UNCSASTAFF COUNCIL
Minutes ofSeptember 15, 2016
Representatives and alternates present:Laurel Banks,Karyl Caouette,Amanda Buzard, Karyl Caouette, MaryGraves,Nakita Green,AngelJackson, Leslie Kamtman, Christa Keen, Sonya Linney,Marissa McCullough, MitsyMcNeil,Jamie Moore,Robin O’Neal,Mary Pennington, Phillip Perry,Joseph Roberts, ChristiaThomason,LaurenWhitaker
Alternates present: Bruce Gibson, Gregory Harris, Brent LaFever, Nita Mixaykham, Chase Rogers, Russel Scott (for Kay Bosworth), Jack Waters
Representatives absent: Kay Bosworth (excused), Steve Gallagher, Timothy Hester (excused), Krista Johnson, David Morris (excused), Brock Snyder
Visitors:
Ginger Caston, John Chapman, Sarah Lawrence, SamanthaSheff, Mary Taylor, Jorja Waybrant, Latoya Wiley, Sarah Williams
Quorum: confirmed
Best place to Work Survey- (Xiaoyun Yang)
Strategic Action Plan (2015-2020) is fostering a quality workplace to attract, develop, and retain an exemplary faculty and staff. In order to develop actionable, realistic, and measurable strategies to achieve our goal, we need to know where we stand and how our faculty and staff think of UNCSA as a workplace.
ModernThink LLC, an independent research and consulting firm specializing in workplace excellence, to conduct an Employee Engagement Survey.
On Friday, Sept.23, ModernThink will send the survey invitation to all of our faculty and staff. This invitation will be sent to you via email with instructions about how to complete the online survey. The surveywill take approximately 15 minutes, and you will have until Oct. 7 to complete it.The survey includes 16 statements from strongly agree to strongly disagree,professional development, employment benefits, and two open ended questions. Do not put your name on the survey.
This is a confidential survey that measures the strength of certain organizational competencies and relationships that most directly impact and influence an institution’s culture. Your participation and honest feedback are critical to the assessment process.
To ensure the confidentiality of your responses, your survey will be processed entirely by ModernThink. The institution will not be given any information that would enable us to trace survey data back to any one individual. We will receive a report that summarizes responses to the survey questions.
Participation is encouraged. A high response rate helps ensure accurate results and demonstrates the commitment of our workforce.
Lauren Whitakerasked, “You say that 98%-99 % faculty/staff will be assessed, is that at random?”
Dr. Yang stated, “On the contract we based on the number of employees (456) we had last year. At the time of the contract we had 473 staff/faculty employed, but 17 was subtracted.”
Lauren W. asked, Will the results be shared to the campus?
Dr. Yang said, “Yes I think so, yes.”
Marissa M. asked, “Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea how long the results will take to get back?”
Dr. Yang said, “Yes, November.”
ApprovalofMinutes: Minutes of theAugust 18 meetingwere approved.
New Employee: John Chapman (School of Music)
Chair’sReport(Lauren Whitaker)
2016 State Employees Combined Campaign (SECC):
We’re kicking off the UNCSA campaign today as part of the 2016 State Employees Combined Campaign (SECC) in North Carolina. On the table you have a bundle ofthe printed 2016 Giving Guide booklets. We are asking the reps to take the bundle booklets and distribute to all the employees in your district today or tomorrow. This is a great opportunity to get out your office and talk to the people in your district which we don’t do very often. Encourage people to participate. If you have leftovers, please send them to Joan Roggenkamp, and also contact Joan if you do not have enough.
The theme of this year’s campaign is “The Power of Giving.” Nearly 1,000 charities are eligible for contributions in 2016.
We’re happy to report that the UNC School of the Arts Foundationhas been approved as an SECC charity for 2016. UNCSA is No. 1836.
Last year, 31 of UNCSA’s 446 employees donated $3,515 to various charities through the SECC. Our goal this year is to double the number of donors and to raise at least $5,000 and double the number employees who give. Our UNCSA campaign will end on Nov. 15.
Employees may donate through ePledge or an SECC pledge form, included in the packets. You will also be emailed an "ePledge" link, allowing you to make your pledge online on three selected dates. Payroll deduction – January through December 2017 – is available. And your contributions are tax-deductible.
No state monies are used to run the campaign. And SECC’s low administrative cost (10 percent of the prior year’s campaign) is a lower percentage than most charities spend on fundraising and administrative costs themselves.
Remember, every donation has the power to make a difference. By donating through the SECC, you make a powerful difference to a cause that is important to you while also being part of a larger philanthropic effort with significant impact.
Ginger Caston, Leslie Kamtmanand Lauren Whitaker are on the campaign for our school so if you have any questions please see them.
Provost Search:
We had the first candidate on campus last week. There were about 14-15 of us that were able to interview the candidate. We have another candidate next week. There are five in all. So if you were one of the people in that process, thank you very much! I have received a link to the feedback form and will sent out tomorrow along with the questions again and information about next week’s candidate. It is really amazing that we have been given this much access to a process and really trying to protect the candidates and keep their confidentiality. We appreciate Jill Lane and the committee for giving us this kind of access to the candidate. I think it is tremendous! Leslie K. added, “This is a good step in the right direction…..having us to participate in this process.”
Employee Appreciation Day:
We have a selected the date of October 28th, last Friday in October for Employee Appreciation Day. This has been approved by the cabinet so we will be moving forward with some plans to plan that day. If you want to serve on that committee please send an email or call me (Lauren). We have a core group but we can always use more. As we get closer to the event we will probably beasking you to do individual things. Hoping we can create something fun and give us a chance for some really good fellowship and interaction. And it will be a free meal!
Veterans Day:
We are going to begin planning to observe Veterans Day on campus. We have a small group who will get together to plan and if you would like to help out give me (Lauren) a call or send me an email. I have a list of the students who are veterans but I’m working with HR to get a list of employee veterans. We want to do something to honor themfor their service.
Margaret Spellings:
Margaret Spellings, President of the UNC System will be inaugurated in Chapel Hill, NC on October 13th and I’m sure you will be hearing more about it as it get closer to the date. Several people from campus will be going and it will quite a big event so we will report back on how splendid it went.
ChiefofStaffUpdates(JimDeCristo)
Jim could not be here but wanted to report that the Trustees will be here on campus on Thursday and Friday.The Friday (September 23) open meeting is open to anyone on campus so if you are curious about what the trustees’ do, who they are, how they operate, you are more than welcome to show up. There will be chairs for guest so you can be a fly on the wall and listen. It could be quite interesting. I invite anyone who is curious to attend.
HR Updates(James Lucas)
James Lucas did not send an update. We are all waiting anxiously to get an update on policy review email but he did not send an update on when that might happen. When you get it you will have two weeks to go through all those policies.
CommitteeReports
Membership &Elections: Mary Graves reported she heard that the .5% one–time bonus will hopefully be in October paycheck. For membership and election, we final have an alternate for District # 7 and that’s Casey Powers. District 2 has another vacancyand Nita Mixaykham has agreed to be the alternate but it has to be approved by the district. District 3 and District 6 is still looking for an alternate.
CommunityService/Sustainability:Jamie Moore reported that last Friday they planted kale, beets collards, and other leafy vegetables in the garden. The high school biology class came out and helped. October 15will be Community Garden Day. The locations will be at Smith Farm Elementary and Sedge Garden Elementary. We need two volunteers to plant. He also reported that last year we did a food drive on campus around Christmas and donated to Samaritan Ministries. We would like to do it again this year. Laurel Banks also worked on this project and knows a lot about it. Laurel Banks added that we serve our students with the food pantry and the Associates of the University gave monetary donations and they took up can foods for our students who use the food pantry. They will be available to help this year as well.
Lunch and Learn Professional Development: Sarah Lawrence reported that three workshops are scheduled. Novant Health will be here on October 27 to show us the “Rundown on Labels” from 12pm-1pm.November 2 Ramona Richmond will do the Art of Couponing on Black Friday. It will be from 11:30-12:30 p.m. Make sure you are reading My SA for these workshops. Registration for classes is required. If you have questions just emailme. And (I) Sarah Lawrence will do an Excel/How to create a dropdown list workshopon December 6 between 11: 30 a.m. 12:30 p.m.All three workshops will be a lunch and learn event so feel free to bring your lunch. We are planning more workshops so let me know if anything that interested youand you want to make it a workshop. We will look and see what’s available.
Special Events: Jack Waters reported that Veterans Day is coming up and the committee will be planning special events to honor our veterans. We are also working on other special events for staff members such as after work hours social events. Marissa McCullough added that her husband is a manager at the Tasting Room in Foothillsand offered to host a social event for staff members. Lauren W. added that Angela Tuttle, last year’s special events coordinator, agreed to meet with Jake and I to describe the kind of events she did in the past.
New Business
Ombuds Office
Leslie Kamtman reported that we are one step closer to actually having anOmbuds person. TheOmbuds office has officially been established. We don’t have a person yet for that office but we are in that process now. The purpose of the UNCSA Ombuds Office, in keeping with the cornerstone principles articulated by the International Ombudsman Association (IOA), is to provide an informal, impartial, independent, and to the extent allowable by law, confidential source of assistance to individuals or groups experiencing conflicts or who have complaints involving others at the University. The Ombuds assists faculty, staff and administrators by listening to concerns, clarifying issues, explaining policies, articulating options, serving as a neutral party in resolving disputes, and providing referrals to other resources.
The Ombuds has no authority or capacity to render decisions, alter policy, offer legal advice, or provide psychological counseling. The Ombuds does not conduct formal investigations or serve as an advocate or representative for any group or individual.
Unless required by law, the Ombuds does not participate in any formal grievance, hearing, administrative or legal proceeding.
The Ombuds Office can assist those interested in making formal complaints through referrals to other offices or channels at the University, but the Office is not designed to receive formal notice of complaints on behalf of the University and should not be used in that way.
Faculty, staff and administrators are not required to use the Ombuds Office for informal resolution of conflict and do so voluntarily.
There is actually on the website information about the ethical principles, structures and guideline, and the role of the Ombuds. Here’s the link…
The person will actually have an office but not on UNCSA campus so it will be really impartial and confidential. In order to hire an Ombuds person right now we will be in the process of hiring a part-time person on a contract basis. A committee will be formed to actually hire and then follow up and evaluate that office. The committee will consist of two faculty, two staff members, and two administrators. The thought is to have them to serve two-year terms. There are more details on website. Again, the Ombuds committee will select the Ombuds, oversee the work of the Ombuds, and evaluate, then replace the Ombuds if something would happen. This is a new thing for the campus, but this is something both staff council and faculty council has been striving for quite some time. The Office of the Provost has agreed to find funds to pay for the Ombuds Office.
Nakita Green asked, “How will the Ombuds Office work with the Grievance committee?”
Leslie K. said, “These are two separate things. This will be something that would be done before it actually get to the formal grievance process. They are intended to be separate.
Chief Harris asked, “Why hire someone from Wake Forest?”
Leslie said, “The reason is because one thought was to reach out to the Law professors at Wake Forest and there’s some connections there. They could perhaps serve in that capacity, but it still would have to go through the committee to actually hire someone from Wake Forest. That’s the initial thought because it would an easierthing to do and since they were closer and have the expertise. They would need certification to work as an Ombudsman, however they could be an attorney who is also trained as an Ombudsman. They will not give legal advice.
Next Staff Council Meeting
Our next meeting in October is the ALL Staff meeting and will be held in the main theater located in the School of Filmmaking on Oct. 20.
Topics/Issues that need to be address:
Location of Flu Shot Clinic and why the information was announced on Monday and the event was on Wednesday.
Invite My SA team
Clutter in Outlook
Announcements
Sonya L. announced that the Fitness Center is offering free group exercise classes to all students, faculty, and students. We encourage more participation so the classes will continue for the rest of the school year.
Joseph Roberts will be retiring in December after working 14 years in the School of Design & Production.
Respectfully submitted by,
Sonya Linney