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Meeting Minutes September 4, 2008
Minutes of the CFAES Staff Advisory Council Meeting
Sept. 4, 2008
10:00 p.m.
Meeting held at the Pugh cabin at Malabar Farms in Lucas, Ohio. This meeting was a potluck with everyone contributing.
Present: John Beardmore, Trina Beebe, Tim Butcher, Cindy Buxton, David Drake, Sherry Ferrell, Teresa Funk, Todd Hicks, Mike Kauffman, Jeanne Osborne, Pat Patterson, Mary Roberts, April Wax and Frances Whited
I. Welcome and Introduction
No guests or new members were present for this meeting.
II. Approval of Minutes
John moved to approve the minutes, second by Frances. Minutes were approved unanimously.
III. Old Business — Task Force Reports:
Budget
April reported a total of $631.44 was spent on the Staff Appreciation event, well under budget.
Teresa requests that SAC sponsor a break at the annual Extension Conference on Dec. 17 & 18 or support the Support Staff Conference on Oct. 22 & 23. The amounts recommended for $600 for the Annual Conference and $300 for the Support Staff Conference. She as already requested table space for both conferences.
Cindy, Sherry, Tim and Trina can help at the Support Staff Conference. Cindy indicated that the top of the display needs fixing as it was damaged during the flood in Ag. Admin.
Jeanne said $100 was needed for today’s cabin rental. Trina said travel to be submitted was around $250. Cindy said people need to send their travel info to Carol Poe who will process for individual travel.
The receipts should go to the Secretary/Treasurer who will communicate with the Budget Committee when purchasing items for SAC. After some discussion, a motion to put $1000 toward the Extension conferences was made my Tim, Jeanne 2nd. All were in favor.
Day with the Dean
Jeanne reported that Dr. Martin was to check with the cabinet on our suggestion that she become a part of Day with the Dean. There has been no response back so Jeanne will email Dr. Martin as a follow-up. More discussion on this was made during New Business.
Survey / Inquiry Review Committee
Tim questioned if we should prepare another survey. The Executive Counsel received copies of the survey but SAC never received any feedback. When and if a next survey is created it was recommended that survey development peopled be invited to help with the creation and selection of questions. It was also recommended that this issue be addressed again after staff mentoring and more staff recognition are established.
It is up to SAC to lead the way in a staff mentoring system. It was recommended we model off of the Epsilon Sigma Phi mentoring system. Teresa will get information from Extension’s HR person. Mike asked what mentoring at a staff level is. Teresa explained how new employees would be matched up with people in similar jobs thoughout the college.
Todd expressed thanks to April for the great job she did on the Staff Appreciation event. He also commented that the Columbus campus is in more need of mentoring than the Wooster campus or other outlying campuses.
Dave suggested we table the survey task force.
Vice President’s Council
Todd reported that there have not been any meetings in a while.
A challenge to the one year Executive Team term limit was made by Todd. It was recommended terms go to 2 years with a possible 4 year instead of 3 year term for SAC membership. This topic is to be discussed again at the November meeting.
Wellness
Tim reported there were 22 scheduled health screening conducted and 3 walk-ins at the Staff Appreciation event. The chair massage was kept busy during the event.
Tim also brought up making ergonomic info sheets that could be used as take-a-ways at events or creating a mock up of proper desk-computer alignment. This discussion led to the need for SAC to be a conduit for info from other university units. It was also mentioned that SAC should invite other OSU units to come and set up displays at our events.
IV. New Business
Regarding membership, Dave is to email Dr. Martin with vacancies on SAC and contact Mary Gulas to see what her plans are.
Current Task Forces
The following task forces were discussed:
To combine the Staff Recognition task force with the Shirley Brooks Jones task force.
To remove the word “Day” from the Staff Appreciation task force.
To add “Staff Mentoring” to the Professional Development task force. Teresa will chair this task force.
To remove the Inquiry Review (otherwise known as Survey) task force for at least a year, however, we need to figure out how to monitor staff questions and issues now
Sherry will replace April on the Budget task force and the new Secretary/Treasurer will also be a member of this task force.
Day with the Dean is good with the current members Jeanne and Cindy.
The Shirley Brooks Jones task force will now join the Staff Recognition task force. Trina will replace April, Mary Roberts will join along with 1 new member at the November meeting.
The VP Council members for this year are Todd, Cindy and Frances.
Transportation will be coordinated by Trina in Columbus and David in Wooster.
The Staff Appreciation task force members will include Todd, Frances (who will be the Chair for Wooster), Mike, Liz, Teresa (who will be the Chair for Columbus) and 1 new member.
Wellness members include Tim, Pat, Mike and Matt.
After lunch cards to the Cabinet and to the student helpers of the Staff Appreciation event were signed along with a get well card to Matt. Cindy is getting pricing for SAC thank you cards.
April reported that 125-130 people filled out surveys at the Columbus Staff Appreciation event. Winners of the gift cards are listed on the SAC website. The Years of Service banner went over well and SAC received positive responses to it.
Next year it is recommended that the Staff Appreciation Day is advertised on OSUToday, that we get CommTech to write up an article about the event and take photos.
Wooster’s Staff Appreciation Day drew approximately 300 people. They served hotdogs, chips, and ice cream. There were lots of activities including a jar guessing contest, a jello eating contest, bingo, corn hole and a departmental tug-of-war.
Wooster also has a day with a staff member where an administrator spends 2 hours at a staff location. This is usually done 2 hours prior to the Staff Appreciation event. This is planned 4 or 5 months ahead and Mike said to allow for changes.
ATI’s Staff Appreciation was an all day event. The director rented out the golf course for the day. They had about 110 people there.
The SAC Luncheon preparation was taken care of by Trina and Teresa. The luncheon will open at 11:30 and lunch will be served at noon, Oct. 31, 2008. It will be held on the 5th floor of the Nationwide & Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center. They will work on invitations for immediate supervisors and unit chairs.
The center pieces will be used as door prizes. Cindy is going to create a slide show with Jeanne getting music for it. April will order a plaque for the Shirley Brooks Jones Award.
It was recommended that everyone try to get the luncheon on their supervisor’s calendars now and not wait for the invitations to be sent.
Meal policy discussion was that there are 6 meals a year available with the college as an entity, those meals are not available to SAC except through other funding. ATI is a separate entity as well as Extension. Extension handles this differently where meals are paid for depending on where the money comes from and the business purpose of the meal.
SAC’s luncheon and retreat are acceptable for payment of meals. SAC will need in the future to pay for its own meal for the regular meetings.
The next meeting is being hosted by Teresa and will be held at the Turf Center or the Waterman Farm in Columbus. Columbus people will provide food for this meeting. Additional meetings will be scheduled at the November meeting along with meal planning.
Jeanne reported on the Executive meeting with Dr. Martin. Dr. Martin believes the budget be carried over from year to year. SAC is to work with Carol Poe. She had several ideas that she would like SAC to take the lead on. The first being that Dr. Martin would like to recognize departments for appreciating their staff with self nominations indicating what they have done for staff. She wants a student worker award that would be presented at the spring banquet. She would also like to see more faculty/staff/student interaction.
For Day with the Dean, Dr. Martin suggested work with Carol Poe on the scheduling. Martin was to talk with the Cabinet & Dr. Moser but as of this meeting she has not informed Jeanne of the outcome of her discussions. Jeanne will contact her again about this.
Another idea from Dr. Martin was an e-newsletter sent out by SAC.
Jeanne called for volunteers for the Executive Team. Three candidates stepped forward. Cindy Buxton for Communication’s Director, Teresa Funk at Vice Chair and Liz Kinney for Secretary/Treasurer. The vote was unanimous for all 3 positions.
Backup for the Communication’s Director is John Beardmore and Pat Patterson will backup the Secretary/Treasurer.
Term limits was brought up by Todd. It was recommended SAC change the by-laws on this issue. This will be addressed at a future meeting.
Other new business included the recommendation of suggestion boxes around campus by Tim. Cindy recommended putting staff questions or comments on the SAC website.
Changing the procedure for volunteering for other department events, such as at the state fair, where staff had to take vacation in order to help out. Also, having the college encourage cross-department work. This currently is allowable only upon approval of department supervisor. These issues are to be brought up at the November meeting with Dr. Martin.
Recommendations for SAC members from now till the November meeting are to write down ideas, suggestions, comments or questions for Dr. Martin and send them to Jeanne. SAC members also need to be thinking of our roadmap and our goals to give to Dr. Martin.
Frances moved to adjourn the meeting and it was seconded by John.
