STAFF COUNCIL MEETING
Thursday, May 20, 2004
2:00 p.m., Chappell 102
Present: Rose Murner (presiding), Barbara Monnett, Susan Demmon, Neil Jones, Ann Portwood, Mike Augustine, Kathy Hill, Carol Brown, and Doris Henderson.
Excused: Kim Ireland and Paula Jefferson. Absent: Cindy Potts and Sheryl Snow. Guests: Myrna Olsson-Owen, Linda Watson-Kaufman, Mitch Clarke, Monica Wood, Jennifer Jones, Bibole Ngalamulume, Valerie Lee-Adams, Virginia Simmons, President Dorothy Leland, and Quintus Sibley.
Call to Order. Rose Murner called the meeting to order at 2:04 p.m.
Approval of Minutes. A motion was made, seconded, and approved to accept the minutes of the March meeting as written.
Cards received. Rose shared some cards and thank you notes Staff Council recently received.
Carrera Model Project. Rose introduced Linda Watson-Kaufman to talk about the Milledgeville Carrera Model Program, a special comprehensive program for young people. The project is funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation. The program is new to Milledgeville and has enormous community support. The program will follow a group of 30 children, 15 males and 15 females, from the time they enter 6th grade until the time they graduate 12th grade. There is a June launch date for the program. Linda introduced two staff working with her on the project, Project Coordinator Bibole Ngalamulume, and Community Organizer Valerie Lee-Adams. Linda, Bibole, and Valerie are currently in the Harrison House, and the office for the Carrera Model Project will be at 215 S. Wayne Street (the old Lina’s location). People who know of at-risk children who might benefit from the program are asked to call the project office. For more information, the contact numbers are: (478) 804-3778, 804-3779, or 445-3647. Rose thanked Linda, Bibole, and Valerie for coming to the meeting.
Web design. Next, Rose introduced Mitch Clarke to give the group an update on the new web design. A new advertising agency is helping redesign our web pages. Mitch will be working with different areas on campus to get feedback about what to put on specific pages. Hopefully templates will be ready in September, and the new design will be ready in November. More information about the new web design can be found at http://info.gcsu.edu/webproject/. Rose thanked Mitch for coming to the meeting.
Friday work hours. A staff member asked that the Friday work hours be included on the agenda for this meeting. President Leland was at the meeting, and she said she had not changed her mind about this since the last time it was brought up. She will not institute a university-wide 4 ½ day work week. However, she has no problem allowing supervisors to implement flex time in individual work areas. She wants to provide flexibility to employees as long as offices are covered. We certainly don’t want to go back to being known as a commuter campus where everything shuts down on Friday afternoons.
Ice Cream Social. The ice cream social is tentatively set for June 15th. More information will follow.
Shared Leave draft document. At a previous meeting, we discussed the need for the shared leave document. It was reported that the Board of Regents office was drafting a system-wide policy, so we put ours on hold. Now it seems that we should proceed with our original plans. Bonnie Sims and Rose have completed the update of our draft, and Rose will share it with President Leland when they meet in June. Rose will present the draft to the University Services Committee at their meeting in August. From that committee, it will go to University Senate for a final vote. Once the policy is implemented, there will be a dedicated committee to oversee the shared leave program.
Fund balance items. There are still funds available in our Staff Council accounts. There was some discussion about the best ways to use this money. Two suggestions were made: purchase benches to place in front of the library or elsewhere on campus and update computers for Physical Plant employees. Rose is going to check with Jim Wolfgang about help updating the computers. Neil Jones volunteered to collect these and other suggestions and send them to the delegates for an e-mail vote. Deadlines for spending these funds are coming up soon. There was some concern about whether or not we had to spend all of our Foundation funds before the end of the fiscal year, and Quintus Sibley is going to talk with Carolyn Ishee about that.
Other Business
There was a concern brought forward concerning recent budget cuts. There were some positions eliminated in the 2.5% budget cut, but the university didn’t have to take another 5% cut as was first thought. The good news is that we have some new money coming in: we were funded fully for our enrollment growth, there was a 5% tuition increase, and money available for merit raises that will be effective January 1. Some new staff positions were also included in some of this new funding. Dr. Leland is not anticipating any further cuts right now.
Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 3:18 p.m. The next meeting is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. June 17 in Chappell 102 unless otherwise noted. Other meetings may be added as needed.