Staff Senate Minutes
University of Nebraska at Kearney
February 20, 2007 - 10:30 a.m., Sandhills Dining Room, Nebraskan Student Union
Present: Administrative: Bressington, Kauders, Schroeder
Managerial/Professional: Benitz, Morehouse, Schafnitt
Service: Geiger, Gilbertson, Uden
Office: Beerbohm, Weed, Meier
Ex-Officio: Lakey
Recognition of Employee of the Month-Custodian Art Hasbrouck, Facilities
Recognition of the Department of the Month-UNK Campus Kitchen Program
Guest Speakers, Kevin Wait & Mike Eiberger
Student Government Parking Proposal
Presented Proposal for changes:
Lot 4 (change to Faculty/Staff/Commuter parking
– metered parking would remain the same),
Lot 6 (Resident Hall parking only),
Lot 9 (Change to Commuter parking only&
Lot 32(potentially change to Commuter/Visitor)
Proposal is being presented to Chancellor’s Cabinet today
Guest Speaker – Dr LeAnn Obrecht,
UNK Counseling & Health Care
Dr Obrecht described changes, including new employees within the offices establishment implementation of a Women’s Center and hiring a Psychiatrist to be available once a month in the Counseling Care office. With the client-base rising nearly 20% in one year the need to hire additional staff was obvious. Peg Nyffeler stepped down as Assistant Director so a new director was hired – Sue Pederson was hired to fill this position. A new Registered Nurse was also hired at .75 FTE. Another 3-4 new staff has been added as well. In the spring of 2006, an Assessment of Students’ Health was conducted. The assessment was done on-line and nearly 800 students responded! With the outbreak of mumps in spring, 2006 the CDC chose UNK’s campus as a record-keeping source for mumps (needed to choose a campus where mumps had not yet surface). Again, a great response from UNK students, 400 – 500 volunteered to give blood.
I. Call to Order - Benitz
II. Open Floor – Staff members are welcome to have open discussion with Senate
III. Adoption of Agenda – Kauders, Morehouse
IV. Approval of Minutes – (with corrections) Beerbohm, Kauders
V. Financial Report – Audrey Kauders – Approved, Schafnitt, Meier
VI. Correspondence –
VII. Unfinished Business
a) Updates
1. January Staff Appreciation as been moved to March 13, 9:00 – 10:00
Nebraskan Student Union – Everyone is encouraged to attend!
2. Leadership UNK – Professional Development met with Mr. Lakey and will meet again tomorrow for fine tuning of the program. The first year will be for staff only – The committee has received support from Pepsi.
3. Parking Updates – No updates (see “Guest Speakers”)
VIII. Committee Reports
a) Election Committee – No Report
b) Employee Recognition Committee – Joni Weed –Wanted to check on status of new display cases for Employee of the Month in the Union – Mark said that he would check on the status
c) Performance Management Committee – No Report
d) Procedures Committee – No Report
Professional Development Committee – Unfortunately there is a turn-over in Membership. Loper Design Challenger – Rich Broderson has been postponed the New U – Deb Lundeen is progressing along. Mark your Calendars – Poker Walk – August 2 – Cooking Cardiology – October 4
e) Mentoring Committee – Bruce Uden – The committee met last Thursday – working on the Leadership UNK proposal. Dee & Linda attended the last facilities meeting.
f) Office/Service Dependent Scholarship Committee – Jan Beerbohm – the committee met last week – Recommended to Senate not to award less then $250.00 per recipient. Beerbohn made a motion was not to go below this amount – Motion carried and seconded by Morehouse. She also requested that Recycling containers be place in special locations during special events that distribute pop cans.
g) Information Technology Advisory Committee – No Report
h) Strategic Planning Committee – Deb Schroeder – The committee has not met since the last Staff Senate meeting. Eight areas of strategic importance have been identified to develop Phase II Implementing Plans.
IX. New Business
a) Upcoming Election – To be held in early March
b) July 1 Celebration – To be held Friday June 29 – To be called “UNK Day Breakfast” at 7:00 – 8:30 a.m.
X. Staff Senate Roundtable – Staff members update the Senate on events happening in their offices/departments
a) Joni Weed – busy with two upcoming Career Fairs along with a third in March!
b) Bruce Uden – Good to be back! - Just back full-time this past week
c) Mike Geiger – This week will be working on Summer projects
d) Jami Schafnitt – Set date for October homecoming – week of October 1, 2007
Family Day is November 3
e) Mark Morehouse – Working on the upcoming NCAA events – Working on re-painting, lights, ceiling tiles, plumbing, cleaning bleachers, refinishing floors.
There are a lot of branches still left from the ice storms – working on cleaning that up in the coming weeks. There were 14 trees that will need to be removed. Facilities will hire outside contractor to trim some of the larger trees.
f) Brandon Bohn – (UNK Student Government representative) – Working on the purchasing of Picnic Tables. THE BIG EVENT is scheduled for late March.
g) Audrey Kauders – Sue Wick has been hired as the Education Director. Sue is a UNK Alumni and lives in Kearney. Teacher-In-Service, February 21. Classroom Teaching directed at 4th graders
h) Cheryl Bressington – Annual Evaluations will be coming in March! – There is a new evaluations tool so should be easier.
i) Deb Gilbertson – Just trying to keep up!
j) Fauneil – We have visitors from China – Senator Hagel will be here on Monday – Several Japanese visitors here visiting promoting their space program – Food Festival is scheduled for March 4.
k) Deb Schroeder – Wireless in live in Conrad, Stout and Randall – March 11 is the Daylight Savings Times begins and there are known issues with Lotus Notes – VISTA and Office 2007 available now but not all desktop software runs under VISTA operating system. Recommend waiting to install Vista till summer or fall – Starting campaign to make campus aware of the need to eliminate Social Security Numbers. There is a bill in the legislature that would make the use of Social Security for anything but taxes illegal.
l) Brandon Benitz – Blue and Gold 2007 theme will be in conjunction with Homecoming. Academic Orientation on Saturday has been moved to Sunday. Move-in is August 24 with the Chancellor’s Picnic afterwards
XI. Announcements
a) Staff Senate is always seeking nominations for Employee and Department of the Month! All nomination forms are available on-line on the Staff Senate webpage
b) Staff are always encouraged to attend Staff Senate meetings – open comments are now happening at beginning of meetings
c) Next Meeting –March 20 @ 10:30 a.m. at MONA. Guest speaker, Amy Elwood, Emergency Response Coordinator, Two Rivers Public Health Department
XII. Adjourn – meeting was adjourned at 12:15 p.m.