Date: April 14, 2005
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location: B-120

Members Present: William Ketchum (Chair), Sharon Hodge (Vice Chair), Ted Bulick, Amanda Canup, Bennie Sue Houck, Ann Lay, David Stone

Members Absent: Brandon McLain (Secretary)

Advisors Present: Dawn Ramsey

Advisors Absent: Mary Phillips

The meeting began at 10:00 a.m. and William Ketchum welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked them for being prompt. William Ketchum announced that we would need to conclude the meeting by 11:30 as another group had reserved the room for that time slot.

William Ketchum explained that Brandon McLain was excused from the meeting because he sits on the Search Committee that is selecting several police officers to be hired by the University. Mary Phillips called this a.m. and advised the Chair that she had a doctor’s appointment in the a.m. and probably would not be able to meet with Staff Council today, but would review the minutes.

William Ketchum called for a discussion and approval of the minutes of the March 02, 2005 meeting. David Stone offered a couple of edits to the last page of the minutes regarding Professional Development Funds. The edits were discussed and David Stone made a motion that the minutes be approved with the edits, Ann Lay seconded the motion and the minutes were approved unanimously.

Sharon Hodge reported that Staff Council has $3,131.14 in the agency account

The first item of Old Business was concerned with membership terminations. William Ketchum advised that Fola Teru who represented Category One had spoken to him and requested that she be allowed to resign from Staff Council. William Ketchum stated that her job required being at various meetings and these meetings were held in conflict with many of the Staff Council meeting dates. Sharon Hodge made a motion which was seconded by Ted Bulick that Staff Council accept the resignation of Fola Teru. Her resignation was accepted unanimously.

William Ketchum stated that two Staff Council members had missed more than three (3) meetings and had been advised by the Secretary, in writing as required by the By-Laws, that they may be voted off Staff Council if they failed to attend this meeting. The two Staff Council members are Teresa Street and Linda Powell. Ann Lay made a motion which was seconded by Bennie Houck that these two individuals be removed from the Staff Council. The motion carried unanimously.

The second item of Old Business was concerned with the approval of the nomination forms and the nomination process. After a lengthy discussion, everyone agreed that each staff member should receive from their representative a cover letter, a nomination form and a list of all of the staff members in their Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS) category. The cover letter and nomination form should clearly state that staff members employed after April 01, 2004 (employed less than one year as of April 01, 2005) are not eligible to serve on Staff Council. The IPEDS category listing that will go to every staff member contains the date of hire. Staff Council agreed that all employees including those hired after April 01, 2005 (the date of the IPEDS listing) are eligible to nominate a staff member and are eligible to vote for a staff member to serve on Staff Council. William Ketchum said that if Staff Council is to err in this process, we need to err on the side of allowing as many employees as possible to participate in the nomination and election process. Sharon and Ann will work on some suggested revisions to the nomination form and will send those out to the other representatives by electronic mail by Monday, April 18, 2005.

Staff Council created a matrix on the board in the Administration Building Conference Room to determine the number of representatives that each IPEDS category needed to nominate and elect in May and June, 2005. From the matrix it was determined that one representative needs to be elected from categories one, four, and five. Category six will need to elect two representatives and category eight will need to elect three representatives.
It will not be necessary for category seven to elect a representative since their representative will serve the second year of a two year term beginning July 01, 2005.

William Ketchum stated that one staff member has questioned why they were included in a particular IPEDS category. Staff Council requested that Human Resources (HR) review the personnel file and job description for this individual and adjudicate the situation. Sharon Hodge stated that Staff Council is not in the business of defining or revising IPEDS categories. Staff Council will direct the staff member who questions their IPEDS category to HR and request HR to explain to the staff member the reason for placing them in a particular category. Everyone agreed that any questions from staff members regarding IPEDS classifications should be directed to the Chair, who in turn will ask HR to contact the staff member and vice versa for an explanation and ,if required, a change in their category for IPEDS reporting and Staff Council nomination and election purposes.

William Ketchum stated that everything that Staff Council had been asked to do by HR in preparation for the Staff/Faculty Awards and Service Recognition Ceremony had been completed and turned over to the Benefits Coordinator.

The next item of Old Business was an update on the Professional Development Fund activity and this area was presented by David Stone. David stated that there was a lot of interest in a course involving MicroSoft 2003. Sharon stated that most of the secretaries on campus would probably like to take that course. David said that he would check into the maximum number of attendees for a class and the cost of the course(s) and provide a recommendation to Staff Council at the next meeting.

The next item of Old Business was the Raise Pool and Allocation. This was presented by Sharon Hodge who brought a document entitled “FY 2003 Raise Pool And Allocation Parameters”. This document explains how the raise pool of 3.25% for FY 2003 was parceled out to the staff members based upon longevity and performance evaluations. Sharon passed these documents out to each of the Staff Council members.

The next item of Old Business was the Job Description Modifications which was introduced by Sharon who handed out a copy of the letter from the President wherein the job descriptions for secretaries and administrative assistants in the academic programs were approved. William Ketchum is to send an electronic or interoffice mail to HR and ask that these changes be posted to the Web Page.

Regarding New Business, William Ketchum asked that everyone please plan to attend the Staff/Faculty Awards and Service Recognition program on Monday April 18, 2005 beginning at 12:00 noon in the Student Center. William Ketchum stated that HR and other areas had put in a lot of work in planning and coordinating this event and many of our co-workers will be recognized for their service to the University. Additionally, Southern Polytechnic State University has many staff members retiring this year and they will be recognized as well.

Ann Lay asked that everyone try to attend the Staff and Faculty Appreciation day Picnic which will be held at noon on Friday, April 29, 2005. Much work has gone into the planning and coordination of that event.

William Ketchum stated that the Student Government Association (SGA) had approached him over the past few weeks and asked to borrow the Election Committee Ballot Box for the student government elections. Staff Council was pleased to allow other areas of the campus community to utilize the ballot box to facilitate their elections.

William Ketchum stated that he is aware that the campus community is encountering problems with the Staff Council Web Page. He stated that he is not clear as to whether this is a system design problem or a combination of user error or the reality that there are many different generations of personal computers being used to access the server. He said that he will be requesting some assistance from Information Technology to look into this after he returns from the fiscal year end training workshops to be held in Macon next week. Amanda Canup (who represents Category V; Technical-Paraprofessional) stated that she will be glad to look at the personal computer that William Ketchum uses to see if she can determine the scope of the problem.

The next meeting was scheduled for May 19, 2005 and will be held in Building B; the Administrative Conference Room (B-120) at 10:00 a.m.

Dawn Ramsey stated that there is an event being held that day off campus, but if we have an a.m. meeting, everyone should be able to get away from the campus in a timely fashion.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:10 a.m.