April 2022 Meeting

Officers’ Reports

Ronnie Houchin 

Members of the Staff Alliance met with Regent Purdue to discuss university staff, morale, burnout and how to do less with less resources. They discussed staff hiring recruitments and current retention difficulty. We would like to put more effort into these areas to keep the university an employer of choice. 

Ronnie will be serving on the system office mission statement committee as a member of the staff alliance. They would like to define a mission for the system office to submit to President Pitney and the Board of Regents. 

Staff Council is only as effective as the effort we put into our service. As we move into a busy month and celebrate the end of the academic year, you chose to serve in the staff council and represent your constituents. Ronnie states he really appreciates your service and would like to encourage all our members to be active and present and engaged in this work. 

Juella Sparks 

Juella states she appreciates the opportunity they had to speak with Regent Purdue at the Staff Alliance meeting. We are encouraging nominations for the Staff Make Students Count Award.   

ASUAF 

Welcome Ashlyn Espinosa as the new ASUAF President. Ashlyn will take over after the April 30th Commencement. 

 

Chancellor White 

Chancellor White states the 2022 ANCSA Symposium is taking place today and tomorrow in the Wood Center Ballroom. This is the 50th Anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and the symposium is a good educational opportunity. He encourages you to participate if you can. We at UAF acknowledge the Troth Yeddha lands of the Dena people. This morning Chief Peter John from Mento mentioned the traditional use of Troth Yeddha land being a place of learning and to exchange ideas. The tradition of education and learning on Troth Yeddha land continues today. 

In regards to covid measures for the fall, at this point there are no vaccine requirements for students. President Pitney will retain authority on vaccine requirements. This spring certain courses had vaccine requirements as did residence life. Depending on current covid conditions, we may address vaccine requirements later in the summer. You can still submit vaccine exception requests that will be reviewed by the Provost, Chancellor and President. 

The Chancellor's Cabinet recently discussed remote work and our current philosophy. It was determined that we need an institutional approach to remote work, we would like to call it flexible work because remote work suggests you are disconnected from the university, even when someone is not physically on campus they are still part of the university. We would like our philosophy to say we meet different student needs, we are caring, flexibility for non-remote jobs will be managed in creative ways, and we will have a strategic approach to keep consistency. Openness to maintain and build teams, encourages clear communications, affords equity, transparent to new hires, expands service, customer satisfaction is regularly received and evaluated. A philosophy that has a clear construct that takes into account the needs of the entire team and is inclusive of the distance students and fits within our resources. 

Provides for the requirements of students, we want one that walks the talk that reduces barriers, that supports a vibrant residential campus. We also want one that affords enrichment through conversation. That maintains our traditions at UAF. That fits within the technological limitations. That's supported by the technological tools. That supports experiences. We also want one that contributes to productivity and can be implemented practically.

That is the set of statements that the Chancellor's Cabinet is proposing. We will be holding a flexible work forum on May 3rd, we encourage and welcome your feedback. 

A brief budget update, we asked for 8 million fixed cost increases for the system, the governor would only approve 4 million, and no capital requests. The senate and the house have both put forth increases above the 8 million. The university budget  will go to a conference committee where the senators and legislature will meet and make a proposal to the Governor. The  governor will then have the ability to veto any items in the budget. We are hopeful to get funding for Moore Bartlett Skarland Hall renovations and IT upgrades. 

Human Resources

Memry Dahl has been hired as the new Chief Human Resources Officer for UA. Ms. Dahl is based in Anchorage but plans to be in Fairbanks for a few days each month. 

Heather Arana states open enrollment starts Thursday, April 14th. We will have Orthodontia benefits for the HDHP and CDHP plans. We are providing a preventative medication plan that will apply to all UA healthcare plans. We have moved ahead with the electronic EOI. TouchCare can help you make decisions and choices on what plan works best for you. Reach out to ua-benefits@alaska.edu if you have any questions or touchcare. 

 

Staff Council Representative Opportunities

  • Serve on the Open Education Resources (OER) Committee starting in Fall 2022
  • Serve on the Childcare Facility Committee 

New Business

Staff Make Students Count 

  • Please consider nominating someone for the Staff Make Students Count award. There are many at UA who give their all for our students, and they should be commended!

Save the Dates

Public comments:

  • Nicole Goff joins us to talk about Student Employee Appreciation Week taking place April 11th through the 15th. Nicole is the career services advisor for UAF, she shared a flier on ways to show appreciation to our students. Suggestions included Mocha Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Wellness Wednesday, Thankful Thursday and Feel Good Friday. There are small meaningful ways we can show our appreciation for all that our student employees do. 
  • Thank you Staff Council for working with President Pitney and UA HR to grant staff an additional 40 hours of Annual Leave Cash-In.  The work you do as Staff Council is greatly appreciated.  
  • It's been brought up in the past (over 10 years ago) about offering a staff "sabbatical" to allow senior staff members to take off a paid semester to finish off projects (degrees, training, publication, other job related work) that would add to the knowledge/experience/training of an employee and give added benefit to the university. Is this something that can be discussed again as a way to help develop senior level employees gain experience that is difficult to accomplish because of job responsibilities? Also, in 2016 President Johnsen offered the UA Executive Leadership Training. It was designed to bring together mid-level employees (who applied and were accepted to the program) who were interested in developing their leadership skills and to identify a cohort that would grow into positions across UA. Sessions were held at UAF and UAA (I'm not sure about UAS but probably them too). Is this something that can be put into place again? I know it was a statewide supported program, but it was two people (Pips Veasey & Nicole Cundiff) at UAF who were the force behind it. Many of the people who were in the previous training have gone into senior level positions at UAF or moved into leadership positions at other universities. It was a great program, and a great way to develop leadership  at UA and I hope it can be offered again. I know of several mid-career staff who would benefit from such a training.