Minutes from
Unclassified Senate Executive Board Meeting Minutes
July 19, 2007

 

  Attendance: Angie Claussen, Paul Farran, Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Jason O’Connor, Lisa Shaw, Heidi Simon, Thelma Simons, Rick Whitmore, Phil Wilke

 

The meeting was called to order by President Danny Kaiser.

 

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

 

• Standing Reports:

 

President: Danny Kaiser
Charges from SenEx will go to University Senate Committee for approval earlier than usual because Rick Levy and Bill Crowe got them done earlier than ever before. SenEx has not met much this summer.
There has been a Task Force on Research Computing formed and we need to recommend an unclassified staff member for this group. Because the focus is so narrow Danny asked John Augusto and Thelma Simons for names to submit. Thelma submitted Gerald Lushington’s name.
The Disciplinary Action hearing committee was created when USS left the civil service commission so that they have access to a body of people to hear a grievance. We need to make a recommendation to the Provost of someone to be on the committee. Please send Danny any ideas you have of people to serve on this board. Jeannette will let us all know where representation is currently.
Please look at the meeting schedule. Danny will send out a scheduler so that it will go into your calendars. All executive committee meetings will be in Alcove C. The full senate meetings will be: September in the KU Continuing Education basement classroom, November in the Centennial Room in the Kansas Union, March in the Relays Room at the Burge Union, and May is not yet scheduled but may be at Endowment.

 

Secretary: No report

 

Treasurer: Lisa Shaw reported that we have $2,662 of new money and there is still the $1,845 to roll over from last year, which will bring our total to $4,570. This will all be state money so we need to check on how we can and cannot spend this money. 

 

University Support Staff: No report as Maxine Younes was unable to attend.

 

Student Senate: Hannah Love will have a new student representative for us this fall so that they have representation at our meetings.

 

Human Resources: No report as Ola Faucher was unable to attend.

 

Committee Reports:
Governance and Representation: Phil Wilke reported that there is nothing new. He met with Paul Farran and now has a think and comprehensive packet and timeline. He plans to contact last year’s members, any new potential members, and Keith Yehle.

Professional Development: Heidi Simon reported that she received a list of volunteers from John Augusto from last year and please let Heidi know if there are others interested. She will be meeting with John for ideas for fall. She is looking at a 2-day Wheat State Mini Tour over fall break and it looks like this will become a yearly or once a semester event. This year the committee will be trying to figure out what Professional Development means to unclassified staff members so they will come up with a way to learn this from the group. Heidi will talk with the Provost about speaking to the group in the fall.

Public Relations: Thelma Simons handed out a list of the people that volunteered for the various Unclassified Senate, Governance, and University Wide committees. After the reminder message went out, we received several more people that are interested. Professional Development committee was the big winner with 18 people expressing interest. Mike Krings will be back-up PR this year as he is interested in chairing next year. He was worried about having someone to maintain the web. Robin Bedenbaugh and staff drew up a new look template for the web site. This in includes a photo gallery so you can see all the pictures taken at Unclassified Senate events. The switch to the new pages will happen in the next few months and will have more pictures and less text than the current site. There are some minutes missing on the web site so Angie needs to send the updated minutes once they are approved to Thelma. There was discussion of having a share folder online so that all executive officers could have access to information from past years. Paul Farran is going to look into the file share option and then Paul and Thelma will talk about it to come up with a logical place to keep information so that we have a history. Thelma has been the unofficial historian in the past. Paul will check around to see if there is a past-president’s list.

Elections:  Rick Whitmore reported that Megan Gannon and Angie Claussen are interested in being on the committee. With three people on the committee, it should be pretty simple. Since we are changing the joint transition meeting to May that will not give people much notification of the meeting since they are not usually announced until May 1-4. We will notify people when they are nominated that if elected they will need to plan to attend the transition meeting. We will also move elections back a week and start them on April 5^th to give people more time.

 

• Unfinished Business:

Thelma will look into certificates for outgoing officers.

Rick moved and Jeannette seconded that all official communication should be changed to read Governance and Representation Committee and not Legislative Committee.

There was discussion about if we are caught up with replacement of senators because of elections. It was determined that we need to appoint a replacement for a one year term to replace Danny Kaiser. The president is responsible for appointing this person and he would like to appoint the person that received the next highest votes in the election. This person will be Dan Consolver.

We need to change are by-laws to read that the term of a senator and/or officer expires at the transition meeting. This needs to be reflected on the web and in our by-laws.

 

• New Business:

Committee Charges – see handouts
We reviewed the list of committee charges that Danny had prepared by pulling specifics from last years report.
Governance and Representation: Phil will send to Molly Mulloy or Kathy Reed to let them know of the updates that we made in April. He will also work on how to address the survey results.
Professional Development: Jeannette will check on who was selected for the Staff Fellows program and let us know. This program was developed to allow employees to work on a project to benefit the University and their department. The application requires their supervisor’s approval to be part of this program that will give a broad overview of the University of Kansas. This is a pilot program so this group will help form guidelines for next year. Heidi will see about how we can get involved with this group. Talking points for the Provost’s visit will include the tuition compact.
Public Relations: Is there a past presidents list anywhere? The committee will have one posted on the web. Paul will work on finding the names. Lisa will look into a plaque for past presidents to hang in the Union.
Elections: This is a year to look at reapportion. We must have at least 30 senators with one per every 50 people. This will be done by the committee in January.
Chairs of the committees are to look at the by-laws and see if there are any additional charges to be added. Please let Danny know by July 20^th.

 

• Announcements:

Cyber Security Awareness Month is in October and there is a committee working on how to get the word out to students. They will be doing various different discounts and give-aways. If you have any suggestions please let Paul or Rick know, as they are both on the committee.

Bill Crowe the University Senate President wants to do anything he can to support all senates and would like to come to our meeting or a full senate meeting to talk. It was decided that we should invite him to attend our full senate meeting. If you have ideas for talking points please send them to Danny.

 

Having no further business, Thelma Simons moved to adjourn and Paul Farran seconded the motion. The meeting adjourned at 1:30 p.m.