Draft Minutes

 

 

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

10:00 am - 12:00 noon by video conference

 

 

1.          Call to order and roll call

 

            (P) = Present

                (A) = Absent

                (AE) = Absent, excused

 

Current Members

Lisa Sporleder, President (P)

Juli Gillispie, Vice President (P)

Lori Merdes, Co-Secretary (P)

Betty Dupee, Co-Secretary (AE)

Linda Harrigan (P)

Bess Rounds  (P)

Michael Simmons  (P)

John Mitchell (A)

Lisette Richmond  (P)

Kenneth Coon  (P)

Larry McGrady (A)

Jodi Bailey, alternate  (P)

Alicia Wyse, alternate  (P)

 

            Others present

 

Pat Ivey and Hans Gunderson, System Governance

Mike Humphrey, Director, Benefits

 

2.         Adopt agenda

 

MOTION: passed without objection

 

“The Statewide Administration Assembly moves to adopt the agenda for the October 13, 2004 meeting.  This action is effective October 13, 2004.”

 

3.         Approve minutes of September 8, 2004 meeting

            http://gov.alaska.edu/saa/minutes/2004-09-08.html

 

MOTION: passed without objection

 

“The Statewide Administration Assembly moves to approve the minutes of the September 8, 2004 meeting.  This action is effective October 13, 2004.”

 

4.         Public Comments

 

            There were no public comments.

 

5.         Staff Alliance Update

http://gov.alaska.edu/staff/agendas/2004/10-12.html

 

Lisa Sporleder reported that the Staff Alliance met yesterday with 100 percent attendance.  The Staff Alliance had guest speakers talking about the MyUA project and the current state of dial-up contracts.  She gave a chair’s report on the last Board of Regents meeting.  Jim Johnsen visited about the future possibilities of a mediation project and of supervisory training.  The Staff Alliance endorsed both of those heartily, so Johnsen is going to move forward with them.  Johnsen told the Staff Alliance that there is $500,000 earmarked in the FY06 budget for faculty and staff development and part of that money could be used for the supervisory training program.  Bill Gregory, the director of Operations Services gave the update on the dial-up contracts and he was very appreciative of hearing that the Staff Alliance was working on supervisory training.  Mike Humphrey reported on the meeting of the Wellness Task Force.

 

            Sporleder presented the information on the Edith Bullock Award, given annually. Staff as well as faculty have won the award.  The award includes a monetary component of $20,000. See http://www.alaska.edu/uafound/processPolicy/bullock.xml for further information.

 

6.         Academic Reorganization and General Statewide Reorganization

            http://gov.alaska.edu/saa/2004-08-30system.pdf

 

Pat Ivey explained the recent reorganization to gather academic staff under the newly created position of academic affairs vice president, the move of governance staff and the budget director under Wendy Redman.    There have been a couple of changes at UAA and UAF under the new chancellors. At UAA, the interim vice chancellor of academic affairs was direct appointed permanent vice chancellor and the search process cancelled. At UAF, there is a new vice chancellor and associate vice chancellor for university enhancement and community engagement with direct appointments to those positions. It was noted that Wendy Redman’s community relations director has moved on to become the new associate vice chancellor at UAF.  Members wondered if the community relations director position would be advertised, and if so, when. 

 

7.         Wellness Task Force Status                                                

            http://www.summex.com

 

Mike Humphrey reported that Summex has a health risk appraisal program.  On September 16 and 17, the head of Summex met with the UA Wellness Task Force consisting of governance and union leaders to design what a health and wellness program might look at.  The first day, Summex laid out what a health appraisal system might look like and the impacts of employee health care risks on healthcare plans. The more bad habits employees have, the higher the costs of healthcare.  The task force and Summex also reviewed the literature and data from peer-reviewed journals and other risk appraisal programs across the country.  For instance, the City of Birmingham had the greatest return of health risk appraisal forms because the city required employees to fill out the form prior to receiving health care benefits.  Task force members were quite positive about that aspect, but suspected the university wouldn’t go quite that far.

 

Also, there were some concerns about confidentiality.  What would the information be used for?  Who would have access to the information?  Summex would maintain the database and only the aggregate data would be furnished to the university, and the university would never see the individual records.  Additional preventative healthcare information would be sent to employees and it was thought that the information would be tailored to the risk.   An SAA member asked if a website could be established to house this type of information, or some other way of distributing preventative health care literature to make at risk employees feel less targeted or pressured.

 

SAA members suggested that rollout announcements and the risk assessment survey go out at a time other than open enrollment, such as right after the beginning of the calendar year.

 

8.         Potlucks - Thanksgiving and Christmas: committees, chairs, timelines

 

            The Thanksgiving potluck will be held this year on Friday, November 19, 2004       during the lunch period.

 

            The Thanksgiving Turkey Potluck crew includes:

 

Alicia Wyse - set-up/clean-up

Bess Rounds - 2nd floor sign-up sheet

Mike Simmons - 1st floor sign-up sheet

Julie Gillispie - set-up/clean-up

Jodi Bailey - set-up/clean-up

Help Desk staff - clean-up

 

The Christmas Luau Potluck will be held on Friday, December 17, 2004 during the lunch period.

 

            The Christmas Luau Potluck crew includes

 

Julie Gillispie - set-up/clean-up

Bess Rounds - 2nd floor sign-up sheet

Lori Merdes - 1st floor sign-up sheet

Alicia Wyse - set-up/clean-up

Lisette Richmond - set-up/clean-up

Jodi Bailey - set-up/clean-up

Help Desk staff - clean-up

 

It was suggested that the Sherman Carter Conference Room be blocked off on those dates in case the Regents Conference Room is still in use for the building move.

 

9.         Love, Inc, committee: chair, timeline

 

Leah Shepherd will continue to facilitate SAA’s Love, Inc. project.  This year, the plan is to sign up for two families.  Statewide employees located in Anchorage will coordinate with Fairbanks-based statewide employees.  As soon as Shepherd has the information on the families and their lists, a notice should be sent out to all statewide employees.

 

10.        Canned Food Drive: committee, chair, timeline

 

SAA will once again ask Laura Letuligasenoa and David Rohwer to head up this year’s canned food drive.  The canned food drive will kick off at the Thanksgiving Potluck and run through the Christmas Potluck.  The amount of food collected last year should be posted on the notice being sent out this year.

 

11.        Butrovich Building Move Update

 

Jodi Bailey reported that the building move activities are proceeding. The teacher-mentor program will move to the Whole Earth Building.  Anyone who has received a desktop with no grommets (the holes that computer wires go through) will not receive them.  No holes can be cut in the desktops because this violates the 10-year warranty. Bailey strongly urged anyone who has concerns about the move to contact her directly.  If she doesn’t know what the problems are, she can’t fix them.

 

12.        Other Items of Interest

 

The System Governance Council candidate survey was sent out today.  The Coalition of Student Leaders will be doing follow-ups with candidates to make sure the surveys are completed.  See http://gov.alaska.edu/candidates/2004/2004-10-07survey.pdf and http://gov.alaska.edu/candidates/2004/transletter.pdf.  The deadline for responses is October 26.  The information will be shared with candidates, posted on the web, and shared with the university community.

 

Lisa Sporleder urged SAA members to find someone other than regular alternates to proxy for them at SAA meetings when they cannot attend and know in advance that they cannot attend. She said that enough SAA members have emergencies at the last minute when they can’t get substitutes that alternates are called upon to fill in as voting members in emergencies.  She asked members to let Pat Ivey or Hans Gunderson know when they cannot attend.

 

Michael Simmons said one of his co-workers asked him to ask SAA if university land couldn’t be substituted in lieu of salary increases at the request of the employee where employees could buy land at a discount.  The co-worker is pursuing this with Jim Johnsen.

 

There was some discussion about the phone numbers in statewide moving from the 474 prefix to a new 450  prefix.  Evidently, statewide was volunteered for the project because 1) UAF had run out of 474 prefix numbers and no more could be purchased, and 2) statewide is a separate entity from UAF.  TVC has already migrated to the 450 prefix.  Additionally, statewide employees will not be able to retain the same last four digits but will be assigned totally new numbers.

                                                                                               

13.        Agenda Items for the Next Meeting – Wednesday, November 10, 2004 from 10:00am - 12:00 noon

 

The deadline for submitting agenda items is ten days in advance of the meeting. Agenda items may include, but may not be limited to potluck and Love, Inc. updates, candidate survey report, update from the wellness task force and other items of concern.

 

14.        Member Comments

 

There were no additional comments.

 

15.        Adjourn

 

            The meeting was adjourned at 11:34am.