March 2021 Meeting

President Mathew Mund provided a written report with updates from the Board of Regents', Staff Alliance, and Chancellor's Cabinet.  

Vice President Ronnie Houchin shared about the Nanook Diversity and Action Center's Suicide Prevention Training. Ronnie also shared that the Strategic Inclusive Excellence project team is seeking more volunteers to carry out all the plans to fruition. Reach out to Margo Griffith or Ronnie if you are interested in contributing. The Strategic Inclusive Excellence team will be sending out a Diversity and Equity Climate Survey to the university community soon. This semester Ronnie is serving on the Faculty Senate Open Educational Resources (OER) ad hoc committee, which is looking at how to encourage the use of OERs in unveristy courses. Ronnie is also working with Staff Alliance and the UAF Staff Affairs Committee on the morale survey. The plan is to send out the morale survey by the end of March. All three Staff Councils have agreed to close the survey on April 16 so that we can begin compiling the data at the System level and submit it to the Board of Regents' for their June meeting. 

Executive Director Samara Taber attended the meeting to introduce the new University Advancement unit. Univerisity Advancement includes the office of Alumni Relations, the office of Development, and the office of University Relations. Samara shared about two events happening on March 25. The Alaska eSports Center will have a grand opening on March 25, in partnership with GCI and their $500,000 philanthropic gift. Also on March 25 they will be launching a philanthropic campaign in partnership with the UA Foundation. Samara invited staff to join the campaign launch event. This is just the beginning and there are a lot of ways that staff can be a part of the philanthropic campaign by sharing your story and passion for working at UAF, and the impacts of philanthropic gifts to your programs and students. 

UA HR Director of Operations Michelle Pope attended the meeting to discuss the Post-COVID workplace project. There are three groups involved with the project: a project team, a technical expertise resource group, and a transition monitoring team. The project team is responsible for the overall success of the project. The project team will be responsible for making sure key deliverables are met, things are communicated, and that the policies, procedures, and guidelines are all aligned. The technical expertise resource group is made up of over 30 members that the project team will need to draw upon in order to make sure that the liabilities and federal and state regulations are met. This group will advise the project team at various stages throughout the project. The transition monitoring team is responsible for relaying feedback from employees, supervisors, and students to the project team so that the project team can address any concerns, questions, or issues from stakeholders. The transition monitoring team will also review communication before it goes out to stakeholders to make sure gaps are identified and that the communication is clear and transparent.