Meeting of the
University of Alaska
System Governance Council
Thursday, October 21, 1999
1:00pm-3:00pm
via audioconference
Moderator: Pat Ivey, Executive Officer
DRAFT MINUTES
Present:
Stacy Banks, President, Associated Students of UAF
Gil Banes for M. Hilary Davies, President, UAA Assembly
Rudy Candler, Representative, UAF Staff Council
Don Cecil, Chair, Faculty Alliance and Chair, UAS Faculty Council
Larry Duffy, President-elect, UAF Faculty Senate
Tish Griffin, President, UAS Staff Council
Ben _____, Senator, for Megan Hall, President,
Megan Hall, President, Union of Students of UAA
Union of Students of UAA
Leafy McBride, President, Statewide Administration Assembly
Barbara Tullis, Vice President, UAA Assembly
Kean Nuttal, Vice President, for Rosie Gilbert, President
USUAS-Juneau
Pat Ivey, Executive Officer
Brian Brubaker, Admin Assistant
Absent:
Sarah Schlessman, President, United Students of UAS-Sitka
MOTION: Moved by Candler, passed without objection
"The System Governance Council adopts the agenda as
amended to table the election of the vice chair under
item 4, and to delete item 6.1 because the November
meeting date had been changed previously to December 2.
This action is effective October 21, 1999."
MOTION: Moved by Griffin, seconded by Candler,
passed without objection
"The System Governance Council approves the minutes
of the September 23, 1999 meeting. This action is
effective October 21, 1999."
There was no old business to conduct.
DELETED 6.1 Change November meeting date
The Faculty Alliance had its retreat with the President in October. One of the major items discussed was how to how to get more faculty voice into the academic decisionmaking at the system level, specifically in the president's office. The Faculty Alliance has recommended that a faculty fellow position be established in the president's office. The faculty fellow would be selected to serve for one year as an administrator to advise the president on academic matters.
The Alliance is also working on distance education. More and more, that is becoming a major way of doing business at the University of Alaska and the world at large. There all sorts of questions connected with distance education the Alliance is trying to get answered: for example, distance education programs, how to motivate faculty and how to get the campuses together to share the resources we have. The Alliance prefers that a coordinating group oversee distance education.
The Coalition had a retreat with the President in Anchorage October 2 right after the Board of Regents meeting. It was very productive. It was a good opportunity for all the students to get together, talk with each other and visit with the president and with Wendy Redman.
The Coalition is working on several goals through Coalition advisory groups. Goals relate to University finances, distance education and legislative affairs. The Coalition is also working on a statewide post card campaign. Approximately 20,000 signature postcards have been distributed throughout the state to student leaders at each campus. The postcard basically asks the Governor to fully fund the Board of Regents budget request. Signed cards will be presented to the Governor by the Student Regent some time in November. A press conference is also scheduled. Everyone is welcome to help with the signature campaign.
The Staff Alliance had a retreat with the president and met for two days in September. Efforts are underway, albeit in very preliminary stages to establish a job classification system for classified and APT employees. The president is very interested in being responsive to the state's needs as far as education is concerned, and has six special initiatives he is looking to fund to accomplish this. The president is still not pleased with the budget the legislature gave us last year because the increase was too small. He is trying to get community leaders to stand up with him. Jim Johnson did a management style workshop where he talked about different goals and personalities. Staff leaders also had a workshop on parliamentary procedure.
The Staff Alliance approved the draft information resources policy. At the last meeting, the Staff Alliance discussed the Make Students Count award the Alliance coordinates for the president. This annual award is presented at the June Board of Regents meeting. Mike Humphrey also gave a healthcare benefits update. Individual campus sessions are also planned.
Griffin reported that UAS Staff Council met yesterday. UAS has just completed an incredible week of accreditation meetings. It went very well.
Staff Council is going to be amending the bylaws to include two new at-large positions for both Ketchikan and Sitka on the Council. Other activities include a monthly potluck, a costume party, stress fairs.
Nuttal reported that the accreditation team was very impressed with the student involvement in the decisionmaking process at UAS. The new student activities center was just opened. USUAS-Juneau had a dance and that went well.
Cecil reported the UAS Faculty Council is working on
establishing degree minors and on ways to retain faculty
to help administration to make academic decisions over
the summer. Cecil echoed sentiments that the accreditation
vist had been by far the best in his 20 years with the
university.
Banks reported that ASUAF has been working on the "Fairbanks Idea." This is a university/community partnership program based on a Wisconsin program. ASUAF has spoken with the Board of Regents, the chancellor, alumni, faculty senate and the president about this. The Fairbanks Idea proposes to bring together 100 university and community people and give them 100 days to develop ways the university and community can work together better. This includes ideas that they can be quickly implemented for little or no money. This program was a success in Milwaukee and has a lot of potential for Fairbanks. It could even spread throughout the state later. ASUAF is trying to raise seed money from private sources to support the program.
Duffy reported that the UAF Faculty Senate has only had one meeting so far. The only major course of action was to approve a motion which made the UAF grade appeals policy fall in line with Regents' Policy.
Candler reported that the UAF Staff Council had only one nomination for president-elect and that was Marie Scholle. She is the new president-elect for UAF Staff Council.
The Union of Students of UAA is gathering support for the governor through the signature cards and has collected a little over 1,000 signed cards thus far. USUAA is also working to increase voter turnout for USUAA elections and hopes to increase voter turnout to 25 percent of the student body.
The UAA Assembly has been working on the FY99 and FY00 budgets. On Monday, the UAA Governance office will be fully staffed for the first time in about seven weeks. Next meeting, the Assembly will discuss the FY01 budget. The Assembly felt it was falling out of the loop and wanted to know in depth how the initiatives fit into the overall budgeting plan.
UA is also having the UA2000 plan benefits briefings. The Assembly is very concerned that staff are not going to understand what the benefits changes are, so is encouraging everyone to go to those briefings.
McBride reported that the Statewide Administration Assembly is reviewing the information resources policy draft, discussing the benefits updates, reviewing the job classification system elements and the initiatives. SAA is working most on expanding communications with statewide employees. To that end, SAA does an e-mail newsletter and will be putting up a bulletin board and suggestion box. SAA is sponsoring the Thanksgiving potluck for statewide employees, has adopted two Love,Inc. families and will be soliciting Christmas gifts for them. SAA is also doing a food drive for the local food bank.
Ivey just distributed to governance the list of agenda items for the next Board of Regents meeting in November. Some items include the first reading of the student health policy, the first reading of the information resources policy. There is also approval of renumbering and editorial cleanup of the uniform personnel policy and the dispute and grievance resolution policies and approval of 2001 operating and capital budget requests and Natural Resources Fund distribution.
Agenda items will include a budget presentation and legislative outlook session, and election of a new Council chair and vice chair. The Council asked Wendy Redman to make these presentations.
Bane was privileged to sit in on a discussion with the faculty relating to accreditation and that is to find discipline-oriented questions which can be asked which will show just how deep students' understanding of the course material is. Social sciences and humanities faculty all got together in small groups and are planning for this. The way it will be effective if it all works out is to add a question constituting ten percent of the final exam that will be reviewed by peers in the field, but not by the professor giving the exam. This is to improve teaching and learning.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:41pm.