1. Call to order and roll call

Members Present:

Donna Chantry, Chair; President, UAS Staff Council
Art Bukowski, Interim Chair; President, UAA Assembly
Barb Tullis, Vice President, UAA Assembly
Thomas Walker, President, Union of Students of UAA
Marie Scholle, President, UAF Staff Council
Eric Heyne, President, UAF Faculty Senate
Scott Kawasaki, Representative, Associated Students of UAF
Rita Dursi Johnson, President, UAS Faculty Senate
Michael Willyerd, President, United Students of UAS-Juneau
Kevin Hile, President, Statewide Administration Assembly
Ann Kennedy, Net Representative , Matanuska-Susitna
Student Government Council

Others Present:

Sharon Gagnon, President, UA Board of Regents
Wendy Redman, Vice President of University Relations
Pat Ivey, Executive Officer, System Governance
Jeannine Burnett, Administrative Assistant, System Governance
Don Lynch, Member, UA Alliance of Faculty Senates
Phil Slattery, Member, UA Alliance of Faculty Senates
Brian Brubaker, Coordinator, Coalition of Student Leaders

MOTION: Moved by Tullis, seconded by Heyne, passed

"The System Governance Council moves to adopt the agenda for the October 17, 1995 meeting. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

MOTION: Moved by Tullis, seconded by Heyne, passed

"The System Governance Council moves to approve the minutes for the June 12, 1995 meeting. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

The Board of Regents' held a retreat which lasted a day and a half after the October Board meeting. The main topics of discussion included:

* The financial status of the university, the need to increase revenues and how they might do it, and new options for presenting the budget to legislation.

* Collaboration: how the university offers courses, student access to courses systemwide to enrich education and enhance studentsŐ ability to get classes in a timely manner.

* Unity of command/communication: addressing how decisions are made, and once decisions are made, how they are communicated. This is part of the ongoing discussion of communication that started at the October Board of Regents meeting and will continue for some time to come. It seemed to the regents that decision making is a bottom up process, beginning at the departmental level. Against the backdrop of no new revenues and the need for collaboration, that departments will have to work together to make the necessary program decisions. Somehow the present system has gaps in it where information falls through the cracks so that when one part of the university embarks on a decision making process, somehow this doesnŐt get communicated as it should to all the parties who are interested so this is something that needs work.

* Research: the university needs to communicate what it is doing in the area of research.

Main points from the question and answer session:

* The student affairs policy revisions have not yet come before the Board and it may be some time before they do.

* If there are any problems with the faculty compensation policy, they will surface during this year, and then the Board will look at any necessary changes next September.

* Regents' retreats are open to the public; however, retreats are a time for the Board members to freely interact among themselves on issues that may suddenly appear on the table and then may or may not be pursued further. The audience would need to understand that.

* Single accreditation does not appear to be receiving very much support from the Board at this time.

* The Board is in its second year of a general policy review. In the past, policies were passed without concern about how all the policies work together as a whole. The Board tries to be very careful not to pass a policy in one area that will have a negative impact on another area.

* It is too early to tell if there will be any changes to the tenure policy, but the Board is very interested in post-tenure review.

5.1 Future of the System Governance Council

As a result of a program assessment review, there was general agreement that while the Council should either disband or if it remained in existence that operational changes could make it more effective and efficient. Operation change options include keeping the current structure but reducing the number of meetings; replacing the elected membership with a town meeting style organization where all the system governance groups met together by audio or video.

Main discussion points:

* It has been difficult to achieve a quorum under the present structure. Meetings are too expensive to be set up only to be canceled due to lack of a quorum or be called regularly when there may not be anything substantive to discuss.

* The other system governance groups want to address the Board of Regents directly without the appearance of being under the wing of the System Governance Council. The Council is not the group that makes the final decisions for governance; each group makes its own decisions and speaks directly to the Board.

* The communication and coordination between faculty, staff and student governance groups to bring them together when needed to discuss important issues that affect all three constituencies is needed and should continue.

MOTION: FAILED Moved by Heyne, seconded for purposes of discussion by Rita Dursi Johnson

The System Governance Council moves to disband itself, to distribute its budget evenly between the other three systemwide governance groups (Alliance of Faculty Senate, Staff Alliance and Coalition of Student Leaders), and to replace the function of the System Governance Council with meetings called as necessary among the leaders of the other governance groups.

Action: The members will take the proposed amendments to the Council back to their local governance groups for comment by the next Alliance meeting.

5.2.1. Create shared governance tracking system

There is a critical need for an issue tracking system, as reflected in a UAA proposal that includes clear statements on the entire review so that anyone can log on to one place and find out where issues are in the review process. Some pieces exist already; the Board agenda matrix and the system governance internet files; but the pieces need to be combined into a single reference point where anyone can log on and find out exactly where an issue is in the review process at any given time.

In addition, some members are interested in seeing for governance a matrix similar to the Board committee assignments matrix.

5.2.2. Increase involvement of UA in legislative affairs

Since 1986, during election years, the System Governance Council generally conducts a survey of legislative and gubernatorial candidates on their views of the university and university issues, and then publishes a report of the results for general distribution. In addition, the Council historically sponsors a series of legislative update audioconferences with Wendy Redman during the legislative session to which all administrators and governance groups are invited. Since this is not an election year, the council agreed to focus solely on meeting with legislators to promote university issues.

Wendy Redman gave an overview of the university- interest legislation for the 1996 legislative session, including legislation for:

• a retirement incentive program
• deferred maintenance
• CEA contract funding
• UA endowment trust
• UAA student housing
• Geographic pay differential changes
• UA lands bill
• Statutory protection of personnel files
• Mandatory automatic deposit for employee salaries
• TRS retirement benefits changes

5.2.3. Set "Governance 2000" goals

MOTION: Moved by Walker, seconded by Heyne, passed

"The System Governance Council moves to adopt creating a shared governance tracking system as a goal for FY96. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

* * *

MOTION: FAILED "The System Governance Council moves to increase its legislative involvement as a goal for FY96. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

* * *

MOTION: PASSED

"The System Governance Council moves to adopt maintaining long-range governance planning efforts as a goal for FY96. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

MOTION: passed

"The System Governance Council moves meet Tuesday, November 14, 1995, from 1:30pm-3:30pm via audioconference. This action is effective October 17, 1995."

• Proposed amendments to the Council
• Council goals
• Local governance responses to sexual harassment and dispute resolution policies and regulation
• Issue tracking system progress
• Other items of concern

5.4 Other action items

There were no other action items.

6. Information items

6.1 Dispute resolution/Sexual harassment policy and regulations

6.1.1 Report on local governance review progress: input by November 3

Reports are requested from local and system governance groups on the status of their review of this item to be combined into a status report. This item was distributed for governance review on October 3 for input by November 3. Patty Kastelic requests that input be sent to her by November 3 so that she can incorporate suggested changes into a final draft which she hopes to get to governance and to the Board by November 10.

The senates rejected the new compensation policy the Board passed in August. The Alliance of Faculty Senates passed a resolution on October 6 supporting the senate actions.

6.3 Other information items

There were no other information items.

7. Local Governance Reports

No local governance reports were given.

8. Other items of concern

There were no other items of concern.

9. Comments

There were no additional comments.

10. Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 3:24pm.