEx in regard to the petition request is final.  

The way this is worded any individual could petition or appeal for a student. SenEx would like to revise this so that it states that a student must petition on their own unless they are not mentally or physically able.

 

Danny sent his recommendations to the Provost for Unclassified Staff representation on University committees. Decisions will be made by the Provost’s office once all recommendations have been received to insure a diverse representation on the committees.  The following were the recommendations sent:

Parking Commission
Andrew Shoemaker, Disability Resources
Mary Ann Rasnak, Academic Achievement and Access Center

 

Judicial Board
Amy Weirman, Engineering Administration (Regular appointment)
Angie Claussen, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, (Regular appointment)
Ray Finch, Center for Russian and East European Studies (Administrative appointment)

 

Library Appeals Board
Megan Gannon, Research & Graduate Studies

 

Employee Recognition
Jeri Glynn, Lied Center
Diana Frederick, Audio Reader
Berry Clemens, Kansas Biological Survey

 

Transit Commission
Aaron Quisenberry, Student Involvement & Leadership Center
Katrina Yoakum, Comptrollers Office

 

Organization and Administration Committee
Kathy Pribbenow, Instructional Services

 

Athletic Committee
Frank DeSalvo, Associate Vice Provost Student Success

 

The Associate Vice Provost for International Programs search committee asked for a recommendation from Unclassified Senate and Danny recommended that their be representation from each of the three departments involved: Applied English Center, International Students and Scholar Services and Study Abroad.

 

Student Senate will be selecting a representative to attend our meetings this fall.

2. Secretary: Angie will start sending minutes as soon after the meeting as they are complete. Once they are approved at the next meeting she will send them to Thelma to be posted on the Unclassified Senate web site.

 

3.Treasurer: No report as Lisa Shaw was unable to attend.

 

4. Committee Reports:

 

Governance and Representation: Phil Wilke reported that he had a meeting with Keith Yehle to get to know one another and talk about the legislative visit in the spring. He will have more of the nuts and bolts on the visit in October.  The first meeting of the 15 people on the committee will be Monday, August 27, 2007 at the radio station so that everyone can meet each other and he can hand out the committee charges and start some brainstorming on how to do some survey follow-up. Heidi Simon asked to be included when talking about the survey so she can hear any ideas for professional development. Phil reported that Kansas United States Representatives Dennis Moore and Nancy Boyda are often here over the weekends and Monday before going back to Washington D. C. so there might be a possibility of doing a brown bag lunch with one of them that would need to be planned last minute. 

 

Professional Development: Heidi Simon reported that the Brown Bag with Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard Lariviere is set for Tuesday, October 2^nd from noon – 1:00 in the Big XII Room, Kansas Union. Please get the word out to others in your office about this event. Heidi will be sending an email to all Unclassified Staff letting them know about this event as well as about the Office of Admissions and Scholarship kick off event on Friday, September 7, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. at the KU Visitor Center. The talking points that were suggested were the new tuition compact, other initiatives he would like to discuss, and then a question and answer period. We may have some other talking points following the faculty/staff convocation on September 6^th.  Heidi reported that she met with John Augusto to talk about last year and she will be setting up a meeting very soon for the committee to talk about upcoming events including another mini-Wheat State tour. One of the ideas that Heidi and John discussed was the idea of providing money for Unclassified Staff to attend conferences and workshops through an application process. Jeannette shared that this is what used to happen on a first come first serve basis when this group was Unclassified Professional Staff Association (UPSA). Heidi is curious what is currently available for unclassified staff and if KU would be willing to fund such an opportunity. Jeannette suggested that we could talk with Lindy Eakin to brainstorm how to set up parameters for receiving funding. Danny and Jeannette will set up a meeting with Lindy to let him know of the idea and see if there would be a way to get a report showing what departments are currently doing in regards to professional development funding. This would be valuable information to know what is currently done because it is all so department specific. Perhaps a sub-committee could then be formed to work on the idea, Heidi will take the idea to the professional development committee and see if anyone is interested in heading this up. Angie Claussen would be interested in being part of the committee. We would need to work out how much money we think we might need, who would be eligible to use the funds, etc.

 

Public Relations: no report as Thelma Simons was unable to attend.

 

                      Elections:  Rick Whitmore had nothing to report.

 

• New Business:

Phil Wilke proposed a by-law change to Article VII section 4 to make this consistent with what we have been doing. Right now the Article reads: Section 4. Duties: Privileges The Senate Executive Council shall ensure that all functions of the Senate are carried out expeditiously and in accordance with the provisions of this Code. It shall arrange for and call meetings of the Senate. It shall act as the elections committee and verify the results of each Senate election. The Executive Council shall appoint unclassified professional staff to university and governance committees.
The discrepancy is that 1) the Executive Council does not verify elections results and 2) does not appoint staff, rather forwards recommendations to the Provost or Chancellor for selection.  So, the recommended change is to have section 4 read: The Senate Executive Council shall ensure that all functions of the Senate are carried out expeditiously and in accordance with the provisions of this Code. It shall arrange for and call meetings of the Senate. The Executive Council shall advise the president on appointments of unclassified staff members to university and governance committees.
This would strike the reference to elections and reflect what happens in regards to our placement on university committees. The Executive Council approved this change so it will go to the entire Unclassified Senate next month for a vote.

 

Rick Whitmore suggested that we look into subscriptions to Safari O’Reilly which is the largest e-reference library for programmers and IT professionals. This could be utilized by a large number of unclassified staff and would be a great investment as all books are the most updated versions available. Rick has talked with Barry Swanson in the Comptroller’s office and Donna Liss in Information Services as well as the libraries about this opportunity and thought that it would be good to bring it to Unclassified Senate as well. The Executive Council suggested talking to the Senate Libraries Committee, George McCoy is our Unclassified Senate representative on the committee and to the Academic Technology Committee where Susan Zvacek is our representative.

• Unfinished Business:

Paul Farran reported that he had done some research on the file share idea discussed last month. He asked the Executive Council if having a contract with someone outside the University to keep our web update and to maintain a file share would be feasible. The group decided that they would rather keep the work internal. Jeannette suggested that we could explore the Xythos system that the Provost’s office is using. Paul will talk to Matt Garrett about the program and will explore in house what we can do. Right now the exchange account that Thelma Simons owns is where all of our documents are being stored. We discussed what would happen when Thelma stepped down from Unclassified Senate and the group agreed that there are enough unclassified staff in technology that we would be able to keep up our site and our information internally.

 

Danny Kaiser reported that Dan Consolver accepted the one year unexpired term that was open.

 

Bus service does not go to KU Continuing Education or the Wakarusa labs but those employees could park on west campus and then take the Park and Ride bus over to buildings on the main campus to avoid trying to park on campus. All staff will now receive a free KU on Wheels bus pass.

 

Paul Farran reported that he had worked with Kathy Reed to come up with the past presidents list for our group. Paul would like to have this put up on our web site and will ask the PR committee to come up with a little blurb to post with the list.

 

• Announcements:

The next full Senate meeting is September 20^th at the Continuing Education building.

 

Executive Council next meeting is October 11^th in Alcove C.

 

Having no further business, Phil Wilke moved to adjourn and Paul Farran seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 1:25 p.m.