THE
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
STAFF
SENATE
(NORMAN
CAMPUS)
Thursday,
March 29, 2007
Chair Betty Love called the meeting
to order at 1:30 p.m. in the Seminar Room of the Nuclear Engineering Laboratory Building.
Officers present —
Betty Love, Chair; Beth Gatewood, Chair-Elect; Joan Koos, Immediate Past
Chair; Chris McNabb, Recording
Secretary
Staff absent —
Shanika Bivines, Administrative Assistant
Representatives present —
Hourly Employees Council: Ed Fontaine, Diana Fitzpatrick, Karen Stark, David
Houck, Patsy Montoya, Ben Stapp, David Kizer, Kim Haddad, Robert Murphy;
Informational Staff Association: Kevin Jarnagin, Debi Gentis, Lisa Bowles,
Brook Barnes-Weber, Elaine Bradshaw; Organizational Staff Council: Linda
McCarty, Cathy Brister, Kathy Gross, Winona Bark; Administrative Staff Council:
Sue-Anna Miller, Rennie Cook
Representatives absent — Hourly
Employees Council: Cheryl Barton, Cindy Goode, Troy Schmidt; Informational Staff
Association: one vacancy; Organizational Staff Council: Jannie Porter, Matt
Berry; Administrative Staff Council: none
Guests present — Dan
Hough, OU Staff Week Committee Chair; Lezlie Pilkington, Administrative
Affairs; Debbie Copp, Employment Benefits Committee; James Tyree, The Oklahoman
CHAIRÕS COMMUNICATIONS
Chair Betty Love
reported on her meeting with Vice President for Executive and Administrative
Affairs Nick Hathaway. The budget
was discussed. She said if people
had listened to the news, they realized things were not going very well. She said the only thing she could say
about the budget at this point was that it was uncertain and more uncertain
than it had been in the recent past.
Health care coverage, retiree and dependent coverage are still top
priorities. The health care panel,
known as the Blue Ribbon panel for the time being, has been finalized. Joan Koos will serve on that panel as a
staff representative. Betty said Joan would keep Staff Senate abreast of the
issues. She encouraged staff to
bring their concerns and their co-workersÕ concerns to Joan. Betty said she expressed
appreciation to Nick for the opportunity to attend events such as the addresses
with former President Fox of Mexico, former Vice President Al Gore, and former
President George Bush. She
encouraged staff to attend these events if they had the opportunity.
INTRODUCTION
Betty welcomed new Staff
Senate member Winona Bark, representing the Organizational Staff Council.
ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF
FEBRUARY 21, 2007
On motion by Patsy Montoya, the minutes of the
February 21, 2007, minutes were accepted as written.
OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS
Informational Staff Association: President
Kevin Jarnagin reported that ISA met on March 7. The Staff Week art show was discussed. Jack Hobson was their guest
speaker. Kevin said he was a
dynamic speaker and would recommend him for any of the groups. He spoke about Haunted OU!
Administrative Staff Council: President Sue-Anna Miller reported that
the ASC met on March 14 to discuss the Food Fair. La Baguette will be back with desserts and some new items
will be added to the menu as well.
Tickets will remain $5 and will be sold in advance at the events.
Hourly Employees Council: President
Ed Fontaine reported that HEC met March 14. Ed said the Awards Committee made their final
selections. Ed remarked that a lot
of good people were nominated. The
Election Committee is preparing for group elections. The ice-cream-social continues to make plans. Survey results from the 35th
Anniversary Celebration were discussed.
They discovered that most of the questions involved people not looking
up the information that is already available on the web site. The group discussed expanding
their Web site and the recent extended sick leave proposal brought forth by the
Personnel Policies Committee.
Organizational Staff Council: President Linda
McCarty reported that OSC met March 1 and toured the Law Center. They discussed their award winners,
bingo and how to improve turnout for their meetings. They plan to identify new members in their group, email
them, and invite them to a meeting.
STANDING COMMITTEES
OU Staff Week Committee: Chair Dan Hough reported that the Staff
Week Committee had met twice in March.
He said the committee sold a lot of shirts. Dan said Kevin Barker had attended a meeting to let the
group know how he would set up the hamburger cookout. Dan said he is getting the proclamation from the City of
Norman for Staff Week.
Betty commented that she had heard many good
comments about the color and logo for the shirt.
Dan said the committee was considering doing
another sale either in the summer or fall.
Awards Committee: Administrative Coordinator Barbara
Perry reminded those who would be presenting at the Awards Ceremony, the group
presidents, that a walk-through would be held on April 17, at noon, in the
Union Ballroom.
REPORTS
The
following reports were linked to the March agenda:
Staff Senate
Foundation account report.
Minutes of
Employment Benefits Committee meeting of January 19, 2007.
NEW BUSINESS
Consideration of update to
Regents Policy Manual regarding names of Norman Campus Staff Senate member
groups: This item
was linked to the agenda.
Betty explained that the Regents Policy Manual listed Staff SenateÕs
member groups as the Council of Administrative Officers, the Administrative
Staff Conference, the Managerial Staff Council, the Association of University
of Oklahoma Professional Employees, and the Employment Management Council. She said these names had not been
used since 1980-81.
As background, Betty said when they
were making some updates to the Regents Policy Manual to change Tulsa from
being under HSC, the outdated language was noticed. Betty wanted to know if anyone had objection to changing the
Norman campus group names to their proper names, i.e., Administrative Staff
Council, Organizational Staff Council, Informational Staff Association and
Hourly Employees Council. There
was consensus within the Senate to take the necessary action to make the
changes.
MISCELLANEOUS
Linda
McCarty said her group discussed the awards recommendation form. Some people have a problem with
question #3 on the form - knowing what someone you nominate may do outside
working hours or if they are involved in community service. She wanted to know if the other groups
had problems with that question.
Ed Fontaine said he thought what people did on the outside was as
important as what they do on the job.
He said the University has a ton of people who do the job well. He said what separates them is whether
they are active in the community – he liked the question. He said it only took a few minutes to
learn something about a person. Ed
said the HEC did interview its finalists for the awards. (The other groups do not have an
interview process.) Ed said the
interview was important because it helps you see the nomineeÕs enthusiasm.
Discussion
followed on how to increase participation and the number of recommendations
submitted. Chris McNabb
recommended leaving the nomination form up all year long so people could access
it easily. Debbie Copp suggested
encouraging people to make nominations at all of the meetings that we attend. She said there are so many deserving
people out there who are not getting recognized. Another member commented that these are Staff Senate awards,
but many of the people winning have never been to any group meetings and are
not a part of Staff Senate in any way.
Betty
suggested the following scenario:
after this yearÕs ceremony send out a mass email asking staff if they
know a deserving employee who did not get recognized. Let them know about the form and the process for
nomination. Betty said some people
attending the ceremony have no idea how staff are nominated for an award, nor
how they win the award. If
changes are made to the form, a notice can be sent out, and that, too, will
help remind people of the nomination process.
Employment
Benefits Committee: Debbie gave
some background information about a topic discussed at the March EBC
meeting. In July of Õ04, the
Legislature passed an option for new employees not to have to join Oklahoma
Teachers Retirement System. OU and OSU appealed to make that a choice for
current employees as well. A
couple of months ago, attorneys for OU, OSU and OTRS went to Washington, D.C.,
to have a face-to-face conference with IRS. OU has been on an expedited course with the IRS who will
rule whether current members have a one-time choice to opt out of the
system. Debbie said part of the
problem is that IRS has determined that everyone has one choice in their
lifetime, and those of us who are current employees are interpreted to have
made our choice when we accepted our job at OU - although we really did not have a choice then. That was the argument that OU, OSU and
OTRS made to the IRS. We may have
an answer soon whether we will be allowed to opt out.
ADJOURNMENT
As there was
no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:18 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara
Perry
Administrative Coordinator
Chris McNabb
Recording Secretary