June 2020 President's Report
Summer is here, and Staff Council is planning to stay engaged in the discussions happening at UA and UAF. In the past, Staff Council has taken a recess during the month of July, but we will not be doing that this year. The next Staff Council meeting is scheduled for July 11.
There is a new task force on outward-facing activities. Juella Sparks is serving as the Staff Council representative.
Health care update: There are enhanced hearing benefits starting in FY21 for the health care plan.
Title IX training will start in September. Due to the significant changes this will be a short turn around for employees. Chief Diversity Officer Margo Griffith will be coming to the August Staff Council meeting to cover the UA Title IX changes and impacts.
The UA IMT has produced a plan for re-opening campus in phases. Once a campus has determined that they want to move to a new phase, Statewide evaluates and sees if it is appropriate for the System to move on to the next phase. Campuses cannot move faster than Statewide, but can move slower if they need to.
The results of the catalyst surveys are now available. Let Mathew or Ronnie know if you have any questions.
Enrollment is down by only 10%. We are hoping to not follow the national trend which is currently 20% down this year.
The email policy has been revised and now specifically states that employees are no longer permitted to systematically forward their emails to outside services.
The off-road policy is being revised. The desire is to allow off-road activities in specific areas that will not negatively impact people or UAF's mission. VCAS Queen will be sharing the policy with the master planning and north campus planning committees for review.
The BOR audit committee shared that UA has above average numbers of upper admin/faculty but lower or equal numbers of staff compared to similarly sized institutions. This shows how we are already at minimum levels for staffing. If staff are reduced further, then the number of duties/tasks/roles also needs to be reduced.
The market-based compensation increases are not happening in FY21. This is challenging for staff who are below market. Mathew asked CHRO Patin if supervisors could make some adjustments at the department level. CHRO Patin suggested each staff member have a conversation with their supervisors to determine their options.
There are many conversations at the BOR level on the structure of UA. One of the movements for re-structuring is from the faculty union. They are developing a ground-up look at how the university’s structure could look from their perspective.
There is no movement to use other tools for the budget reduction. Other transformation options (outside of UAS merger with UAF) may or may not be taken up at future BOR meetings. This partially depends on how the presidential transition will roll out.
There are discussions on the NWCCU standards used for decision-making. We want to keep shared governance appraised of UAF’s decision-making process and find the best place for Staff Council to fit in.
Discussions about racism are happening around campus, and Staff Council is one place where staff can reflect on their own implicit biases and positions in society. We will look into how Staff Council can help facilitate these discussions in a meaningful way.