Staff Senate Meeting
D. P. Culp, Forum Room
March 12, 2012
2:30pm
Page 1 of 3
STAFF SENATE MEETING
MINUTES
March 12, 2012
Note to Senators: Please share the senate agenda, minutes, and any other enclosures with your colleagues prior to the scheduled meeting. Senate meetings are open to all staff. Agendas, minutes, and attendance rosters are available on the Staff Senate website at http://www.etsu.edu/stsenate/default.asp
PRESENT: James Batchelder, Lisa Belcher, Lisa Bell, Gary Bishop, Carolyn Bond, Queen Brown, Christy Buckles, Harvey Byerley, Cindy Canter, Kathy Carder, David Collins, Phyllis Cooper, Kathy Hawks, Thomas Hill, Ned Irwin, Paul Lavoie, Leigh Lewis, Candy Massey, Diana McClay, Donna Miller, Margaret Pate, Chuck Patton, Betty Ann Proffitt, David Robinson, Sue Russell, Kathy Smith, Debbie Starnes, Dawn Marie Tipton, and Josh Whitlock
EXCUSED: Brian Bennett, Lisa Booher, Linda Greenwell, Carshonda Harris, Karen Holden, Janet Keener, Mary Maupin, Joe Miller, Stephanie Nave, Karen Sullivan, and Carla Warner
I. Call to Order
President James Batchelder called the meeting to order at 2:35 pm.
II. Welcome Special Guest
Dr. Michael Smith, Chair of the Department of Social Work, and Mr. David Shields, Research Graduate Assistant in the Department of Social Work, came to speak about Bucky’s Food Pantry. Dr. Smith began with some background information on how discussions of a food pantry began. He had been invited to participate in a task force on campus related to student mental health. In this task force, the issue of hunger came up. Dr. Steven Brown, Director of the Student Counseling Center, was also on the task force and he was also aware of the issue of hunger amongst students. The task force decided to take action with the people who were aware of the problem and were in positions to help address this problem. In the Department of Social Work, they identified David Shields as the individual that had the skills to begin the effort of starting a food pantry. Mr. Shields began doing some research on this issue in the beginning, but found that there is not much information or research out there regarding student hunger. The data that Mr. Shields found was presented at a meeting that involved the Student Government Association. From this meeting, a committee was set up to develop a food pantry. Through the connections of this committee, a space was secured where the pantry could be established and a logo with Bucky was created. The pantry will be called “Bucky’s Food Pantry”. The need for a pantry on campus would help students and other ETSU community member who cannot travel to off campus food pantries and will allow for quicker responses during emergency situations. The food pantry’s purposed mission is “to diminish or end food insecurity for the ETSU community in the most convenient, discrete and easily accessible mean possible.” The purposed vision is “1. The food pantry builds upon ETSU’s history of philanthropic culture and service on the campus by creating new collaborative learning opportunities for students in a variety of academic departments and disciplines; 2. The food pantry provides the opportunity to assess the prevalence of food insecurity in ETSU college students to assess retention and health indicators in ETSU college students and to study the relationships among food insecurity, retention and health in ETSU college students; 3. The food pantry educates the ETSU community about resources available to them on and off campus, helps them gain entry into any government assistance program desired or needed by providing guidance and sharpens budgeting skills.” The food pantry’s goals are “to aid those in need of food resources, as well as raise awareness of food insecurities and hunger on ETSU campus. Ultimately, the food pantry can expand its resources to cover non-food items, such as hygiene products and clothing, if donations are made available.” Other college campuses are responding to the hunger needs of students. Research has shown that the need is there and the food pantry is responding to the issue. Off campus locations, like Contact Ministries, have reported receiving 5-6 calls a week from ETSU students regarding food insecurity. This is in addition to the students who self-identify by coming to the counseling center seeking assistance. Mr. Shields has developed relationships with the local Second Harvest Food Bank for assistance. A food pantry is a place that provides groceries, or ingredients, to those in need who then take these items away to prepare themselves. A food bank is a depository that collects and stores food items that they then distribute to soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, day care centers, after school programs, senior programs, and other certified service agencies that serve food. Bucky’s Food Pantry will hopefully be open prior to the end of the semester. A mobile food pantry is also being considered. An advisory body for the pantry will be formed and Staff Senate representation will be requested. Contact information for the Department of Social Work is 439-6006 and the food pantry’s email address is . A foundation account has been set up. Donations can be made to the ETSU Food Pantry and sent to Dr. Smith.
III. Approval of Minutes
Senator McClay and Senator Collins asked that the last sentence in the President’s report be changed for clarification from “a 3% raise in addition to the 2.5% approved by the governor” to “a 3% equity pool in addition to the 2.5% approved by the governor.” The minutes from February 13, 2012 were approved as corrected and will be posted on the Staff Senate website.
IV. President’s Report – President James Batchelder
Dr. Paul Stanton, President Emeritus, sent a letter to the Staff Senate, thanking them for the ETSU Express collage.
V. Treasurer’s Report – Senator Carolyn Bond
In the Staff Senate account, the balance is $4, 754.58. In the CBC account, there was $4,965.97. A deposit was recently made for $91.32, giving a total of $5,057.29. Some invoices from the holiday drive required payment, bringing the total of the Holiday Drive account to $3.79.
VI. Report on Standing Committees
A. Committee on Committees: Between now and August 16th, there will be twelve committee positions that will need to be filled. These include Disability Issues, Employee Retiree Benefits, ETSU Commission for Women, Intercollegiate Athletics, University Wellness and Veterans Affairs (requirement that individual must be a veteran). The committee will begin asking people to step up into those positions.
B. Committee of Elections: Senator Ned Irwin will be resigning from the University to take the position of Archivist for Washington County. The College of Arts and Sciences will need to identify a new appointed senator to fill his position. Congratulations to Senator Irwin on his new position.
C. Communications and Website Committee: The University is switching to OU Campus as the new content management system. Currently, all the websites are frozen until approximately March 20. Senator Buckles tried to update everything prior to the switch, but minutes and other items will not be able to be posted until after March 20.
D. Community Benevolence Committee (CBC): There are 13 cookbooks left for purchase. Please contact Senator Bond if you are interested in purchasing one for $20.
E. Liaison Committee: The survey is nearing completion and will be ready to send out soon. The Staff Senate has been asked to co-sponsoring a movie called “Interrupters” about gang violence. The SGA and Faculty Senate are also co-sponsoring this movie. A copy of the movie will be purchased for everyone to view or Senate members are invited to the viewing at Brown Hall. Senator Batchelder will send out the trailer and ask for votes on whether the Staff Senate should sponsor the movie.
F. Staff Awards Committee: The email requesting nominations went out last week. Please encourage people in your colleges and departments to nominate a staff member for the Distinguished Staff Award or Career Award or both. So far, quite a few nominations have been received.
G. Staff Concerns Committee: No report.
H. Staff Development and Evaluation Committee: The Committee brought forth their recommendations for employee development programs. The first is from the Johnson City Library. It is free, but requires a library card. Many different courses are available. The second program is through SkillSoft. Richard Ashley narrowed the list of available courses down to 100, which will cost $7,770 for licenses for each employee of the University. The SkillSoft program tracks the progress of the employee and sends the information to Human Resources; also the courses take about an hour. The Library program is not set up to track an employee’s progress and their courses take approximately 3 hours to complete. You can stop and start during those 3 hours. If you want a copy of course completion in your employee records, you will have to print off the certification and send it to Human Resources. A motion to endorse the program was made and seconded. The endorsement was unanimously approved.
I. Visibility Committee: The committee has been working on a new brochure for the Staff Senate. An email went out requesting nominations for a “catch phrase” for the Staff Senate, which will be incorporated into the current Staff Senate logo. About 10 nominations have been received so far. A message from the President has also been received and will be included in the brochure.
VII. Report on Project Committees
A. Blood Drive Committee: The Blood Drive will be on June 26, 2012 from 11:00am to 3:30pm with the Red Cross.
B. Staff Picnic Committee: The Staff Picnic has been confirmed for May 18 from 1 – 3pm. Aramark is putting together a several menu options involving BBQ. There will be no bags this year and no door prizes. However, there will be 10 prizes that will be given out in connection with two contests. The first contest will be the pride outfit contest and the second will be a hat contest. There will be storytelling and a band. There will also be the passing of the lantern by Dr. Stanton to Dr. Brian Noland.
VIII. Old Business
There was no old business.
IX. New Business
The gun bills are being brought back up in committee. Chief Cotrel was quoted that ETSU is against these bills. If it comes out of committee, we will begin discussions on the issue. The East Tennessean polled students on the issue and 46% were in favor of the bills, 40% were not in favor and 18% said they didn’t know/maybe.
X. Open Floor for New Agenda Items/Concerns
There were no new agenda items or concerns.
XI. Announcements
The Unsung Hero Award Ceremony for the students and staff members involved in the emergency response in the Library will be Wednesday, March 14 from 10 to 11am. Senator Maupin will be one of the staff members awarded.
The Staff Woman of the Year Award will be given at a ceremony on Tuesday, March 20 at 4:30pm in Ballroom Right. Dr. Noland will be presenting the award to the winner.
The meeting on June 11th will be held at the Basler Challenge Course. We will have a brief meeting and then those who are interested can participate in the low ropes and team building activities.
XII. Adjournment
There being no other business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 4:00pm.
Submitted by Staff Senate Secretary: Senator Leigh Lewis