Minutes from
UPSA Executive Board Meeting
MARCH 10, 2005

The Unclassified Professional Staff Executive Board met on March 10, 2005 from 12:00-1:30 in Alcove A of the Kansas Union.

PRESENT: Dan Consolver, Ray Hummert, Jason O'Connor, Jill Hummels, Danny Kaiser, Karen Ledom, Maxine Younes, Jeannette Johnson

1. The minutes from the previous meeting were approved.

2. President's Report:

At the last SenEx meeting, the Board received high praise for our publicity brochures.

Parking Commission Report: There was discussion that KU is unique in the practice of issuing parking permits based on the age plus years of service model. It is anticipated that there will be an increase in parking permit costs and also that there will be greater focus on "park and ride" type services.

Distribution of Years of Service for Unclassified Staff: There are over 900 staff members with 5 or fewer years of service - a significant number. There was discussion about retaining unclassified staff members for longer than 5 years and ideas as to how to do this. Jeannette mentioned that the process of moving KUCR staff over to the KU unclassified system may have affected the numbers. Dan expressed concerns about the time and expense involved in bringing in new staff and providing specialized training only to have them hired away and lose that investment. He will continue to put demographic numbers together and asked for assistance in doing so. Jeannette suggested that we may want to consider hosting a reception for post doc students to help them feel more connected to the University.

Change in Governance Structure: Dan would like to get the voting of the change in Governance structure up on the web and moving soon. There was discussion concerning the best time to do this with spring break approaching. There was also discussion about the format of the website and what information should be included. It was agreed that we should strike the phrase "from each constituency" from our by laws (article 6 section 2). Jeannette and Danny agreed to review a draft of the website.

Discussion of legislative visit -
Paul Carttar recommended that in the future we should have a specific agenda and should be "asking for something" and it was decided that we will come up with an agenda item before our next visit.

Some legislators were under the impression that faculty and classified employees did not support classified KU employees move to the Regents system and out of the state system. UPSA representatives clarified that this was not the case.

3. Treasurer's Report:

We paid for the first brochure ($204.91) and will be approving payment of the second brochure also. Current balance (not including payment for second brochure) $2112.84

4. Classified Senate Report:

The last meeting centered around composition of resolution of grievances. A standing committee of approximately 30, with 5 for each panel (3 classified, 1 unclassified, 1 faculty) was discussed. They are now working on how to submit names and discussed the need for all panelists to have supervisory experience.

submitted by Karen Ledom