Members:

Marie Scholle, Chair; past president and representative, UAF Staff Council
John Craven, 1997-1998 President-elect, UAF Faculty Senate
Steve Nuss, 1997-1998 President, ASUAF
Barb Tullis, President, 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 President, UAA Assembly
Hilary Davies, 1997-1998 Vice President, UAA Assembly
Kevin Tritt, 1997-1998, President, Union of Students of UAA
Lawrence Lee Oldaker, 1997-1998 Chair, UAS Faculty Council
Rita Bowen, 1996-1997 President, UAS Staff Council
Lisa Sporleder, Vice President, for Betty Dupee, 1996-1997 President, Statewide Administration Assembly

Pat Ivey, Executive Officer
Jeannine Burnett, Assistant

Others present:

Brenda Wilcox, Executive Director, UAF Alumni Association
Patty Kastelic, Executive Director, SW Human Resources

Absent:

Catherine Wheeler, 1996-1997 President, ASUAF
Wendy Young, 1996-1997 President, Kodiak College Student Association
Gil Bane, 1996-1997 Vice President, UAA Assembly
Shawn Paul, 1996-1997 President, USUAS-Juneau
Rosie Gilbert, 1997-1998 President, USUAS-Juneau
Don Lynch, 1996-1997 President, UAF Faculty Senate

MOTION: Passed

"The System Governance Council adopts the agenda for the May 15, 1997 meeting as amended to include Attachment 9., 'Strategies for Building University Support'. This action is effective May 15, 1997."

3.1 March 5, 1997

MOTION: Passed

"The System Governance Council moves to approve the minutes for the March 5, 1997 meeting as corrected to read to read: 'The minutes were NOT acted upon due to lack of a quorum. '. This action is effective March 5, 1997."

3.2 April 15, 1997

MOTION: Passed

"The System Governance Council moves to approve the minutes for the April 15, 1997 as amended. This action is effective February 5, 1997."

Amendment: Change sentence in item 5.4 to read: "There were ((not)) NO comments about statewide programs and services and/or budget cuts."

3.3 February 5, 1997

MOTION: Passed

"The System Governance Council moves to approve the minutes for the February 5, 1997. This action is effective February 5, 1997."

Officers were not elected at this meeting because Statewide Administration Assembly will not elect its officers until the end of June. The President of SAA sits on the Council and it was felt that elections should not be held until the new SAA president was on board.

Elections for the System Governance Council chair will be held in September.

There will be no regular meetings during the summer. However, special meetings may be held as the need arises. Scholle advised the Council members that if they are going to be out of town during any special meeting during the summer, that they get a substitute to represent them during their absence.

Tullis advised that the UAA staff governance groups and the assembly would be on call as needed, or at least the executive committees of these groups for the summer.

UAF Staff Council has its staff affairs committee on call during the summer.

Scholle reported that Patty Kastelic had made an addition to the sexual harassment policy regarding staff and that was not in there in previous versions that the Staff Alliance had reviewed the previous year. Scholle informed the Staff Alliance members to look it over and respond to Kastelic within two weeks.

This was the version that went to the Faculty Alliance on May 9 version and which went out to the Staff Alliance. She also tried to fax a copy to Tullis but was unsuccessful, so sent it to the UAA Governance Office left a phone message for Tullis to obtain it there.

Scholle said response to these policies and regulations was important because Kastelic planned to bring them to the Board of Regents for action in August. She will advise Kastelic immediately that there will be staff governance people active over the summer and for her to submit staff related items to them as soon as possible.

The Council tentatively adopted the following agenda subject to change as the need arises.

Wednesday, September 17, 1997, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, October 22, 1997, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, November 19, 1997, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, January 21, 1998, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, February 25, 1998, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, March 25, 1998, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, April 22, 1998, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference
Wednesday, May 27, 1998, 2:30-4:30pm audioconference

8. Processes for accommodating budget reductions at the campus level

8.1 UAA

Tullis reported that the last two assembly meetings have incorporated two-hour budget meetings. The chancellor and the chancellors' cabinet of deans and directors were all invited as guests for those meetings to discuss reductions and scenarios for specific cuts. Proposals are on the table and being discussed and disbursed. The process seems to be agonizing.

Scholle asked if anyone had discussed going from 12 month to 10 month contracts as a way of reducing costs. Tullis said UAA is primarily looking at attrition. There are a lot of vacancies on hold right now. Some positions are slated not to be filled. Some of the faculty RIP positions will be looked at very carefully. Every position that is put forward to be recruited and filled has to have a lot of justification behind it: credit hour production and costs, etc.

Scholle asked if there would be layoffs at UAA. Tullis had not heard and did not know.

Davies said hardly any faculty at UAA would be affected anyway. It would be mostly staff that would be impacted. Tullis said this was true, but UAA was trying to deal with it through attrition rather than layoffs.

8.2 UAF

Scholle reported that UAF was looking at restructuring, not filling RIP positions, and not rehiring unless absolutely necessary. The chancellor and vice chancellor said that there will be layoffs, that there was no way of getting around it. They have not identified those layoffs yet and probably would not until July 1.

Scholle has seen some reorganization and restructuring. She knew that director-levels would be affected because UAF is combining departments. For example, Scholle's department, risk management is now combined with the police and fire departments. Her department has been told that they probably will not hire a new police chief, but would have an acting chief and that the fire chief may be the super chief over all the departments.

Unless enrollments are increased this fall, there may be some reductions in programs. Scholle said the figure she received last week was that UAF was looking at a $10 million deficit.

Craven said it was clear there were going to be layoffs at UAF. Even the chancellor said that to the Board of Regents. They are still hoping for 40 percent of the RIP positions in faculty to be filled, but that hasn't been decided. All other faculty replacements are on hold. The chancellor said at the January workshop that one of the things quite likely to happen was that some undergraduate programs could disappear. Which ones those would be is not known at this time.

8.3 UAS

Oldaker reported that UAS is facing a $700,000 shortfall for the next fiscal year and that is significant. UAS has restructured as much as it can and is pretty thin. They are looking at the possibility of reordering programs and effecting economies through early retirement, so UAS is not looking at massive layoffs.

8.4 Statewide

Sporleder reported that some statewide people had been given layoff notices. There are probably more on the way. Positions that are being vacated by attrition are not being filled. The personnel manager is leaving and going to Alyeska and his position will be filled in an acting capacity for at least three months. After that, no one knows what will happen.

In procurement the procurement officers had already left and the administrative assistant was given her layoff notice. Sporleder also received a layoff notice.

9.1 Involving alumni associations
9.2 Building district constituencies for the university
9.3 Aligning university members with legislators
9.4 Identifying and building district constituencies

Scholle reported that with the assistance of system governance leaders, faculty, staff and students and now with the alumni association, we are beginning to build support for the university. Soon everyone will be receiving a packet that includes a prototype of a bumper sticker with the university seal and the words "I'm a proud supporter of the University of Alaska, and I vote." Also included will be a 3X5" postcard and on that postcard which will be given to people at fair booths and wherever else we are at, will be the words "I'm a proud supporter of the University of Alaska, and I vote." It also has space for people to give us their name and address. We will be collecting these to send to the legislators in those districts to show those legislators that the university does have support.

This is a statewide campaign throughout all the campuses and even the rural sites.

The alumni are here. Care has to be taken to raise private funds for this effort and we will be doing this through the alumni associations. One of the criticisms that surfaced rather quickly was that the legislature is watching to see if any of the money being spent to garner support for the university is state general funds. The bumper stickers and cards will all carry the advice that they are being paid for through private donations, out of grass roots support.

This is where the alumni association is going to take the lead. Brenda Wilcox from the UAF Alumni Association garnered the support of the UAA alumni and the UAS alumni. They are taking the bull by the horns and are going to go out and try to secure funding to pay for these stickers and post cards etc. This is not money that will come out of the university budget. They will handle the project. What we will do as staff, faculty and students will take the bumper stickers and cards and distribute them to everyone we know.

What Scholle is going to do is give people a bumper sticker, ask them to sign the card and ask them if they want to donate to the cause. This money will be applied to future UA support building efforts. Scholle said setting a fixed dollar amount won't work. People resent that. If they don't have money to give and are willing to put the bumper sticker on their car or window, wear the button and/or sign the card, that's okay, too.

Wilcox suggested to, that a place be provided on the signature cards for people to check off and sign if they want to have their names used on ads supporting the university. That way we don't have to go round up names when we want to do ads; we will have them readily available. We heard from legislators that the signature ads were very effective. Wilcox stressed also that the UA support building campaign has to remain non-partisan.

Scholle said it was also suggested that the bottom of the card should contain the words "Paid for by alumni and friends of the university." Scholle directed Ivey to work with Wilcox, to obtain funding, the bumper stickers, buttons and cards and work with the governance leaders to distribute the materials.

Sporleder said to make sure that the wording on the bumper sticker matched the wording on the button. Scholle said the prototypes were created yesterday and will make sure the wording matches.

Scholle wants these materials on hand and ready for the fairs around the state. She asked Tullis if UAA has a booth at the Palmer fair. Tullis said they always do. Scholle said she wanted these materials distributed at the Palmer fair. Tullis agreed.

Wilcox said she thought UAS went to the Haines fair, too. Bowen reported UAS will not be at the Haines fair because UAS couldn't afford the $700 plus it costs to do that. Wilcox said she probably had a dozen alumni in Haines that could distribute the materials. Bowen said it was a really big event in Southeast.

Scholle repeated that coordination for this activity rests with Brenda Wilcox and Pat Ivey.

She encouraged people to call and discuss other ideas, saying that this activity is just one of many ideas of how we can build support in our communities for the university.

The database:

Ivey reported that, based on legislator's telling us that they would continue to cut the university budget until their constituents told them not to, and that the university needed to build up its support in their districts, governance decided to find out just what proportion of their constituencies were university faculty, staff, students and alumni and which districts they were in. An electronic copy of the voter registration database has been obtained and this database will be comparing that with the university's databases of faculty, staff, students and alumni, and will sort them by district. This information will be shared with governance, university administration, regents and will be made public on the internet.

The university faculty and staff and student piece has been completed. Alumni have yet to be added. The UAF Alumni Association has just sent over its database and Ivey has a call in to Suzette Mashburn in the UAA alumni office to request the UAA alumni database. She asked Tullis to assist in getting a copy from the UAA alumni office. Bowen will be sending a copy of the UAS alumni database as soon as she adds the 1997 graduates.

Ivey said she is preliminarily finding that, in looking at the numbers and percentages of faculty, staff and students, what she already suspected and that is that the university is in every district in the state and run between five and 22 percent of the total number of registered voters in each district. That doesn't count the spouses, the moms and dads of the students, faculty and staff and all their friends.

Once we do that, we want to take the numbers of employees and match them to the total dollar amount of their compensation per each district and advise the legislators. After the regents act on the budget reduction plan, these figures need to be run again so we can advise legislators of the economic impact their decisions about the university had on the economy of their districts.

Ivey commended her assistant Jeannine Burnett and student employee Jim Chiemlowski for their excellent work on this project.

MOTION: passed "The System Governance Council moves to commend Jeannine Burnett and Jim Chiemlowski for their work on the UA support building project databases. This action is effective May 15, 1997."

10.1 Faculty Alliance

Craven said that at the Alliance meeting last Friday, the Alliance formally reviewed the existing draft of policy and regulations for general and sexual harassment. Kastelic brought a new version to the meeting and like the Staff Alliance asked members to look at the new version and give him any comments they may have as soon as possible.

The Alliance is making a small amount of progress toward a common grading policy for the university system.

The Alliance is also working on a UALC request to consider issues related to promotion and tenure, specifically issues relating to distance education and the development of course materials as they relate to faculty evaluation for promotion and tenure. The Alliance will coordinate and the senates and the Council will have to do the work because those decisions are made at the campus level.

The Board of Regents has again reviewed the draft student affairs policies and regulations and these will come to governance for review.

10.2 Coalition of Student Leaders

The next meeting of the Coalition is June 21.

10.3 Staff Alliance

Staff Alliance will be reviewing the policy on sexual harassment, and will be awaiting replies from the various governance groups.

Kastelic reported that she now has another draft that to the extent that general counsel and the labor relations office would let her make amendments suggested by the faculty she did. She has a May 15 version and will get Pat to transmit that out to everyone.

10.4 Local governance groups

Tritt advised that USUAA was in the process of developing office policies and hiring a new administrative assistant.

Nuss reported that ASUAF was not in session so he had nothing to report.

Sporleder reported that both the vice president and secretary of SAA are losing their jobs through layoff.

Scholle was pleased to report that Paula Long had reappointed her back to the Council. Scholle has also been elected vice president of the UAF Alumni Board.

Scholle wrote an article to the Board in reference to why staff want to work here, why we should be supporting the university. She will also be reporting on strategies for building university support.

The next regular meeting of the Council will be Wednesday, September 17, 1997.

A. Include alumni on the System Governance Council

MOTION: Moved by Tullis, seconded by Craven

"The System Governance Council moves include one UAA, UAF and UAS ex-officio alumni seats on the System Governance Council. This action is effective May 15, 1997."

This will help keep alumni in the information loop, bring former students back into the loop, and help coordinate and build support for the university in the communities and state.

Tullis thought this was a really good idea, saying that they've not incorporated alumni into the process as well as they could in Anchorage and one of the areas of focus for Anchorage over the summer will be to try to develop ways to get the community support they believe is out there and to let the community know what is happening.

Scholle said she was really looking forward to working with Tullis and with Anchorage. She would really like to see Anchorage get really involved in this project.

Tritt asked if the Council had somebody in mind to fill the alumni seat. Scholle responded that Suzette Mashburn in Anchorage is encouraged to attend, Barbara Wilcox in Fairbanks would be attending and Bowen at UAS.

Ivey reported that alumni used to be represented in system governance with faculty and staff back in the 70s and early 80s. At that time, the statewide alumni director sat on the system governance body in an ex-officio non-voting capacity. Later, when the alumni were splitting off into local alumni groups and the system alumni office was eliminated, the alumni had an ad hoc committee within the system governance body to effect that transition.

Nuss pointed out that the Council constitution stated that ex-officio members shall be determined by the Council, so no further action is required.