MINUTES UAF STAFF COUNCIL MEETING #115 Friday, March 3, 2000 Wood Center Ballroom I Irene Downes called the meeting to order at 8:35 a.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: Baergen, A. Anderson, L. Brown, E. Baumann, S. Comstock, S. Candler, R. Culbertson, S. Gray, D. Dekerlegand York, D. Powell, D. Downes, I. Renfro, C. Evans, L. Rogers, P. Hagen, D. Scholle, M. Hazelton, G. Heineken, H. OTHERS PRESENT: Ledlow, L. Gabrielli, R. Lewis, M. Gatterdam, R. Martyn, P. Gruenig, T. Parzick, J. Huddy, K. Seymour, M. McBride, L. Simmons, H. Mosca, K. White, P. Schedler, K. Representatives and alternates received a Staff Council mug, as well as the guest speakers. B. The Minutes to Meeting #114 (February 2, 2000) were approved as amended so that the Ad Hoc Committee of Advocacy report reads as follows: E. Ad Hoc Committee on University Advocacy - S. McCrea The students were commended on their outreach program. There is a large audience that doesn't hear much information regarding the University, specifically the south side of Fairbanks. The committee is developing a UAF day at the south side community center either in the spring or early fall. Various departments from campus will have a booth at the south side center. Another project the committee is working on is to increase staff's knowledge of what is available on campus. Committee members are organizing a special campus tour just for staff, including behind-the-scenes elements that are not provided in tours for the general public. The idea is that better informed staff are better prepared to answer questions and be a university advocate to friends and neighbors. President-Elect Scholle asked that the committee work on the graduation bash in April. Closing enrollment for fall 1999 is 8,250, which is a slight increase over fall semester 1998. The decrease from fall 1997 to fall 1998 was 800 students. So this slight increase in a positive note. C. The consent agenda was approved with the addition of a motion on the revised mission statement, item B under New Business. 1. Staff Affairs Report was included in the agenda. 2. Staff Training Report was included in the agenda. 3. Technology Advisory Board was included in the agenda. D. President's Report - I. Downes Legislative Update - It is imperative that staff take an active roll in contacting their legislators. On March 4 there will teleconference at the Legislative Information Office and staff are encouraged to attend and testify. Accreditation Staff are taking an active role in this process. Each unit received a blue workbook to assist in the re-accreditation process. The self study reports are due May 20. Unit 4 - Institute of Arctic Biology and Unit 13 - Library and Computing and Communication have vacancies for representatives and alternates. If you know of anyone who may be interested, contact Irene Downes at fneid@uaf.edu or the Governance Office at fystaff@uaf.edu. It is very important for all units to have representation. All staff should take an active roll in Staff Council. If each person does just a little, than staff as a whole will benefit. Get involved today! II Governance Reports A. ASUAF - S. Banks No report. B. Faculty Senate - R. Gatterdam The Board of Regents passed the Information Resource Policy. There was a slight modification on the issue of privacy so it is harder to release information. Double counting on courses was addressed at the Regents meeting, also. The SAC and Faculty Alliance meeting passed a policy that 300 level courses will no longer satisfy graduate requirements. At the February 7 Senate meeting the academic calendar was passed and the ANLC unit criteria for promotion and tenure. The March Senate meeting, Legislative and Fiscal Affairs Committee will be merged with Faculty and Scholarly Affairs Committee. A new associates degree in Health Services will be addressed. A motion to modify the department head procedures, which will allow department heads greater say in the tenure and promotion process, will be addressed. The role of the dean in the election procedure for department heads will be addressed. Another motion that will be addressed is that students with teaching assistantships cannot work outside the campus. Another motion raises the number of credits a graduate student can take from independent study from 6 to 12. Transcripts from only the campus where the student got their bachelor degree will be another motion for consideration. Because of logistical problems, the Senate will address a motion to remove the requirement of the GRE for graduate student entrants. The individual departments may still require the GRE though. Nominations are open for President-Elect of the Faculty Senate. Alumni Association - C. Branley No report. III Committee Reports Elections, Membership & Rules - M. Scholle Marie Scholle was unable to attend the meeting. Deshana Dekerlegand York gave the committee report. The committee would like more members as they undertake the task of updating the bylaws. Deshana will be co-chairing the committee. Nominations for the position of president-elect opened at the March 3 meeting and will remain open until the election at the May 10 meeting. The President-Elect will be elected from the staff at large by the representatives at the May meeting. Duties of the president-elect are as follows: STAFF COUNCIL BYLAWS Sect. 3 (ARTICLE V - Officers) B. PRESIDENT-ELECT 1. The duties of the President-Elect shall be to: a. serve on the Administrative Committee. b. serve on the UAF Governance Coordinating Committee c. assume the duties of President when the President is absent. 2. Term of office shall be for one year beginning June 1 and ending on May 31. Other duties include monthly meetings with the Chancellor. Some travel to the Board of Regents' meetings may be required. Also, the Governance Office provides funds to hire a part-time replacement for the president and president-elect so there is no loss of work hours or the funds can be made available to the department to charge the employee's governance time to. The Governance Office staff also provides support. If you are interested in serving as President-Elect and would like more information, contact Irene Downes at fneid@uaf.edu or the Governance Office at fystaff@uaf.edu. B. Rural Affairs - H. Simmons The Rural Affairs Committee has been focusing on informal training. The March guest speaker was Terry Kelly along with Helen Connor and Bonnie Kleven. The panel answered questions regarding procurement and the procard. The April guest speaker will be Ralph Gabrielli, Executive Dean of the College of Rural Alaska. Rural staff on the whole are not in favor of paid time off. The rural staff do not want to lose any accrual time. Rural staff were encouraged to nominate staff for the Make Students Count Award. However, most rural staff donıt like to be singled out because they feel that the department and campuses work as a team and recommend a team type award. C. Ad Hoc Committee on Parking - T. Gruenig The committee submitted the following report: FINAL PARKING REPORT March 3, 2000 The ad hoc committee was charged with the task of investigating the use of parking fees. In order to accomplish this, the committee met with some of the prominent members of the UAF parking community and discussed their budgets, policies, and procedures. The committee analyzed, to the best of our abilities, various written materials placed before us as well. One of the main questions we tried to answer is, "How did the parking fee of $225 come about?" The findings and recommendations of the committee are as follows: PHYSICAL PLANT (Shuttle Bus, OP/Maint/Snow Removal) Main Contact: Ed Foster, Facilities Services, x6887 Ed Foster came to our November 18 meeting and brought a financial breakdown of the majority of the operations/maintenance/snow removal budget. He described the system used by the physical plant to charge for these services. Each shop comes up with a per hour fee for their workers based on the job being done plus shop expenses for administration and operation. Basically, it works as a recharge system on a per job basis. The snow removal and sanding is done on an as needed basis, which makes it difficult to budget exact amounts for yearly removal. Maintenance expenses included the placement and repair of signs, Jersey barriers, head bolts, lights, and landscaping. Major expenses: the $60,246.70 extension of the Nenana Parking lot last summer (6/99). Snow removal for (FY99) was $40,747.72. It is difficult to evaluate the recharge system without extensive knowledge of the procedures used in determining the hourly rates of individual employees. The budget provided by Ed was very extensive and well laid out. We need to look into shuttle bus program costs further, though the current system is working well. Ed expressed one problem is the lack of design planning on the part to incorporate parking lots as part of new building costs. The committee reasoned that this may have been responsible for the later expenses to the parking fund in order to create adequate parking for existing buildings. This area of the budget can be adjusted by adequately projecting future parking in the design of new buildings. POLICE DEPARTMENT Main Contact: Fred Sacco, UAFPD, x6204 Fred Sacco attended many of the earlier meetings and answered a lot of general questions regarding the past and present UAFPD's role in parking. The major function they serve is to enforce the parking policies listed in the "Campus Parking and Traffic Rules" handbook by ticketing cars in violation of these rules. The ticketing process is handled largely by Community Service Officers hired from the student population. The police department's share of the parking budget goes to pay a percentage of the CSO's and Commissioned Police Officer's payroll based on estimations of the amount of time each spends dealing with parking issues. Major Expenses: Personnel costs were $295,610. The committee thought that using a percentage system was hard to track. Switching to a system of dedicated parking monies paying fully for "parking only" officers and CSOs and not percentage based accounting appealed to the committee. The current system being enforced is extensive and complex. Various lots have different rules and time requirements. There was concern about the continuous major budget overruns ($40-50,000 a year) and how to address them. BUSINESS OFFICE FY99 Main Contact: Tim Bauer, x6183 The business office functions as a point of contact for the paying of citations, and collection of parking fees. Major expenses: Personnel $93,556.89 The committee was concerned that there was no way to evaluate how much money was coming from staff, faculty, and student classifications individually. Complications in the banner system would make this difficult at first though. DISPATCH No formal evaluation. UTILITIES No formal evaluation. OVERALL PARKING Main Contact: Terry Kelly, x6465 Terry Kelly has a lot of low cost, high yield ideas for parking improvements. At one of the committee meetings, he brought an overhead map of the campus and went over the major problems facing campus parking. The most prevalent is the lack of core parking on the main campus. Most of the areas that could be used for parking have other purposes, or are the last remaining stand of trees in a given space. Some of the great ideas Terry Kelly had were to build an enclosed tube that ran from the lower Taku/Ballaine lot to the Rasmuson deck, modify the Beluga pad into a temporary "short use" parking lot for the SRC, and to reopen the Nenana lot as Fairbanks street is closed. It seems the main difficulty with implementation of these concepts is the potential trend toward a pedestrian campus. This involves the removal of core parking lots (mostly gold spaces now) and conversion of these areas into pedestrian zones. Currently gold spaces provide a great deal of revenue to help pay for the expenses of the various departments. COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS Form an overall parking authority that is responsible for creating a system of accounting that can break down the cost of parking based on the group paying them (student, staff, faculty, other) and based on the services provided (snow removal, ticketing, etc.). We were unable to come up with concrete reasons why the parking fee was set at $225 thus far. One suggestion is to lower the fee by 30%. This may sound like a drastic move, but without data to calculate from, it is impossible to call $225 anything but an arbitrary value. Require all future building plans to include the costs of ample parking for all users of that facility. Look into separating parking from security police department functions. Come up with a simplified system of general parking. Perhaps turning all core parking into Gold Parking, all median lots into silver parking, and all exterior lots into bronze parking. Using some form of color coded parking with stickers posted in the back window of each car would make enforcement easier and simplify understanding for the patrons. Increase the ease of using perimeter parking by building covered walkways and increasing shuttle schedules. Look at ways to increase parking near buildings without a great deal of capitol improvements expenditure. Possibilities include new lots and reformatting the Gold decal spaces into general gold decal parking. Prepared by: Thom DePace Wylie Gruenig Chair Ad Hoc Committee on Parking Staff Council Ad Hoc Committee on Parking Alice Baergen, Student Services Laura Bender, IMS DeShana DeKerlegand York, ACE-Anchorage Parker Martyn, ASF-GI Yvonne McHenry, UAF Human Resources Pam Sowell, Printing Services Thom DePace Wylie-Gruenig, Computing and Communication, Chair ****************** A motion was made and seconded. Discussion took place. Concerns were expressed regarding the 30% reduction and questions were asked on the gold decal. Initially the gold decal fee was used to fund the shuttle. Now the gold fees go to the general fund. The bottom line is that there is no accountability in the use of the parking funds. Accountability is a big factor. A motion was made and seconded to amend the motion to state that "In the absence of necessary information to evaluate income from all parking fees and costs, reduce the current parking fee by 30%." The amendment passed with unanimous approval. A motion was made and seconded to pass the amended motion. The vote was unanimous. Representatives thanked Thom and the committee for their hard work. MOTION PASSED AS AMENDED (unanimous) ====================== The UAF Staff Council moves to endorse the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Committee on Parking and asks Chancellor Lind to implement these recommendations immediately: Form an overall parking authority that is responsible for parking fund accountability. In the absence of necessary information to evaluate income from all parking fees and costs, reduce the current parking fee by 30%. Require all future building plans to include adequate parking. Separating parking from the police department function. Develop a simplified system of general parking. Increase parking near buildings without a great deal of capitol improvements expenditure. Continue communication between the parking authority and Staff Council for improved parking on the Fairbanks campus. EFFECTIVE: Upon Chancellor's Approval RATIONALE: The Ad Hoc Committee on Parking has taken a great deal of time and energy to provide the best possible solution to the parking dilemma. ****************** D. Ad Hoc Committee on University Advocacy - S. McCrea Scott McCrea was unable to attend the meeting. Sarah Comstock gave the committee report. The committee is focusing efforts on the Campus Tour on March 13 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The goal of the tour is to inform staff of the various new buildings and dorms on campus. The tour will begin in Signers' Hall and other areas on the tour include Butrovich, Museum, and lower campus. Staff are encouraged to participate in the tour. E. Staff Alliance - I. Downes At the last meeting, the Alliance addressed developing a regulation on governance participation. There is a policy on governance participation at this time, but no regulation. The Staff Alliance retreat will take place on April 11-13 in Juneau. The Alliance will review their work this year and develop goals for next year, as well as advocate for the University. Make Students Count - The deadline has been extended to March 3. At this time UAF has received 17 nominations. The UAF award recipient for 1999 was Sue McHenry at the Rural Student Services. There was one complaint on the extension of the deadline. However, the extension was necessary because the other campuses had not received many nominations. So the deadline was extended University wide. This decision was made at the Statewide level. The Alliance is also addressing fees which staff pay when they take courses, material fees, parking fee, SRC fee, student government fee, etc. F. Ad Hoc Picnic - D. Hagen The committee met on Friday, February 25 and Debra Hagen was elected chair. Prizes acquired thus far for the Staff Council raffle include a quilt courtesy of Kathe Rich; two Top of the World Classic reserved seat season passes, two reserved seat season tickets for Nanook hockey, an SRC pass all courtesy of Athletics. If Alaska Airlines makes their corporate donation again this year, than Staff Council will receive two of the vouchers. The committee is soliciting a theme for this years picnic. Last year Phil Rounds and his crew at the Fire Department took over the cooking. They did an outstanding job and will be asked to cook again this year. Cheryl Plowman was contacted regarding the availability of her big grill "Hog Heaven" for the picnic. A recommendation was made to send out a task list and have people sign up for a task. The location of the picnic will be in front of Lathrop Hall. There is a volleyball pit, crochet, and any other games that staff would like. The picnic will immediately follow the Staff Longevity Awards ceremony on May 11. Representative Parzick said to contact Amy at Pepsi about a possible donation. The Picnic Committee needs highly motivated staff to help organize the annual staff picnic on May 11. If you are interested, contact the Debra Hagen at fndah@uaf.edu or the Governance Office at fystaff@uaf.edu. IV Chancellor's Remarks - M. Lind - No Report V Vice Chancellor for Administrative Services Remarks - F. Williams Vice Chancellor Williams was unable to attend. Kathleen Schedler, director of Facilities Services gave a brief report on deferred maintenance. The next phase of deferred maintenance will include approximately 65% of the classroom space on campus. The old section of Duckering will begin in May. Office will be relocated, some will move to Brooks, but the majority will relocate to Skarland Hall. ADCO trailers in the parking lot of the Natural Sciences building will assist in holding laboratory classes. The Brooks building is in the use phase. A committee will determine what units will go into this building. The building needs an elevator, ADA compliance, new windows and an exterior skin. The design will be broken into two parts. The first will be the exterior and then the interior will be modified. The Library is the next facility on the deferred maintenance schedule. This will go into construction July 2001. The Fine Arts building will go into construction in January 2002. The Arctic Health building with the boilers and mechanical. Other deferred maintenance on Arctic Health will also be identified, but there may not be funds available to complete all the work necessary. Construction will be heaviest in October 2001. There will be some congestion will construction vehicles. Facilities Services appreciates employeeıs patience during the construction. Representative Brown asked what the status was of the new fisheries building in Juneau. There is design funds but not construction funding at this time for the new Fisheries building in Juneau. It is unclear how the funding of this building will affect SFOS accreditation. VI Guest Speakers A. Ralph Gabrielli, Executive Dean, College of Rural Alaska Dean Gabrielle distributed the CRA Council 1999 Report and briefly addressed the report. Significant accomplishments for the rural sites include the Center for Distance Education and Independent Learning which increased 2% over the previous year with 3,453 students enrolled in the independent learning program. Bristol Bay had 17 graduates with degrees or certificates. The Tanana Valley Campus generated over 25,000 credit hours. Alaska Cooperative Extension distributed 143,199 publications throughout Alaska. The Interior Aleutians campus brought in grants and contracts totaling over $3 million. On a lighter note, the Northwest Campus conducted a fund raiser that wasn't the normal bake sale and made national news. Moose nuggets were gathered and raffled off. The two thousand frozen moose nuggets were then dropped over the town of Nome. One nugget was painted gold and the person who found that got a trip on Alaska Airlines. The next section highlights the partnerships with the Rural College, which is valued at over $9 million. These partnerships enable the College of Rural Alaska to double the educational services that are provided in the rural sites. The third section highlights the graduates from the College of Rural Alaska. Over the last five years, 1,541 degrees and certificates have been granted by the rural sites. The College of Rural Alaska combined schedule for Fall 1999 classes was distributed. Dean Gabrielle is very proud of this publication and thanked Heidi Simmons and Scott Culbertson for their work in this area. B. Kevin Huddy, Director, Residence Life Kevin Huddy, Director of Residence Life since September has been at UAF for the past four years. Residence Life is an essential element of UAF's mission. There are 35 student employees. Residence Life mission is to support the academic mission of UAF and provide living and learning communities that enhance student success. Residence Life provides a safe, clean and well-maintained facilities that meet the diverse needs of our residents. Goals of Residence Life include: enhance student growth, provide safe, clean and well-maintained facilities, conduct a revenue generating conference services program, and establish effective administrative customer service and financial management procedures. Residence life occupancy is up 1.7% in the fall and 2.2% in the spring. The residence halls are in good condition. In a recent survey, 96.6% of freshmen residents say they "feel welcome at UAF." Also, 33% say they are likely to participate in student government, clubs or groups. First time freshman resident retention at UAF in-state 87%, out of state 94%, and local 83%. Students express positive impression of and experiences in residence life. What is Residence Life doing: marketing on-campus living to all students, conducting facilities audit, reduce rates for private rooms, encourage theme housing, respond to student housing desires, and revised organization plan. Tough questions to answer for Residence Life is do we continue to provide faculty and staff housing? At what level do we continue to provide student family housing? Should we convert housing facilities to other uses? Are there more efficient methods of accomplishing maintenance? How do we address our aging and dates mix of housing? At what level, if any, should we privatize our operations? A recommendation was made to send out a questionnaire to staff and faculty who were hired at since 1995 and see how housing played a role in their decision of accepting a position at UAF. Representatives asked what is being done for disabled and handicapped students. There are apartments that are specifically designed for this. Residence Life does what is need to accommodate these people. VII New Business A. March Meeting Schedule March 10 - Picnic Committee, 11:30 a.m., Wood Center Conference Room A March 17 - University Holiday March 21 - Supervisory Training - Workers' Compensation-Everything you've wanted to know, but haven't had a chance to ask, 3 p.m., Library 340 March 22 - Supervisory Training - Running Effective Meetings, 10 a.m., Wood Center Conference Room C March 23 - Staff Training, 2 p.m., Chancellor's Conference Room March 24 - Administrative Committee, 9 a.m., Wood Center Conference Room A March 27 - Staff Affairs, 9 a.m., Wood Center Conference Room B B. Motion to endorse revised mission statement The Chancellor Office distributed a new revised mission statement. The current mission statement is lengthy. The current statement is clear and concise. Representatives recommended that the statement should be more like a motto. Other representatives suggested that each employee should have a copy of the mission statement and say that is what they do every day. An amendment was made to include the following wording: "UAF advances knowledge about our unique life in the North, while preparing students for active and intelligent participation with the rest of the world." This amendment failed with 3 yeas, 8 nays and 2 abstentions. Discussion continued and the motion was tabled until the next meeting. Representatives were encourage to send an e-mail directly to the Chancellor regarding their recommendations on the revised mission statement. MOTION TABLED (unanimous) ============ The UAF Staff Council moves to endorse the revised mission statement as follows: As the nation's northern most land-, sea-, and space-grant university and major research center, UAF advances knowledge about life in the North through the integration of teaching, research, and public service. EFFECTIVE: Immediately RATIONALE: The revised mission statement is all encompassing and clearly and concisely reflects UAF's community and mission. ****************** VIII The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 a.m. Tapes of this Staff Council meeting are available in the Governance Office, 312 Signers' Hall, if anyone wishes to listen to the complete tapes. Submitted by Kathy Mosca, Staff Council secretary.