Summerfield Hall (Room 507)

Minutes transcribed by Angie Claussen

Attendance: John Augusto, Angie Claussen, Abby Coffin, Audrey Coleman, Dan Coonfield, Kevin Curry, Paul Farran, Allyson Flaster, Christine Fosher, Diana Frederick, Megan Gannon, Frederic Gutknecht, Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Paul Liechti, Angie Loving, Rebecca Mayer, Mark Nesbitt-Daly, Jason O’Connor, Kathy Pribbenow, Dawnell Prince, Aaron Quisenberry, Mary Ann Rasnak, Lisa Shaw, Kathy Sheldon, Heidi Simon, Thelma Simons, Dee Steinle, Susan Teague, Carolyn Thurman, Xinkun Wang, Rick Whitmore, Phil Wilke, Maxine Younes.

The meeting was called to order in Summerfield Hall at noon by President Jason O’Connor.

Guest Presentations:

Jason introduced Dean Bill Fuerst from the School of Business. Dean Fuerst shared with us their goal to have raised $58 million dollars by the end of 2008 to open a new building for the School of Business. Currently they are discussing a location for a new building. Contributing to the need for more space is the growing enrollment in the business minor. There are 500-600 students currently pursuing the minor and they expect that number to increase to 1,000 students. Dean Fuerst also discussed the differential tuition that the School of Business charges their students. This idea was developed by a group of students that serve on an advisory board. This group helps determine what would be helpful for students and they came up with the recommendation for more specialization within majors. In order to do this they would need more faculty so they went into classrooms to get feedback, handed out surveys, etc. to get the entire student body’s input. The tuition differential had a 96% acceptance rate so they were able to implement the new tuition and are now able to offer the new majors, hire new faculty, allow more access to advising and career services along with providing more scholarships and work study to students. Dean Fuerst shared that they are in the process of having a new major in supply chain management approved. They hope for this to start fall 2007 with a big push starting spring 2008. A question was asked of the Dean about offering an undergraduate business degree at the KU Edwards Campus and the he responded that right now the MBA is what is offered at the Edwards Campus. Students are just not coming south into Johnson County right now so they are looking for a location further north to hold classes so that they can offer classes where the students are located.

Jason requested that we go around the room and introduce ourselves as a group to get the meeting started.

Minutes
The minutes of the April 12, 2007 meeting were approved as submitted.

Review of the Year’s accomplishments.
Jason handed out summary reports for each of the committee’s and then reviewed the past year. We accomplished:

Meetings

• September 14^th meeting in the Student Recreation Fitness Center
• November 9^th meeting in the Multidisciplinary Research Building (optional tour from 1:15 – 2:00)
• February 8^th meeting in the KU Visitor Center Auditorium
• April 12^th meeting in the Burge Union (308 McCook)
• June 14^th meeting in Summerfield Hall (room 507)

Updated the brochure

Administered the Unclassified Senate Survey

Updated our By-Laws

Professional Development Events

• Held an open meeting with Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Richard Lariviere
• Admissions at KU: Get the Inside Scoop
• Demonstration by the Kansas Fire and Rescue Training Institute at KU in the fall and again in the spring
• Working in the KU Culture
• Cancer Research at KU: Current and Future Initiatives
• Dole Institute Tour
• TRIO Day: A Celebration of Educational Equity Programs
• Open House/Volunteer Fair at Audio Reader and Kansas Public Radio
• Wheat State Whirlwind Mini Tour

Legislative visit to Topeka

Brief  Standing Reports

President:
Jason O’Connor announced that Rick Levy from the Law School is the new president of SenEx and Bill Crowe from Spencer Library is the new University Senate president. They have cleaned up the charges for the various committees and these will hopefully be approved at the meeting on the 22^nd.

Treasurer:
Angie Loving reported that we have $1,845.35. She has requested that this money be carried forward and this was approved.

USS report
Maxine Younes reported that they are having a retreat on July 19^th.

They attended the meeting of the Council of Classified staff where they discussed how the legislature is looking into pay scales for classified staff so that pay is not just one size fits all. They would like to comp up with ranges for all the state employees.

They are taking another look at doing supervisor evaluations.

Student Senate:
Hannah Love was unable to attend so no report.

Committee Reports

                                                        i.     Governance and Representation

1.    Paul Farran shared that this had been a successful year for the committee accomplishing their three charges.

a.    Worked with Rick Whitmore to make by-law changes that were all approved.

b.    Completed the survey of all unclassified staff to gain a better idea of who we represent.

c.     Coordinated the annual state legislative visit where we shared who it is that unclassified staff includes

2.    Paul then gave his recommendations for charges for next year.

a.    Any additional By-Law changes

b.    Find ways to provide solutions to the survey’s top five issues.

c.     Visit the legislature in February

                                                      ii.     Public Relations

1.    Thelma Simons summarized the accomplishments of the committee for the past year.

a.    Updated the brochure

b.    Promoted professional development activities

c.     Oread editor Mike Krings got information out there about Unclassified Senate

d.    Started the web site redesign

2.    Thelma gave her recommendations for charges for next year.

a.    Continue to redesign the web site

b.    Put summary reports on the web site

                                                     iii.     Professional Development

1.    John Augusto thanked his committee for being so active and diligent about making sure that we got out across campus and across Kansas.

2.    See the above list of accomplishments for the year for a list of programs held this year.

3.    Thank you to Thelma for getting the word out about these programs.

4.    John shared his recommendations for charges for next year.

a.    Continue to provide programs to get to know KU and others on campus and see other parts of campus.

b.    Invite the Provost back to speak in the fall – he has indicated he would like to do this every fall.

c.     Find out what the professional development needs are of unclassified staff, gain more awareness of their needs and how we as Unclassified Senate can serve them.

                                                     iv.     Elections Ad-hoc

1.    Rick Whitmore reported that we held elections and that’s why we are all here.

2.    Rick reported that the committee had accomplished updating the by-laws, getting good nominees for the election, and had a decent turn out for the election. 

II.              Unfinished Business –none to report.

III.            New Business

a.     Openings on University committees

                                                        i.     Jeannette Johnson reported that we will have openings on several University committees this year as well as on the Unclassified Senate committees. Openings include Governance: Organization and Administration, Parking Commission (Provost appoints), Judicial Board, Library Appeals Board and University wide:  Employee Recognition Committee (Provost appoints), and Transit Commission (Provost appoints). 

                                                      ii.     The transit commission is new this year and will be student dominate but will include one faculty member, one unclassified staff member and one University support staff member.

                                                     iii.     Beginning in July we will put this on our web site and ask for volunteers for the various committees. The recommendations that are made will try to cover a diverse range of departments on campus.  This can be someone who is not a senator but we need to be sure that we are staying very active.

b. Will the new Vice Provost of Research and Graduate Studies impact our elections? This might be a good charge for a committee to look at next year. John Augusto is on a committee that is discussing this very issue.

IV.           Announcements – none.

 Having no further business, Jason O’Connor adjourned the meeting and the 2007 Senate.

University of Kansas

2008 Unclassified Senate Meeting

June 14, 2007 12:00 noon

Summerfield Hall (Room 507)

Minutes transcribed by Angie Claussen

Attendance: John Augusto, Angie Claussen, Abby Coffin, Audrey Coleman, Dan Coonfield, Kevin Curry, Paul Farran, Allyson Flaster, Christine Fosher, Diana Frederick, Megan Gannon, Frederic Gutknecht, Jeannette Johnson, Danny Kaiser, Paul Liechti, Angie Loving, Rebecca Mayer, Mark Nesbitt-Daly, Jason O’Connor, Kathy Pribbenow, Dawnell Prince, Aaron Quisenberry, Mary Ann Rasnak, Lisa Shaw, Kathy Sheldon, Heidi Simon, Thelma Simons, Dee Steinle, Susan Teague, Carolyn Thurman, Xinkun Wang, Rick Whitmore, Phil Wilke, Maxine Younes.

The meeting was called to order in Summerfield Hall at 12:50 by President Danny Kaiser.

I.               President’s Report

a.    Danny started the meeting by saying that he would like to continue the trend of doing great things this year.

b.    Danny reported that he looks forward to continuing to play an active role in University Senate and SenEx. Bill and Rick want to know Unclassified Senate input and what we think. This is a good situation to be in.

c.     We have various committees that we will need to fill spots in this year so watch for the email for committee volunteers. For many of these committees Danny will make a recommendation to the Provost and then he will make the final decision. We covered the vacancies at the end of our 2007 meeting.

d.    Our Unclassified Senate committees will also be recruiting members for this next year. Thank you to those that have been on these committees we keep hearing good things and we need to continue doing this.

II.              Election of Officers and Committee Chairs: all elected positions make up the executive committee. Please see below for meeting dates, we meet every other month and will transition in May of next year in accordance with our by-laws.

a.    President Elect: this office Is the voting member at University Senate meetings. Danny attends and gives the report but does not vote. This position is a three year term, one year as  president elect, one as president, and one as past president.

                                               i.     Heidi Simon nominated Paul Farran

                                             ii.     John Augusto nominated Dee Steinle

1.    each candidate gave a brief speech before votes were cast and then tallied by past presidents Jason O’Connor and Mark Nesbitt-Daly.

2.    Paul Farran is the new President Elect.

b.    Secretary

                                               i.     Paul Farran nominated Angie Claussen

1.    By a unanimous vote Angie Claussen is the new Secretary

c.     Treasurer

                                               i.     Jeannette Johnson nominated Angie Loving

                                             ii.     Rick Whitmore nominated Lisa Shaw

1.    each candidate gave a brief speech before votes were cast and then tallied by past presidents Jason O’Connor and Mark Nesbitt-Daly.

2.    Lisa Shaw is the new Treasurer

d.    Governance and Representation Committee Chair: Paul Farran reported that this person will have an exciting opportunity to speak with the legislators and their secretaries and to update the by-laws.

                                               i.     Paul Farran nominated Phil Wilke

                                             ii.     John Augusto nominated Dee Steinle

1.    each candidate gave a brief speech before votes were cast and then tallied by past presidents Jason O’Connor and Mark Nesbitt-Daly.

2.    There was a tie vote and Dee Steinle withdrew her name so Phil Wilke is the new Governance and Representation Committee Chair.

e.     Professional Development Committee Chair: John Augusto reported that if you get good people around you and make them do all the work than this job is easy. He handed out work to smart people who know what they are doing. The main role of this person is to plan both the small and big programs for the year.

                                               i.     Mary Ann Rasnak nominated Heidi Simon

                                             ii.     John Augusto declined nomination

1.    By a unanimous vote Heidi Simon is the new Professional Development Committee Chair.

f.      Public Relations Committee Chair: Thelma reported that this group has been very active and full of creative minds with two from University Relations and they were non-senate members. This is a good mix of people.

                                               i.     Paul Farran nominated Mike Krings who was not able to attend so declined by default.

                                             ii.     John Augusto nominated Dee Steinle who declined

                                            iii.     Jeannette Johnson nominated Thelma Simons

                                            iv.     Chris Faucer was nominated but declined

1.    By a unanimous vote Thelma Simons is the new Public Relations Committee Chair.

g.    Election Committee Chair: Rick Whitmore reported that this is where the action is, you get to lay out the timetable  and do the fun part of encouraging others to nominate and figure out who is good and should be part of the group.

                                               i.     Lisa Shaw nominated Rick Whitmore

1.    By a unanimous vote Rick Whitmore is the new Elections Committee Chair

Danny offered congratulations to the newly elected and commented that there are lots of good people on the new executive board. He asked them to please stick around for one minute. Danny thanked Jason for a good year. He reminded us to start recruiting for committees.

III.            Meeting Schedule

a.    Executive Committee: July 19, August 23, October 11, December 13, March 13 and April 17

b.    Full Senate: September 20, November 15, February 15, May 15 (join transition meeting)

Having no further business, Danny Kaiser adjourned the meeting at 1:30p.m.