Staff Advisory Council -

Present: Emily Boyd, Peg Davis, Nicole Dreher, Tonya Haymore, Barbara Lancaster, Anne Lopez, Jean Mason, Joe Nardi, Patty Piontek, Terri Rice, Karen Stanley, Ruth Szabo, Lew Tenney, Alicia Velasquez, Lisa Wakefield, and Joan Weber.

Excused: Grace Aranda, Kathy Bell, Carolyn Eaton, Barbara Foster, Kathi Hart, Becki Hindman, Michelle Hintz, and Gilbert Maldonado.

Unexcused: Rolf Averill, Teresa Croteau, Lupita Cruz, Melissa Fritz, Eva Gonzales, Barbara Pickard, and Ana Rodriguez.

Guests: Kevin Crandall (Grad College), Nancy Huber, (Ag Ed), Gabby Lopez (UA Library), and Cathy Nicholson (HR)

Opening:

Process Agenda Items

Barbara called the meeting to order at 3pm. There were several important agenda items to address quickly before Nancy Huber began to moderate the meeting. A quorum vote was held on two issues: 1) electing Terri Rice as Treasurer in lieu of the resignation of Dolores Johnston and 2) removing three (3) non-attending members of the SAC council. Both items passed – votes were held with those present at the meeting and Carolyn Eaton and Beth Riggs via conference call.

Nancy began the meeting by asking each of us to reiterate why we joined SAC and to state what committees we were a part of and also if we were liaisons with any other groups on campus for SAC. According to Article 1, Section 1 of the bylaws that “Council members are expected to attend all General Meeting's and to participate in one or more committees or task forces” and it is encouraged to join two committees due to membership constraints. It became apparent though during introductions that some of the members are not abiding these guidelines – we remind you to please join a committee now to lend a helping hand if you are not already a part of at least one!

Nancy then passed out several different colors of index cards – pink to notate the best thing about SAC, yellow to notate the best thing about the person to the left of you, blue to notate the worst thing about SAC, and two green cards. The blue cards were gathered and redistributed and then we had to use the green cards to respond to the new blue card we received and come up with two suggestions to change the “bad” things about SAC.

After going around the room, it quickly became apparent as each of us spoke that a common thing of empathy and lack of participation on SAC was on everyone’s mind. Here were some of the ideas presented to help alleviate this problem:

Ų Report on SAC’s advances (and defeats) more to allow better tracking on what issues are being addressed on campus

Ų Speakers at meetings

Ų Motivational exercises more often

Ų “Cut the red tape” that slows us down

Ų Maintain focus on the issues at hand

Ų Redefine “big” issues into “smaller” issues to gain more “baby step” successes

Ų Dedicate more time to addressing issues

Ų One-on-one conversations with SAC and those in the know to make decisions rather than “red tape” hassles

Ų Prize drawings at meetings to encourage attendance

Ų Overstaff the committee to make sure we always have plenty of members

Ų Recruit better members

Ų Prioritize issues

Ų Time management strategies

Ų Different general council meeting times, virtual meetings, conference call meetings, etc.

Ų Fresh direction approach

Ų Easy to achieve goals to keep morale high

Ų Visible lists of issues addressing – keep website up to date, newsletter more frequently, publish in different sources, etc.

Ų Social events to keep us charged up

Ų Develop better measures to get agenda items addressed

Ų Better communication between members and the UA staff

Ų Attendance rewards

Ų Better job of educating UA employees on how to get involved

Ų More money to accomplish more? Fundraising efforts?

Ų Replace non-participating members more quickly with “new blood”

Ų Reach out to UA staff more that aren’t “on campus”

Ų Public relations exercises about SAC

Ų Make sure that new members really understand what they are committing to

We went around the room one more time and each of us had to address two new questions – 1) Is SAC meeting your expectations and 2) Are you meeting SAC’s expectations. Once again most members seemed to be in agreement and we agreed that we all thought that SAC could accomplish more and we all regretted having difficulties in finding enough time to accomplish what we want.

There were several issues brought up that we might want to address in the future, these were new ideas or some things that worked with past councils that might want to be revisited:

Ų Karen brought up the “helping hand” sheet where council members asked for help with special projects or anything they needed a hand with (encouraged comradery)

Ų Tonya is working with Activities committee to outreach to “non-campus” groups to promote participation

Ų Use listserv and website more effectively to get the word out

Nancy ended the meeting with two questions posed to the group – 1) accountability – how do we make members more accountable, and 2) agility – is the issue of how we meet defeating our purpose?

Cathy Nicholson presented a copy of the main page of the new Career Tracks website – more info to come on this at the March meeting when HR does a demo of the system for us. At this time though the system is live and workable – suggestions and comments are greatly encouraged!