Minutes for April

Thursday, April 17, 2008, 2 P.M.
Avaya Auditorium - ACES building

Members Present

Joe Barroso, Sharon Bernard, Denise Berry, Benjamin Bond, Linda Breining, Layne Brewster-Smith, Gus Castellanos, Johnnie Conley, Vickie Drake, Lara Eakins, Danielle Fournier, John Goutier, Phillip Guerrero, Bretna Hackert, Martha Harrison, Dreya Johannsen, Troy Johnson, Emil Kresl, Vicki Kullberg, Rebecca Ledbetter, Richard Lee, Debra Madden, Gary Martt, Jennifer McClain, Rita Moreno, Joyce Moyer, Pamela Owen, Eric Patkowski, Ben Rodriguez, Christopher Scherer, Mark Smyth, Allison Supancic, Meredith Taylor, Mindy Thompson, Robert Walker, Erin Waneck, Ashley Williams, Denise Zuniga.

Members Absent With Notification: Steven Brahm, Greg Browning, Bob Hemby, Cindy May, Linda Overton, Elaine Rafferty, Janet Reed, Felix Sanchez Jr., Barbara Thompson, Blake Willms.

Members Absent: Timothy Barber, Craig Blaha, Drew Carls, Nelson Fahlund, Lisa Gentry, Chrissi Guerrero, Sara Jackson Watson, Shelton Lewis, Michael McFarlin, Monica Pena-Mercado, Martha Ramey, Dixie Terry, Evan Turner, Brittany Wilson, Helen Wormington, Vicki Nguyen-Student Rep.

Meeting began at 2:00 PM, without a quorum present.

Chair, Erin Waneck:

• Reminds everyone that our next meeting is May 15th. We will have new member orientation prior to the meeting beginning at 2pm in the main building 212. This is also the Ice Cream Social. Ice cream will be provided by Amy’s beginning at 3pm.
• We are having a Meet and Greet at Scholz’s this Friday. This is an opportunity to network, meet old reps and ask questions to your reps.
• We are in discussion with HRS to use SharePoint for committees so we don’t have to use email. Other utilities may be Blackboard, if you know anything about this please let me know.
• The Communication Chair and I were talking and we would like to get all the Chairs together to come up with a communication plan for next year and then we can take it to HRS to go over with them what we would like to see happen over the coming year. One such issue is Web Design; revamping our website with hotlink and things like that. We would like to meet as soon as next week with all the Chairs.
• At the Retreat we realized that we need to document what it is we do as the Chairs and Officers, so as we leave our post those coming in don’t have recreate procedures and spend time figuring out what was finished and was is not. We would like these done before the June meeting.
• The Vice-Chair asked if we would agree to nominate Linda Golden for the President Civitas Award. She was the former Faculty Council Chair and we had reached out to her over insurance issues and other issues and she received us with open arms. She has been an advocate for Staff. Let me know if you have any questions about this so we can move forward with this nomination.

CHAIR introduces Linda Breining chair of the Elections Committee.

• I would like to point out who Tracy Ruzoski is; she is a District Contact and without these positions the Elections Committee could not move forward with these elections.
• Thanks Julien for helping create these positions and for the access to Ethan Diehl. Please write him an email thanking for all his hard work.
• We have 302 people voted with one paper ballet. If we get to 400 we will have 20% participation, so please encourage you co-workers to vote.
• We are currently replacing 37 Reps and have 7 or 8 vacancies that are not involved in this election.
• Erin, I have a question about paper votes because I keep getting emails concerning how to receive them and how they are distributed. Some districts have said they have not gotten their paper ballots. Could you please address this?
• Paper ballots are sent to all who have been determined not to have an email account. There is no way to determine if they use their email. If they have an email they will not get a paper ballot. The paper ballots are based on a system set up thru HRS. The ballots are sent individually to the voter with no identifying marks,
  • How are the electronic votes counted?
  • Electronically and then verified by HRS and Ex Com.
  • There are certain levels of Staff that cannot run and the system prevents them from being able to run. There is a whole list of jobs titles who cannot run and I can send it to you. Every job has a job code assigned to it and those that match this list cannot run. These codes are public information and I can send it to you so you can check to make sure no one in your department is running that shouldn’t.
  • Joyce Moyers, We just recently had a re-organization in our department and maybe the manager fell thru the cracks during this reorganizing.
  • Julien Cater, give us the name and we will check to make sure everything is ok.

CHAIR thanks Linda and asks the Council to thank her for her hard work with the election. Please don’t send emails she is overloaded with those right now. Invites Benjamin Rodriguez, Recording Secretary, for the approval of the March minutes.

Benjamin Rodriguez asks for the approval of March Minutes

• Motion to accept.
• Motion 2nd.
• Passed.

CHAIR introduces Eric Patkowski, Chair of the By-Laws to read the Current changes.

Eric Patkowski

• VIII. UTSC STANDING COMMITTEES sect F: Changes made were to part 3 from Communications to Communication, Public Relations and Outreach.
• OLD: VIII. UTSC STANDING COMMITTEES F Standing Committee Purviews. All UTSC committees exist and operate subject to the oversight and will of the Council as a whole
  3. Communications
• NEW: VIII. UTSC STANDING COMMITTEES F Standing Committee Purviews. All UTSC committees exist and operate subject to the oversight and will of the Council as a whole
  3. Communication, Public Relations and Outreach
• This change encompasses the full scope of the Committee and its duties.
  • Motion to move to accept these changes.
  • Motion 2nd.
  • Passes

CHAIR thanks Eric.

The Student Body has a new President and he is still interested in having a non-voting student rep on the council. He is currently out of town but I hope he can come to the next meeting in May.

CHAIR invites Debra Madden Chair of the Issues Committee.

Debra Madden

2007-17: Capital Rail Fees. Asks to have free passage on the new Rail system like we do for the buses.

• Write a letter to Bob Harkins with this suggestion.
  1. Motion to accept letter writing
  2. Motion 2nd.
  3. Motion Passes

2007-18: Would like to see a place to advertise rooms for rent so like individuals can find each other to become roommates

• Based on the request we were unable to know exactly what they are asking for, since there are services that are available for Faculty on the mainframe that you can do this. Unsure if it is open to Staff and Students. Recommend sending this back for clarification. Motion to table until clarified.
• Motion 2nd.
• Passed.

2007-19: Letting Retired faculty and staff into Blanton Museum for free

• Motion to refer it to the Retirement Committee to look into it.
• Motion 2nd.
• Passed

2007-20: Quiet Room in the College of Communication.
Motion to have a letter written to Laurie Dreesen and Connie Duetsch so they can work with Facilities of her building on getting this matter taken care of.
Motion 2nd.
Passed.
If there is no such room that can be converted they might use their conference room at scheduled times for such needs.

2007-21: Taking two classes over the summer sessions thru the Staff Educational Benefit. Currently you can only take one.
Motion to refer this to Miscellaneous Benefits Committee
Motion 2nd.
Passed.

2007-22: To establish a sliding scale for FML for maternity leave to provide two weeks leave thru either FML or the sick leave pool.
Women currently don’t receive sick leave, and it is believed that this could help retain valued employees once they have a child and could help in recruiting quality faculty and staff.
Motion to move this to Miscellaneous Benefits Committee at the start of the next year of services.

CHAIR introduces Bretna Hackert to give her reports on the Faculty Council and from the Retirement Committee.

Bretna Hackert

• The Retirement Committee viewed issue 2007-11: Accrued sick leave allowed to be used towards the payment of benefits at the time of retirement.
• Retirement Committee suggests the Chair write a letter to Julien Cater requesting this to be added to the 2011 legislative session.
• Danielle Fournier, This has also been added to the 2011 Texas State Employee Union (TSEU) docket.
• Erin, Gwen Grigsby has stated that we can send these types of request to her office so they may be aware of them and have them on their radar.
  • Motion to have a letter written to Julien and Gwen.
  • Motion 2nd.
  • Passed
• Faculty Council meeting report from March was a joint meeting with A&M.
• There was discussion of having the grade A+ added to the curriculum. The Faculty passed this but is waiting to see how the Graduate assembly addresses it. As of right now it looks as if this will be defeated there.
• There was a proposal and first reading in March for having the signature and certificate programs placed on official transcripts. This was passed in the April meeting.
• March 31st started Faculty Appreciation week. Wasn’t there a Staff Appreciation day last year?
• Erin, The Student President had passed one last year but I do not believe it was brought up again this year. We can talk to them about bringing it up again.
• Every Chair of a committee has to give an end of the year report.
• Dean Woodruff has stated that the catalog rooms at the Life Science Library in the Tower are being converted into seminar rooms. So, if you know anyone who has a lot of money and would like one of these rooms named after them here is an opportunity.

CHAIR thanks Bretna. A year ago the People at A&M had contacted us about forming a Staff Council, but I have not heard if they have made any headway in this matter. Opens the floor to other business.

Denise Zuniga Dist 660.2 (Food and Housing)

We are concerned that if we don’t have a representative from out at the Lake Shop, that we will not be properly represented. What we would like to see is that we have our own District.

Erin, How many people work out there at the lake?

About 60.

Erin, Generally a district is around a 100 people, so we could look into see if there is a small department that could be added to form this new district.

Another concern is that at one time we had four people running in our district and then when it came time to vote there was only one.

Linda Breining, It is fortunate and unfortunate that this happens. These people withdrew their nomination after the closing of the nomination period. It’s fortunate because if they are unwilling to serve and get elected we don’t have an empty seat to fill, and unfortunate because the lack of choice.

Erin, We do have to look into further redistricting. For example, we are unsure what happened to the Wildflower Center because it went to Natural Sciences and that made it really big. So there are some areas we can look into for next year.

Linda, As far as redistricting we need to look into who they report to, too.

CHAIR thanks Ashley Williams, since she was unable to attend last month and miss the recognition for the flyer and all the hard work she and the Communications Committee put into it and Emil Kresl’s input and all that were involved.

We need to vote for Election Vote Counters. Frank Simon, Glen Worley and Peggy Mueller all have volunteered. Frank, Peggy and Glen have all served on UTSC previously and were officers.
Motion to accept these three as Vote Counters.
Motion 2nd.
Passed.

Phillip Guerrero

There have been many changes to the By-Laws and with the departure of the previous Chair of the By-Laws Committee all records were lost or not left for the new Chair.

Erin, I can try and contact Tom Horn and see if we cannot retrieve these.

I would like to see these changes added to the minutes.

Erin, I was given copies of all the changes so I should have them; I just need to dig around and find them. Also, any type of report that we have needs to be sent to the Vice-Chair and the Recording Secretary so they can be posted to the web and archived.

Chris Scherer, I’m on the By-Laws Committee and we always show the old text along with the new text. Most of what is changed is wording clarification.

Chair motions to adjourn

Meeting Adjourned 2:54 p.m.

 

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