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Home > Staff Council > Minutes > 2002-2003
Staff Council Minutes 2002-2003
Staff Council Minutes 09-10-02
Attendees:
Aime DeGrenier, Co-Chair, Irasema Lewis, Susan Rusiecki, Renee Sweeney,
Rosemary Jackson, Michelle Richard, Donna Russell, Patricia O’Brien,
Aaron Clark & Susan Desjardins
Agenda:
• Review remaining business from last year
• Discuss plan or strategy for an election in Li Ling Waller’s division
• Discuss co-chair position, nomination & election
• Staff Council Luncheons with guest speakers
• Staff Council retreat with Lauren Turner
• Brown Bag/town meeting luncheons with Lauren Turner
• Revisit some of the bylaws. Add in some guidelines for future committees
Since
Li Ling Waller has resigned as co-chair and will soon be leaving the
campus for a job elsewhere, we discussed filling her position on the
council. After reading the bylaws we determined that a campus wide
nomination & election must take place to fill the balance of her
term. Renee Sweeney, Aime DeGrenier & Sue Rusiecki will take on the
task of sending out the nomination ballots.
Rosemary Jackson
nominated Michelle Richard for the vacant co-chair position and the
motion was seconded by Donna Russell. She was elected unanimously by
the council.
Aaron Clark has agreed to serve out Blanca Ayala’s
term on the council and will serve on the Social Recreation committee
and help Shelly Richard with scheduling events. Aaron’s name was on the
ballot during the last election and came in second to Blanca who left
the college during the summer.
Both Rosemary & Aime have
been contacted recently by a Mount Holyoke College student/reporter
with questions regarding the council’s role on campus and our views
regarding the Fair Labor Code issue. We discussed how and if we should
respond (see attached response written by Rosemary Jackson).
Rosemary
will contact Mary Renda, chair of the MCCL committee, for an update
regarding the Fair Labor Code. She will also invite Susan Pliner, Dina
Bevivino & Sandra Suarez of the MCCL sub-committee dealing with the
Fair Labor Code to meet with us and bring us up to date on this issue.
Continuing business was discussed as follows:
Staff luncheons in October, February, March, & April with guest speakers that may include:
• Rev. Richard Fournier — Interim Protestant Chaplain/Ombudsperson
• Lisa Freitag-Keshet, Jewish Chaplain
• Patricia Albanese, Director of the Library
• Joanne Creighton, President of the College
We
discussed having town meetings (open forum for staff) with Lauren
Turner of the Human Resources office. They may be held in Chapin or in
another large space if Lauren agrees to do them again this year.
Winterfest, December 18th sponsored by the President’s office and held with assistance from the council members.
We expect to have a half day retreat with Lauren Turner sometime in the fall.
We
discussed how to implement a campus wide method of performance
evaluations for employees of the college and if there is a merit pay
pilot program in progress. Questions included; how does one get a
performance review and who is responsible to see that this is done by
managers on a yearly basis. It was determined that there is a haphazard
method in place and that Human Resources is working on getting a good
model that will work campus wide. A merit pay pilot project may be
considered by the President’s office.
We discussed the desire
for a tuition benefit for children of people who have either retired or
are approaching retirement from the college.
We were assured by
the people who work in Human Resources that a dental plan will be
forthcoming and could be in effect sometime in 2004.
The Human
Resources office is in the process of planning "Brown Bag" luncheons. A
campus wide survey was conducted last year to determine what subjects
would be of interest to the employees of the college.
The review of the by-laws was tabled for discussion at a future meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Desjardins
Staff Council Retreat with Lauren Turner 10-04-02
Topics of Discussion:
• Tuition reimbursement for retirees
• Tuition benefit for MHC employees (increase?)
• Staff Showcase
• Training (advancement advantage for staff)
• Plan for 2010 (staff input)
• Ceremonial Events (Winterfest, Employee Service Awards, & parties for Retirees
• Merit Pay — Performance Evaluations
• Code of Conduct
• Dental Benefit & Flexible spending
Tuition
reimbursement for retirees; many employees are starting their families
at an older age so therefore their children will be of college age when
they are retired or preparing to retire. Should MHC offer the benefit
of tuition for their children. What criteria should be used; length of
service, etc. Would the benefit continue if the parent were to die. At
present, no other college provides this benefit.
Tuition benefit
for MHC employees; this benefit exists but does everyone know about it.
The current benefit is $250. Should it be published more broadly and
should the dollar amount be increased.
Staff showcase; consider
a way to highlight staff achievement. A profile in the source about an
employee’s achievement would be one way to accomplish this.
Training:
Cross training methods in departments that would give an employee the
chance to know someone else job and possibly create an atmosphere for
advancement in that department. Five College programs; how to get more
people to take advantage. Suggest more programs to be scheduled here at
MHC.
Plan for 2010: The president wants and needs the staff’s
input for the plan 2010. Lauren will schedule visits to departments to
get their staff input. The staff council will also be meeting with
Lauren to discuss this subject.
Ceremonial events: Lauren asked if we thought MHC does a good job in this area.
We
talked about Winterfest, the breakfast for Employee Service Awards and
parties for retirees. She suggests that the staff council work closely
with the presidents office in order to achieve a more substantive
program at Winterfest.
Merit pay and performance evaluations;
and whether or not a merit pay system should be piloted on campus. Who
would warrant a merit pay increase? What criteria would be used? What
would it accomplish? Would it cause more problems than it’s worth,
etc.? Is it a motivator for good work performance? A pool of money
would have to be created by the trustees to initiate such a program.
Performance evaluations: some employees on campus have never had one
done. A system exists, but compliance to the process is spotty across
campus. Mandatory evaluation must be put in place and regularly
completed since evaluations are valuable for both management and the
employee. Would employees be comfortable with evaluating their
supervisor?
Code of Conduct: the desire has been expressed by
many on campus to have such a document .Lauren suggests divisional
meetings to explain the need for a code of conduct and to get input
concerning the wording of such a document.
Dental &
Flexibile Spending: A dental plan will be available soon and most
likely it would be the Delta plan already being used at Smith &
Hampshire College.
Flexible Spending Accounts: Not many
employees take advantage of this benefit. HR will try to get the word
out to employees through divisional meetings.
Staff Council Minutes 10-08-02
Attendees:
Michelle Richard & Aime DeGrenier co-chairs, Susan Rusiecki, Renee
Sweeney, Patricia O’Brien, Susan Desjardins, Rosemary Jackson &
Irasema Lewis
Absent: Donna Russell & Aaron Clark
New business:
A network folder will be made available for the Staff Council so that
we will be able to save the meeting minutes, luncheon flyers, balloting
materials etc. in this folder.
Old business:
The nomination ballot for Division 5 (Li Ling Waller’s seat on the
council), will be mailed out to the division soon. The term of the seat
will be from November 2002 to May 2003.
The flyers for the
upcoming Luncheon meeting with Richard Fournier and the Town Meeting
schedule information will go out this week.
Staff Council Guidelines: We reviewed the guidelines section by section and have made the following changes:
Change the "guidelines" to bylaws.
Nominations
& Elections section, 2nd paragraph; now reads as follows;
Nominations and elections to fill vacancies resulting from resignations
will take place during the annual election process and will be for the
balance of the term.
Change: Nominations and elections to fill
vacancies resulting from resignations will take place during the annual
election process or at the discretion of the council. The term of the
seat would be at the council’s discretion.
Any changes to the
document must be approved by the college president. A copy of the
document will be submitted to Joanne Creighton for her approval or
disapproval.
We reviewed the titles listed under Council Seats and will continue to ask for volunteers from the council to fill these seats.
We
discussed the present method used to elect the co-chairs and decided
that we need to use formal procedure in the election process.
We
discussed holding a "special orientation" meeting when new members are
elected to the council to orientate them about the council’s function
and our need to fill certain council seats.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Desjardins
Minutes from Follow-up Retreat 11-04-02
Agenda created at the beginning of meeting:
• Plan 2010
• Performance Management and Compensation
• Professional Development
• Town Meeting Agenda
Plan 2010
Lauren
has met/will meet with several departments/groups including Facilities
Management, LITS, Academic Assistants, and OPC. It was suggested that
she come to the December Financial and Administrative Services Meeting
and that a few names be added to the group so that some departments
will have better or full coverage on the topic.
Ideas that were put forth by council members or Lauren at the meeting are:
More
Community Service needs to be available and this can tie into
work-study monies. At the present time America Reads and America Counts
are two organizations that the college works with. There needs to be
development in this area.
The Academic Advising process needs to
be looked at. Staff notices that students are not aware that course
load limitations impact their financial status and other issues. Is
there room for staff advisors? Is there more training that could be
arranged for current advisors? Rosemary reported that MCCL is putting
out a report soon that addresses the issue of problems with academic
advising. A sidebar with this issue is that currently the policy states
that only faculty can advise. This illustrates the division between
staff and faculty. Staff could be very useful to students in this area
because of their knowledge of requirements that the faculty would not
be aware of. Lauren suggests that we make a value purpose document
stating the issue in two lines.
Talking about strengthening
academic programs fostered ideas about visiting faculty and how to
better orientates them to the campus and facilities. By their lack of
connection to the college by various circumstances (i.e. office space)
they may not being able to collaborate with others in the college in
the same way a tenured professor would. Although there are good
orientation procedures, the visiting professors may get lost once their
workloads start to get busy. Some follow-up orientation programs may
help in this area. Locating their office space in a more central area
might help also.
Talking about clustering disciplines initiated
some questions about how limited the clustering would be. Some colleges
have "schools" with departments under the schools. Although bigger
departments with interdisciplinary programs under them may help with
advising, the logistics of placing them in a central building together
might be difficult. A few of us have noticed the difficulties in having
a department that consists of one or two professors. Clustering these
under related departments with prospects of collaboration could be
academically exciting and administratively sound. The question that Sue
had was if there would be an effect on jobs and Lauren said she did not
anticipate that there would be.
Co-Curricular was the next area
of the plan that was discussed. Leadership was the first component that
we talked about. Some felt that the Weismann Center was too separate
and needed to be more integrated into the campus. We thought combining
programs with the CDC might be a good idea. We thought that the Social
and Critical Thought class could be integrated into the Weismann
Center. It was explained that the Weismann Center started as an
initiative to address the mission of the college to train leaders. SAW
developed from needed skills. Debate and the CBL were put under the
center but the umbrella was never defined. What came out of our
conversation about the center was that an initiative we might support
was to have the Weismann Center make connection with the curriculum and
address functionality.
Environmental Awareness was discussed as
something that was already going on at Mount Holyoke. To improve in
that area we discussed a partnership combining faculty and staff
expertise. An example of this would be Nancy Fratoni advising
professors how to use chemical that they use in research. Lauren
envisions an Environmental Advisory Board with both staff and faculty
participating.
Under Curricular/Co-Curricular an expansion of
the 5 College Bus was discussed along with needs for students to get
off campus. There was a proposal to extend the 5 College Bus service to
at least Food Mart. Looking at improving the scope of student life, we
discussed how activities and clubs in Springfield were an area that
needed to be covered by transportation. Student Life and the Fleet
Department tie in to publicize the events that would have
transportation to them. There could be an extension of the Arts
Calendar that is now being published by LITS. Also discussed as a
serious concern for many departments were the needs of summer student
residents that were not currently being met. A summer meal plan, summer
hosting program and more transportation for those students who work in
departments or just need to stay the summer was proposed.
To
address community building some ideas that came out of conversation
were: a monthly all campus event and receptions before events. The
monthly all campus event would be in the evening at Blanchard with a
RSVP required.
We talked about enhancing 5 College collaboration, which we presently have in a few areas.
We also talked about folding a LITS orientation into staff orientation and how to best get training to our staff.
Performance Evaluations and Staff Development
Staff
evaluations and the possibility of both employee and supervisor
evaluated by each other were discussed along with the issues of making
time and money in the budget for training. Having a staff member
evaluated after 3 to 6 months and every year after that to help
increase communication between employee and supervisor. The ability to
reward an employee that performed above and beyond was an idea that
came up. And we discussed the division between faculty and staff raises
and whether the salary pool should be combined.
Town Meeting Proposed Agenda
1 Staff Council Report
2 HR Update on benefits
3 Plan 2010 with some publicity and a way for staff to read plan (i.e. web)
4 Q&A
Lauren with get together with Amy and Shelley to finalize the agenda.
Respectfully Submitted,
Donna J. Russell
Staff Council Minutes 11-12-02
Attending: Donna Russell, Renee Sweeney, Aime DeGrenier, Michelle Richard and Susan Desjardins
Absent: Rosemary Jackson, Irasema Lewis, Susan Rusiecki, Patricia O’Brien, Aaron Clark & Bernetta Parson
The abbreviated meeting held after gathering with the Senior Staff opened at 12:15 PM in the Willits Hallowell living room.
Old business:
Status of the Staff Council By-Laws/will revisit at December’s meeting
Winterfest
2002: To be held on Wednesday, December 18th from 11:30 — 1:30 pm in
Chapin Auditorium. Committee members from the MHC community are:
Irasema Lewis, Donna Russell, Sandra Suarez, Michelle Richard and
Deborah Harbison.
There will be a welcoming from the President’s
office along with a performance from the English Handbell choir. Also
included: food catered by Willits, a raffle and a place to donate "new"
pre-school toys to the Chicopee, Holyoke & Springfield Head Start’s
"All I Want For Christmas", and assorted items to the Providence
Ministries & Woman Shelter Campaneras. The council has been asked
to participate by manning specific areas of Chapin during the event.
Who does what will be determined at a later meeting.
April 2003
Staff Council Luncheon: guest to be determined, possibly Rabbi Lisa
Freitag-Keshet who is the new Rabbi at Eliot House.
Staff Award
Pilot Program: Nominations for the award will begin at our next meeting
or at the beginning of next year. Balloons and a certificate will be
presented to the winner. It is suggested that an employee be honored
each month.
Donna Russell reported that the 250th Anniversary of
South Hadley will be celebrated with a "costume" ball on January 25th
from 8-12 Pm in Chapin Auditorium. A costume will not be required to
attend.
Michelle Richard reported that the "Art at Work" exhibit
will be held on December 2nd from 4-6 pm in Kendade. Twenty four
employees have committed themselves to 40 exhibits. Light refreshments
will be served and the event is open to the college community.
The meeting closed at 1 pm.
Respectively submitted,
Susan E. Desjardins
Staff Council Minutes 11-12-02 Meeting with Senior Staff
Senior
Staff members in attendance: Joanne Creighton, Donal O’Shea, Patricia
Vandenberg, Mary Jo Maydew, Jane Brown, Cindy Legare, Monica Augustin,
Kevin McCarthy, Charles Haight, & Rochelle Calhoun.
Staff
Council members in attendance: Rosemary Jackson, Aime DeGrenier,
Michelle Richard, Renee Sweeney, Irasema Lewis & Susan Desjardins
The council submitted a copy of our "MHC Plan for 2010 Comments/Proposal from the Staff Council, November 2002". (see attached)
Joanne Creighton opened the meeting using the document as an outline for discussion.
II Strengthening Academic Program:
Community
Service: Agreement was reached that community service needs to be
available and further developed but how far do we want to go and some
feel we already do a great deal in this area, but that partnering in
community projects rather than volunteering on a weekly basis might be
the way to go. The best models for outreach may be corporate, where
employees volunteer in the communities that surround them. That may
include a week or two of volunteering. President Creighton stated that
she didn’t think the college "should loan out their employees for
extensive periods of time".
Visiting Faculty: There are three
orientations for faculty in place now involving LITS, the Weismann
Center, the Dean of the Faculty, the Dean of the College, the
President’s office and Human Resources. Further discussion on the topic
included offering more opportunity for the college community to
interact with new faculty & staff.
Community connection: How
do we make the Weismann Center a more effective center able to serve
the entire campus. The Weismann Center is conducting a survey with
questions regarding their future role. It is on the MHC home page and
all are welcome to participate in forwarding their remarks to them.
Environmental
issues: Our proposal for faculty, staff & student collaboration
regarding environmental issues was discussed and we were told that
there is "good news" in this area. Similar programs are in place and
working. Although specific goals for the future need to be defined and
how does the college support them financially. For instance the campus
master plan needs to be revisited in regards to making the college a
botanic garden rather than a parking lot.
World Center:
President Creighton is glad that we like the idea of a World Center.
She says there is some resistance to the idea but she plans to take the
idea forward.
III Building Connections:
Academic
Advising: We suggest in our proposal that we would like to explore the
idea of utilizing the staff as student advisors. Our staff represents a
diverse, educated and committed team with much to offer the students.
We are aware that some staff such as coaches, and those working in the
academic departments are advisors already. All faculty are supposed to
serve as advisors as well. The students have indicated in surveys that
not all faculty members take on this role willingly. Time constraints
play a part in this and faculty members on the senior staff agreed that
this is something that needs to be looked at. A training program could
be developed for those who would serve as an advisor.
Enhancing
student life: We all agreed that the students need access to more off
campus opportunities, such as bus trips to concerts etc. The 5 college
bus system if it does provide more services than exist now will
naturally become more expensive for the colleges who participate in
their services. A bus after midnight could be one of these added
services. It was stated that "we should stop describing ourselves as a
"rural" campus. We have access to many venues we just need to provide a
better way of getting to them.
Concerns about students who live
on campus during the summer months: Most feel that the room fees they
are charged are too high and that the students do not have access to
meals. It was suggested that host families from the MHC community and
beyond could take some of this burden away by providing a home base for
students while they are here away from home. This would be helpful
especially around the holidays and during the summer while the school
is not in session. Internships that could help pay for housing and
meals should be considered.
Community building: The idea of
having more events for the faculty, staff & students to attend in
order to interact with each other, lead to the following discussion.
Staff participation now is very low for most scheduled activities,
except for picnics and the Winterfest celebration. How do we get the
staff to participate in other events? It was suggested that more
support from supervisors, so that staff might attend if they were aware
they were able to do so.
IV Stewarding College Resources
Staff:
We need to do a better job in the area of performance evaluations. It
is agreed that the current system is not consistent. Although most
systems of employee performance evaluations is very time consuming the
senior staff does want to make this a priority and feel that every
single employee should have a performance review. Merit pay was
discussed briefly and it was agreed that it would be a challenge for
the college and we may not be ready to take this on.
Our meeting
with the senior staff closed with thanks for our attendance and
appreciation of our preparation on the issues discussed.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan E. Desjardins
Open Forum with Lauren Turner 11-20-02
NY Room
Staff
Council Present: Bernetta Parsons, Rosemary Jackson, Amy DeGrenier,
Shelley Richard, Aaron Clark, Donna Russell and Sue Rusecki
Shelley
and Amy started the meeting by introducing themselves and other staff
council members. Shelley started the overview of what Staff Council was
working on. She gave us information about Winterfest and how to contact
Irasema Lewis if you wanted to be on the committee. Lauren told us
later that offices would be closed for Winterfest again this year.
Shelley explained that we were working on Plan 2010 and how we came up
with the document that we presented to senior staff. She touched
briefly on the Fair Labor Code and the sub committee of the MCCL
(Multi-Cultural College Life) committee. She told the audience we would
also be at the Benefits Fair this year.
Amy then continued the
update by talking about our ideas of recognizing staff with a Prize
Patrol type format. She solicited ideas for nominations. She talked
about the Source and encouraged staff to submit articles. She talked
about the Staff Art Exhibit coming up in Kendade starting on December
2nd with the reception running from 4pm — 6pm that day. The topics of
the current Brown Bag Lunches were discussed and staff was encouraged
to share their talents with others for the next round. Training and
Development was discussed as an important area of concern of the
council. We are looking to Senior Staff to commit to this for staff
(time and money).
Lauren updated the audience about current
Human Resources initiatives. There has been some talk between council
and Lauren about Orientation and Human Resources has taken this up as
an initiative they will work on. She announced that by July ’04 we will
have a Dental Plan. Lauren confirmed that between Christmas and New
Year’s Day offices may close if all dept. members would like to take
part or all of it off (vacation time) in addition to the time given by
the college. Voice mail should reflect when the offices will be closed
and should be checked periodically. Public Safety should be notified of
the schedule of the office. She talked about getting a commitment for
Staff Professional Development in the Plan. Performance Management was
mentioned. We need to have the evaluations completed, which many
departments aren’t doing. Audience members were encouraged to keep
track of their leave accrual and check in with their department to make
sure both parties agree.
The first audience comment was a
suggestion that instead of every 5 years getting an award, staff should
get an extra vacation day. Lauren did say that our vacation accrual is
very competitive (after 5 years we have 4 weeks vacation). Many in the
audience identified with the comment that it is hard to use 4 weeks at
times.
Next we started talking about Plan 2010. Audience members
were encouraged to read the plan on the web or at least the summary. On
December 9th there is a luncheon forum to discuss the plan.
Amy
then led discussion of the suggestions the Staff Council has proposed.
Under Community Service one staff member said she was unable to
participate in the Day of Giving and proposed another day or half day
that the staff could take to participate in their own Day of Giving if
unable to go on the college’s scheduled day. A suggestion was made that
information be collected about staff that is volunteering. Under
Visiting Faculty Wendy Watson suggested that a list of visiting faculty
be more widely distributed. When talking about orientation it was
suggested that the web could be instrumental in getting information to
those who need it. This could be developed with the current view option
for staff. It could have a new employee information option.
Lauren
told the audience that she would be meeting with the academic
administrative assistants about the proposed clustering of academic
departments. An audience member told us that there is a committee that
teams up the CEL and Facilities Management on environmental issues.
Partnership instead of working parallel is needed. A comment was made
that we don’t know what is going on environmentally on campus. The
college needs to do a better job of communicating what is going on. The
Source was suggested as a venue for information.
An audience
question about the landscape changes and whether they are in keeping
with the Olmstead Plan followed. John Bryant said that if anything we
are going to be more in synch with that plan. Vehicular traffic inside
campus is going to be curtailed in future landscape plans and this will
add aesthetically to campus. A suggestion was made that this kind of
information be communicated via the web or mhc.announce.
Amy
said that Senior Staff is open to exploring the suggestion that staff
be considered for advisors for students. They also liked the idea of a
Summer Host Program.
Last suggestions from the audience were: an
orientation of parts of campus that staff could go to as a benefit
(i.e. Art Museum, Kendall, or Library) and that career services be
available to staff.
Staff Council Minutes 12-10-02
Attending: Aime DeGrenier, Susan Rusiecki, Irasema Lewis, Renee Sweeney, Patricia O’Brien, Susan Desjardins, Donna Russell, Bernetta Parson & Rosemary Jackson.
Absent: Michelle Richard and Aaron Clark
Old business:
Winterfest: December 18th from 11:30 — 1:30. The committee reports that the invitation should be in the campus mail by the end of the week. Raffle items have been donated by the Parthenon Restaurant & Subway. Several craft items will also be donated by Debbie Harbison. The raffling will be limited to a couple of segments spread out over the 2 hour event. Winners do not need to be present to win. Charitable items requested for donation this year are for Needy Neighbors, Woman’s Shelter Campaneras & All I want for Christmas/Chicopee, Holyoke Springfield Head Start. Joanne Creighton will give a short welcoming address. Seasonal background music will be played as no one is available to give a live performance. Willits will be catering the food. Rosemary Jackson, Pat O’Brien & Sue Desjardins will arrive early and help man the entry ways and help with name tags and raffle forms. A suggestion box will be made available to gather the staffs input & ideas for future Winterfest celebrations.
Fair Labor Code Update: All future meetings with departments to discuss the Fair Labor Code have been suspended by the committee until they can come up with a clearer message of what they are trying to accomplish. Many of the sessions held so far have turned out to be "complaining sessions" and have left the staff who participated in them a bit confused. See the attached e-mail from Sandra Suarez which explains the situation in a very articulate manner.
Prize Patrol/Staff Award Pilot Program: We discussed how to proceed with the nomination process. Should the prize be for individual employees or a department as a whole? Should the staff nominate from their peers or should a department head do the nomination? This subject needs more discussion and was tabled for future meetings.
Spring luncheons: February — 2003 Peter Carini — Director of Archives & Special Collections (?).
Aime DeGrenier will ask Peter if he would like to speak.
Town Meetings with Lauren Turner: Lauren will compile information gathered at these open forum meetings and share them with Mary Jo Maydew and members of the senior staff.
Donna Russell & Rosemary Jackson reported on a recent faculty meeting that they had attended as follows: A lot of the discussion at the meeting concerned the various construction sites on campus. The faculty and President Creighton feel they should take responsibility for keeping Mount Holyoke beautiful and environmentally sound for future generations. The "new" lower road in front of the Blanchard Campus Center will need to be greened over to bring back the "spacious" green area promised by the planners of this project. The road as it stands, takes over the whole space between Blanchard and Pratt and does not allow for anything except pavement and traffic.
There was some discussion about using monies that have been allotted for the staff dental plan and absorbing those funds into a grant program benefiting the faculty and their endeavors. Lauren Turner said "that this cannot happen, as the staff has already been told that dental is on the way, no later than 2004"
Over registration for various classes is a concern of many professors and their students. They are hopeful that the "new" system to be implemented by LITS & Enrollment will solve some of these problems.
New business: concerns were raised regarding whether or not Division V & VII are fairly represented on the staff council since Career Development & Enrollment are now in the same division. The council will need to take a look at this situation when elections are held in the spring.
The staff council has been invited to attend an OPC meeting on February 5th, 2003. Refreshments will be served at 9:45 AM with the meeting at 10:00 Am — 12:00 Pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan E. Desjardins
Staff Council Minutes 01-14-03
Attending:
Aime DeGrenier, Aaron Clark, Rosemary Jackson, Renee Sweeney, Michele
Richard, Patricia O’Brien, Susan Rusiecki, Donna Russell & Susan
Desjardins.
Absent: Bernetta Parson & Irasema Lewis
Agenda:
• Update: Fair Labor Practice Subcommittee
• Update: Administrative Priority & Environmental Priority Committee — Draft 2010
• The upcoming election process
Fair
Labor Practice Subcommittee: The committee will be going into retreat
to discuss their progress and how to proceed with further discussions
with staff regarding the "code of conduct". Both staff council &
human resources have contacted the committee to offer their assistance.
Neither has received a reply. John Grayson, Associate Professor of
Religion has volunteered to serve on the committee replacing Craig
Woodard.
APC/EPC — Draft 2010
Shelley
Richard participated in a half day retreat to review the second draft
with the Administrative & Educational Priority sub-committees and
senior staff. The staff section of the draft for 2010 is being
re-written by Mary Jo Maydew. Mary Jo Maydew, Lauren Turner, Shelley
Richard and Cindy Legare are meeting to condense the lengthy version
now present in the second draft. Shelly assures us that the points we
made at our meeting with the senior staff last fall will not be removed
from the draft. The final draft for 2010 is due in May.
Bernetta
Parson has resigned her position at the college. Her seat on the
council will not be filled at this time. Her seat on the council will
be filled when the regular election process takes place in the spring.
A review of the population in the divisions the council represents and
any changes made to the names of departments will be reviewed before
the election process takes place.
New business:
Aime
DeGrenier announced that she will resign her position as co-chairperson
of the Staff Council at the end of this semester. She will be giving
birth to twin girls in late spring or early summer and will need to
work part time when she returns to work in the fall. She will continue
to serve on the council. A new co-chair will need to be chosen in the
fall.
The staff council logo with the addition of the MHC logo
will now appear on many of the printed communications mailed by the
council.
Autumn Onley of Spelman College e-mailed all Staff
Council members requesting information about how to form a Staff
Council at Spelman. She was referred to us by their new president,
Beverly Tatum who served as MHC’s president during Joanne Creighton’s
sabbatical last year. Aime will respond to her e-mail.
It was
suggested that our meetings which are now held on our lunch hour, be
held at a different time of day. We are working on behalf of the staff
and most of us do not take a lunch hour on the day we have a council
meeting. We will e-mail our meeting & work schedules to Aime and
try to schedule another time of day for our meetings.
Old business:
Prize
Patrol: Sue Rusiecki suggested that we include an article in the source
to see if the staff likes the idea of having a "prize patrol" to award
employees or departments when they do something special. We have a
small budget and we may be able to purchase suitable items to present
to the winners of such an award. We also discussed the purchase of a
similar item to hand out at the benefits fair this spring.
Adverse weather conditions & the college policy for closing or delaying opening during bad weather;
Aaron
Clark was asked by staff members to make the council aware that they
felt the college should have closed earlier than 3:00 Pm on 1/3/03.
Driving was very hazardous and many employees found that they had
difficulty getting home in a timely manner. On another stormy day this
winter, parking lots & sidewalks had not been plowed or made ready
to receive employees and their cars. In this case, a delay in opening
would have been appropriate. Comments from the staff and the council
regarding this issue will be brought to Lauren Turner’s attention.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan E. Desjardins
Secretary
Staff Council Minutes 02-11-03
Attending: Aime DeGrenier, Sue Rusiecki, Donna Russell, Renee Sweeney and Patricia O’Brien, Rosemary Jackson
Rosemary
Jackson commented that she was pleased that the Faculty had sent a
letter to President Bush stating their opposition to the war movement.
Upcoming staff council lunch speakers:
• March 3 - Patricia Albanese, Director of LITS
• April meeting - President Creighton
• Suggested speaker for next fall – Lee Bowie
• The topic of whether we should have back up speakers was discussed.
Benefits Fair:
• The committee reviewed the brochure and chose a pen for giveaway at the Benefits Fair.
• Pat O’Brien to follow up with the printer
Election process:
• The divisional count was not summarized, Rosemary Jackson to review and tally
• Once we have the divisional count Sue Rusiecki will review the number of staff in each division
• The call for nominations needs to be mailed in March and returned by April 4
• Phone calls will be made to nominees for acceptance
• Ballots will then be mailed out by April 9 and returned by April 25
• We will then count the ballots
• The candidates will be contacted and we can announce our new members at our May meeting
Additional items for the May meeting:
• Discuss the cochair replacement
• Introduce new members and give them a description of committee
positions available. This will enable them time to think about what
they would like to sign up for in September.
• Discussion of personnel issue on campus
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia O’Brien
Staff Council meeting notes from 03-11-03
Members
attending: Aime DeGrenier, Shelley Richard, Renee Sweeney, Patricia
O’Brien, Donna Russell, Rosemary Jackson, Susan Desjardins, Aaron
Clark, Susan Rusiecki & Irasema Lewis
The meeting opened at 1:30 pm with the following agenda items:
• Update on the Plan for 2010
• Progress report regarding pens with staff council logo
• Status of the nomination ballot
• President Creighton’s April luncheon
• Visual identity presentation for our April meeting
• Employee scholarship program
• Update from council representative at latest Faculty meeting, and
discussion of the letter sent out to the community by Linda Chesky
Fernandes
• Update from council representative to the Alcohol & Drug Advisory Committee
Shelley
Richard attended a meeting held with the trustees to discuss the recent
draft of the Plan for 2010. Discussion is ongoing as there is still
work to be done on the final version of the plan.
Patricia
O’Brien presented a copy of the Staff Council/MHC logo that will be
printed on pens distributed at the human resources Benefit’s Fair in
the spring.
Sue Rusiecki asked that we review the nomination ballot before it goes to print and is mailed out to the staff.
President
Creighton’s staff luncheon will be held on April 10th at
Willits-Hallowell. The event will feature “a conversation with
President Creighton”.
Aime DeGrenier will invite Patricia
Vandenberg from the Office of Communications to attend our April 8th
meeting. She will discuss how the “new” MHC logo is being used on
campus. Since this is a visual presentation we will hold the meeting in
Room #231 in the library.
Members were asked if we knew what
procedure to follow for getting information out to the campus regarding
the Employee Scholarship Program. Rosemary Jackson & Sue Desjardins
will look through their notes from last year to see what took place.
Donna
Russell did attend a recent faculty meeting and said there was nothing
new to report. Donna Russell opened discussion of a letter sent out to
the college community by Linda Fernandes.
The letter describes
how disappointed Linda was in the handling of the paint crew/Facilities
Management during an investigation by public safety of the “peepholes”
in various bathrooms located in the Mandelles.
After some
discussion, we concluded that we did not know enough about the
incident, except for rumors circulating, to draw the conclusion that
public safety had overstepped their authority. Aime & Shelley will
speak to Lauren Turner and express our concerns that employees be
treated in a fair and decent manner if they find themselves under
investigation for suspected wrong doing.
Pat O’Brien reports
from her attendance at the latest meeting of the Alcohol & Drug
Advisory Committee the following: The ADAC will be sponsoring a display
on Skinner Green, of “a car wreck with victims” to exhibit the results
of what can happen if you drive when intoxicated. The date is April 3rd
with a rain date of April 10th. An interfaith service and candlelight
vigil will also be part of the day’s events. Members of the council
were asked to remind the members of their divisions of the event as it
draws closer.
Respectively submitted,
Susan Desjardins
Secretary
Staff Council Minutes 04-08-03
Attending:
Irasema Lewis, Donna Russell, Aime DeGrenier, Michelle Richard,
Patricia O’Brien, Renee Sweeney, Aaron Clark & Susan Desjardins
Absent: Rosemary Jackson & Susan Rusiecki
Presentation by Patricia VandenBerg, Executive Director of Communications/ MHC Logos:
We
were instructed how to access and use the MHC logos by Patricia
VandenBerg, Doreen St. John, Theresa Chamberlain and our own Aime
DeGrenier. We were encouraged to use the logos on any appropriate
college material such as letterhead, brochures & handouts etc.
Old business:
The
Fair Labor Committee has been on hiatus due to Mary Renda’s mother’s
illness and her own “sabbatical” leave from the college. As it stands,
if the issue resurfaces, it will be handled differently by the
committee formed to deal with it.
Ballots for seats on the staff
council have been mailed out and are due back by April 28th. A special
meeting will be held to count the votes to determine who the next
council members will be.
New business:
We
discussed the current “Smoking Policy” especially where it has been
violated on campus. Many people do not stand away from the building the
required 20 feet and the smoke filters into open windows. It was stated
by many that access to the outside ashtrays has become a problem. They
do not exist in some cases and may have been removed by facilities
during the winter months. Piles of cigarette butts are to be found
where the ashtrays had been. Better signage stating the “smoking
policy” and ashtrays need to be put back in place. Patricia O’Brien
will bring this matter to Lauren Turner’s attention.
The annual
Benefit’s Fair will be held on May 8th at Willits-Hallowell. The staff
council will have a table this year. Renee Sweeney will present a
poster with items that represent the staff council activities for each
year. Council members were asked to provide Renee with these items.
Members of the council are requested to let Shelley know a time when
they can sit at the table while the fair is in progress. It was
suggested that the council provide a gift for Debbie Harbison since she
has donated an item to be raffled off at the fair. She also provided
many items for the raffle we held at Winterfest. A suggestion box will
be provided so that we can receive the staff’s suggestions.
A
special meeting will be held shortly with Kim Kelleher & Linda
Somano from Human Resources. They will explain the compensation &
salary package for Mount Holyoke employees.
Suggested speakers for next year: John Fortini or Dale Hennessey of Dining Services and Jesse Lythe from the President’s office.
Staff Council Meeting 05-13-03
Attending:
Aime DeGrenier, Shelley Richard, Donna Russell, Aaron Clark, Susan
Rusiecki, Susan Desjardins, Patricia O’Brien, Rosemary Jackson, Irasema
Lewis & Renee Sweeney
New Council Members attending: Bardee Sadlier, Patricia Serio, Taryn Dunaj & Teresa Picard
New
council members welcomed and open council seat duties described to
include: the scribe, communications person, meeting scheduler, MCCL
attendee, Faculty Meeting attendee, HR Liaison & the Co-chair
position
Seat duties were filled as follows:
• Pat Serio – Co-Chair
• Renee Sweeney & Patricia O’Brien – Communications & e-mail
• Event & meeting scheduler – Aaron Clark
• Scribe – Bardee Sadlier
• HR Liaison – Irasema Lewis
• MCCL – (will need to be decided upon)
• Faculty Meeting – Irasema Lewis & Donna Russell
The new members were asked to hold in confidence issues & concerns that are brought to the council.
Newly
elected council member Karen Kirkpatrick representing Division VI &
VII, has declined the position. After some discussion, the council
decided that the nomination & election process must be done over
again in her division in order to fill the council seat.
Employee
Scholarship Award: no eligible applicants applied for the scholarship.
The council decided to extend the deadline to receive applications to
June 15, 2003. Members of the council were asked to get this new
information out to the staff and an article will be posted on MHC
announce as well.
End of year report: Co-chairs, Amie DeGrenier
& Shelley Richard are working on this and have a draft for the
council to review.
Comment cards from the May 8th Benefits Fair:
Suggestions were that we include union members on the council and that
we revise our ballot, so that it is easier to understand.
Vacation
accrual: ( HR ?) is considering a 5 weeks vacation per year benefit
after 20 years of service. We agreed of course that this should be
implemented.
We quickly discussed the issue of bare footedness in buildings. OOOH!
A convocation speaker will be determined over the summer.
Linda
Samano & Kim Kelleher of HR spoke to us about how compensation and
salary packages for Mount Holyoke employees are compiled. Their office
conducts surveys of the job market and they do their best to provide a
fair & competitive wage for the college’s employees with the
resources that are available.
The meeting adjourned at 3:45 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Desjardins
Secretary
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