Classified Senate Meeting Minutes (9/26/12)

Classified Senate Meeting Minutes

September 26, 2012

BS-147

Opening: The Classified Senate meeting was called to order at 1:35 p.m. on September 26, 2012.

Present: Leland Apedaile, Shevonna Blackshire, Shelly Charron, Chou Chasengnou, Brandon Ellis, Breanne Holland, Alma Mejia, Barbara Nuss, Eva Rhodes, April Robinson, Mary Thao,

I. Welcome/Greetings

II. Reports

1. Classified Senate President

a. Breanne reported that the Executive Council met to discuss, among other issues, the difficulty in getting anyone to chair the PD Committee from either the Academic or Classified Senates. This particular issue will be discussed at the Shared Governance committee meeting tomorrow, September 27th. Since there are committees which overlap, a proposal has been put forth to pull resources from other committees.

b. Shelly will email Breanne, from her perspective, the historical reasons why no one has stepped up to chair the committee.

c. Breanne also stated that the “Meet the Presidents Ice Cream Social,” on September 18th turned out to be an enjoyable event.

2. Classified Area Representative Reports

a. Julie Elliott and Banafsheh Amini were not present.

b. Mary Thao from Counseling didn’t have anything to report.

c. Chou Chasengnou from Business Services mentioned that Linda Neal is retiring and that the posting for her job has been published.

d. Shelly Charron will share the minutes from the Distant Ed meeting that will be held soon.

e. Brandon Ellis, an Assistant PE Coach, reported that the 1st Athletic department meeting was held and focused on communication issues between the training staff and coaches related to the differing perspectives on injuries. Brandon said that the consensus was for the coaches to be responsible for deciding when players can play, although the Trainers were a bit outnumbered. However, Brandon felt that the meeting was productive and a commitment was made by the attendees to communicate better with each other (i.e., face to face). Things seem to be going smoothly.

f. Alma Mejia brought up the handling of CDC employees who are transferred from that department and placed into other positions. She expressed concern that the process is not well-defined. It seems that no assessment of skills or training is conducted before they are placed. Also, departments aren’t given a heads up to expect these “new” employees who, all of a sudden, just show up. Alma mentioned that even after being trained, the employees are not guaranteed to be hired once the position opens up and it doesn’t seem fair. Leland Apedaile stated that this issue is more of a union issue and suggested that these individuals need to address their situations with the union.

III. Shared Governance Committee reports

1. A question was raised by one of the Area Reps as to what information should be reported after attending a Shared Governance committee meeting. Breanne said that the attendees should report on the top three items that are discussed during the meetings.

2. An email will be sent to Shared Governance committee members to thank them for their participation and to also remind them to send us updates from the meetings.

3. Breanne will send out the Shared Governance committee list to everyone.

IV. New Employee Mentor Program

1. Breanne reported that the New Employee Mentor Program will be headed by Laurie Pownall. The program is in the early stages of development; any suggestions for what to include should be forwarded to Laurie.

V. Strategize/Plan Department Recognitions

1. Breanne said that a sub-committee is needed to plan this project and she recommended that area reps be involved since they know their departments the best. Mary, Shevonna and April volunteered to form the sub-committee.

VI. Strategize/Organize Planning Committee for Professional Development Day

1. Breanne spoke with SCC’s Classified Senate President about having an all-district staff retreat. We would advertise that there would be limited services on that day. Debbie Travis has approved the idea and the idea is to have the Managers also agree since the President and Vice Presidents approve.

2. The Wednesday of spring break week is the proposed day. The event would be off-site and the funds would come from all four campuses.

3. Important to get feedback from areas along with any ideas or suggestions. We would need a battle plan of what a skeleton crew would look like on this day.

4. FLC is on board, but they would want to have it on their campus.

5. A sub-committee will need to be formed.

6. Chou will forward her notes to Breanne from the meeting she attended a couple of years ago on the same idea.

7. The SCC Classified President suggested using an Event Planner to alleviate the stress of trying to form a cross-district committee.

VII. Miscellaneous

1. Breanne spoke with Kristie West about featuring Classified staff in the Inside CRC publication that comes out every week. Kristie said that news related to Classified staff should highlight academic achievements. Breanne will revisit with Kristie what qualifies for inclusion in Inside CRC.

VIII. Next meeting

1. The next Classified Senate meeting is scheduled for October 10, 2012 at 1:30 p.m. Alma will check to see if her meeting room is available.