THE
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
STAFF
SENATE
(NORMAN
CAMPUS)
Wednesday,
May 21, 2008
Chair Beth Gatewood called the meeting
to order at 1:30 p.m. in the Scholars Room of the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
Officers present — Beth
Gatewood, Chair; Linda McCarty, Chair-Elect; Betty Love, Immediate Past Chair; Kathy
Gross, Recording Secretary
Staff present —
Barbara Perry, Administrative Coordinator
Representatives present —
Hourly Employees Council: Diana Fitzpatrick, Ed Fontaine, Kim Haddad, Carolyn Irons, Dee Hayes, Melanie
Wilburn, Troy Schmidt, David Kizer; Informational Staff Association: Anna Love,
Debi Gentis, Michael Goodwin, Debbie Copp, Elaine Bradshaw; Organizational
Staff Council: Cathy Brister, Matt
Berry, Cathy Trujillo; Administrative Staff Council: Sue-Anna Miller
Representatives absent — Hourly
Employees Council: Donna Stephens, Robert Murphy, Jack Shoopman; Informational
Staff Association: Lisa Bowles; Organizational Staff Council: Sandi Emond, Jannie
Porter Tami Kinsey; Administrative Staff Council: Robbie Wahnee
Guests present — Nancy
Matthews, Department of Mathematics; Lezlie Pilkington, Administrative Affairs;
Eddie Huebsch,
IT; Brandy Ennis, IT; Greg Brezinski, Physical Plant; Sonya Fallgatter, Faculty
Senate; Linda Smith, Price College of Business
UPDATE ON
STANDARDIZATION OF OUNet 4X4 ID
Eddie Huebsch, Director,
IT Projects Office, explained that there were about 20,000 people here at the
University who had their 4x4s based on their Social Security number, and IT was
in the process of switching the 4x4s over to the last 4 numbers of their Sooner
ID. The deadline for the switch is
July. They have had pilot groups,
including the entire IT department, involved in testing over the last several
weeks. Once you enter for the first
time it will be cached. Everything appears to be going smoothly. Eddie said the switch would affect
people who had been at the University more than four years because they
actually started using the Sooner ID for new people about three years ago. IT is making an effort through email
and by talking to groups to get the information out concerning the
switchover. Two websites that won’t
be linked to the new 4x4 are jobs@ou.edu and
the OU Foundation system. Eddie passed
around a handout for more information.
PRESENTATION ON
RECYCLING ISSUES
Greg Brezinski from the
Physical Plant said that the recycling program at the University is doing very
well. They are recycling over 700
tons of paper products a year and growing. Containers can be obtained at no cost
departments. Every piece of paper
is treated as confidential information and is locked up while in their charge. Some types of products that can be
recycled are plastics, aluminum, steel, rechargeable batteries, cardboard,
chipboard and toner cartridges.
All materials are hand sorted.
If you have special pick up needs, you can call the department at
325-8068 or visit their Website for instructions to get a container.
CHAIR’S COMMUNICATIONS
Chair Beth Gatewood
reported that she had received an email from Vice President Hathaway commenting
on the phenomenal job done with Staff Week this year. Beth clarified a matter that had come up at the April Senate
meeting regarding whether anyone had been denied funds for the Shared Leave
program. She had visited with
Michelle Boydstun of Payroll and Records and Michelle said they received the
additional funding before it was necessary to deny any employee due to lack of
funding. Beth reminded everyone of
the call for volunteers for University councils and committees. She reported that several members of
the Executive Committee had attended the HSC awards luncheon and the honorary
degree presentation recently.
ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES OF
APRIL 16, 2008
Cathy Trujillo requested that under Chair’s
Communications, her former name, Cathy Moore, be changed to her current name,
Cathy Trujillo. On motion by Matt
Berry, the minutes of the April 16, 2008, meeting, were then accepted as corrected.
OTHER
COMMUNICATIONS
Administrative Staff
Council: President Sue-Anna Miller reported that
ASC met electronically. The group
discussed their picnic and plan to go forward with that event for a couple of
years. They received many positive
comments on the event. They
discussed group meetings times and topics for the upcoming year, and Sue-Anna
reported that they have some great ideas.
Hourly Employees Council: President Diana Fitzpatrick reported that HEC met on April
14. Results of HEC elections
are: Group I: Brian Shults; Group II: Cindy Simpson;
Group III: Toni Whitehead; Group IV: Amber Demastus; Group V: Brandie Wright;
Group VI :David Kizer. David Houck
will be 08-09 HEC President; Linda Smith will be 08-09 President-Elect. Donna Stephens will be secretary.
Diana passed out a letter of endorsement for the PPC
recommendation on the agenda under New Business and explained that HEC had
members on that committee and the information was a regular update for HEC
business. The memo read: “Subject: Extended Sick Leave Proposal from Personnel Policy
Committee: I have been instructed
to inform you all that the Hourly Employees Council strongly endorses the
present proposal from the Personnel Policy Committee to reduce the requirements
for accessing Extended Sick Leave, and urges its passage by the full Staff
Senate. Robert Murphy,
Secretary-Treasurer, HEC.”
Informational
Staff Association: President Anna Love
said the ISA had their annual pizza party on May 7 to celebrate the recipients
of their awards. She announced that
Chris Cook will be ISA President-Elect for 08-09. Michael Goodwin will take over as chair starting with the
next meeting as Anna will be retiring at the end of May.
Organizational
Staff Council: President Cathy
Brister said OSC met on May 1. The
group discussed how to improve bingo and discussed changing their food
choice. They will finalize their
elections at their June meeting.
STANDING
COMMITTEES
OU Staff Week
Committee: Chair Melanie Wilburn said
the Staff Week Committee would meet for the first time since Staff Week the
following day.
Employment Benefits
Committee: Debbie Copp reported
that the EBC met Thursday, May 15.
She was happy to report that they had received some very competitive
proposals. She said it appeared
everything was on track to go to the June Regent’s meeting which would give an
additional three month’s time to prepare for any changes. She advised everyone to be watching for
emails for announcements.
Personnel Policies
Committee: PPC chair Linda Smith
said PPC met on April 30. The
committee spent most of the discussion on the proposal that was attached to the
agenda for this meeting.
MISCELLANEOUS
HEC member Ed Fontaine
said he had spoken to Frank Henry from Housing and Food Services as well as
staff from Physical Plant Hauling Section and they had discussed problems with
the busy week during which Staff Week is held. Ed said some thought should be given to moving Staff Week
either a week earlier in the month or a week after graduation. Ed said at the time of the year Staff
Week is held, Hauling is setting up for graduation and everyone is moving
out. Linda Smith commented that in
the past we did not rely so heavily on Food Service. She said we used to have a lot of outside vendors and did
not have hotdogs and BBQ, but now Food Service has stepped up to make Staff
Week better. She said whatever we
can do to help them, we should do. Ed said we have to help our coworkers because
there will come a point where they can’t help us. He said Hauling and Food Service is already basically
working 16 hours – 2 shifts just to keep even. Barbara Perry pointed out that it is necessary to schedule
the Ballroom and the President for the Awards Ceremony a year in advance and
that would need to be taken into consideration. Debbie Copp said in some years, Staff Week falls two
weeks before graduation as opposed to one week before finals and we might not
want to change Staff Week permanently, but maybe look at alternatives the first
of each year.
Ed made a motion to look
into changing the Staff Week to either a week earlier or possibly in May after
commencement and send the motion to the Awards Committee and Staff Week Committee. The motion was seconded and passed on a
voice vote.
CORRESPONDENCE
Memo from Staff
Senate Chair Beth Gatewood to Vice President Nick Hathaway regarding additional
funding to Shared Leave Program. The memo was linked to
the agenda.
REPORTS
The
following reports were linked to the May agenda:
Staff Senate
Foundation account report.
Minutes of
the Employment Benefits Committee meeting of March 27, 2008.
NEW BUSINESS
Consideration of
recommendation from Personnel Policies Committee regarding use of extended sick
leave: The proposal was linked
to the agenda. PPC Chair Linda
Smith explained that in the event of an illness an employee must use 24 hours
of scheduled paid leave before accessing their ESL. She said the other part of the proposal provides that in the
event of scheduled surgery or a situation that requires an overnight stay in a
hospital, the employee will be able to go directly into their ESL. The committee had stated in their
proposal that they did not understand the reasoning behind the 56 hour
requirement; however, they had subsequently learned that in 1990 when the
University switched to paid leave from separate vacation and sick leave
accounts, President Van Horn had wanted the requirement to be ten (10) days and
the EEC (now Staff Senate) ad hoc committee recommended five (5) days, so a
compromise was reached and they came up with seven (7) days or 56 hours. PPC’s current recommendation is three
(3) days. PPC felt three
days was important because three days stays consistent with requirements for
FMLA and Workers’ Compensation.
Cathy Brister asked if
all the member groups should not have the opportunity to take this back to
their member groups and vote on it the same way HEC had to the opportunity to
vote on it. Linda said she hoped
they would all have that opportunity.
She explained that this was a regular agenda item for the HEC so it had
been discussed at their meeting.
Debbie Copp then made a motion to refer the proposal to the member
groups and to the Staff Senates on the HSC and Tulsa campuses and report back
at the June meeting with comments.
The motion was seconded.
There was some
discussion regarding FMLA, what qualifies as an FMLA event and when FMLA
begins.
Debbie said she helped
draft the proposal and had sought Robbie Wahnee’s advice. The suggestion was
made to change the length of time to three days so it would match up with FMLA
and Workers Compensation – that way all the numbers are the same and you
don’t have different qualifying time periods.
Chair Beth Gatewood
asked if the proposal was in lieu of or addition to the other proposal
regarding ESL for family usage.
Linda said this was a different, separate proposal. There would be a recommendation for
family members coming later. Linda
said this proposal had nothing to do with family usage. Beth asked if the committee had
considered combining them so there would be only one proposal going to the
President regarding ESL. Linda said they had considered that, but they did not
have the data for the other proposal and did not want to hold this one up. This one directly affects the staff
member and the other one is geared toward family members, and Linda thought
staff members needed this break now. After a bit more discussion, the motion passed on a
show of hands.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The next meeting will be
held on June 18, 2008.
ADJOURNMENT
As there was
no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:10 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara
Perry
Administrative Coordinator
Kathy Gross
Recording Secretary