Dec. 01, 2005
3:00 - 4:20 pm in 246 Foy Union
Approved as amended 01/12/06
The meeting
was called to order at 3:05 PM by Chairperson Harriette Huggins.
The Assembly
roll was called by the Secretary. Assembly
members who were not in attendance:
Barnese Adair-Walker, Keith Camp, Amy Douglas, Lisa Fleming, Kale Hill
(work commitment), Julie Nolan, and Melvin Smith.
The minutes from the 10/20/05 A&P
Assembly meeting were approved.
Comments from the Chair
A special
guest was recognized: Jenny Swaim, Staff Chair.
Since our
last meeting the leadership of A&P Assembly has represented you at the
following meetings:
October 24, the SGA Senate voted in favor of
the bill to add an A&P Assembly representative to the Student Academic
Grievance Committee. It will be presented to the University Senate, probably in
January.
October 28, at the called meeting of the Board
of Trustees, Dr. John Kuehnle of Korn-Ferry International, presented the report
of 18 findings describing a level of distrust and discord within the
University. He recommended the BoT retain a nationally recognized consultant to
conduct a comprehensive review of the state of the university; the report and
its recommendations should be made public upon submission, and that the BoT
consider the recommendations for implementation as soon as possible.
November 8, at the University Senate President
Richardson outlined issues for upcoming Board meetings. Regarding the Strategic
Planning process, he anticipated hiring a consultant to do external review by
the end of the month. Harriette asked
about A&P and Staff representation and Dr. Richardson indicated all
constituent would continue to be part of the process.
November 18, at the Board of Trustees meeting Dr.
Larry Fisher was hired to lead a team to conduct an institutional analysis and
hope to have a report by mid-January. He noted his report would be candid and
direct, and that it should be made public. University Senate passed a
recommendation to hire an Ombudsperson for AU and Don Large took responsibility
for the process having stopped. John
Heilman agreed that there was strong support, but said that ultimately all
resolutions from the Senate are recommendations to the president. He said there was not support for this
position.
December 1, Drew Burgering and Harriette
Huggins attended a meeting with leadership of the governance groups, Provost,
Exec V-P, University attorney, AA/EEO; Employee Relations, and Lynne Hammond. Lin Enlow presented a program on conflict
management which is outside any grievance policy or procedure. It does not take the place of those policies
or of mediation through Human Resources.
It is a starting point, a resource facilitator, and proactive provider
of education to avoid potential problems.
Dates
to remember:
Dec. 13,
2005 – “Spectrum
of Conflict Management” program, 9 – 11 am, location TBA
Jan. 2006 – A&P special
meeting to prepare for upcoming elections, TBA
Feb. 2006 – A&P Assembly – officer
elections
Action Items
A
motion was on the floor to replace the Grievance Policy in the A&P
Constitution with the proposed Grievance Policy that has been posted on the
A&P web site for the past month. The
floor was opened for discussion:
Cara
Mia Pugh indicated that this revised policy was a good start but that the
policy should not have references to staff.
It should be specific to A&P.
Drew
Burgering offered insight as to why there should be one policy for both groups:
1) majority of grievances filed are staff against A&P. A combined policy affords A&P employee in
that situation some representation. Now,
they have none. 2) Most grievances initiated by A&P are against another
A&P employee and most initiated by Staff are against A&P. No grievances have ever been filed by faculty
against A&P. 3) Staff and A&P
have the same reporting lines so without a common policy there could be legal
complications with a grievance filed. 4) The Assembly’s role is as an advisor
to the President. It is not our role to
make policy.
Marianne
McKenzie expressed concern that there was no specific provision addressing an
A&P grievance against a faculty member.
Pat
Deery stated that regardless of who is being grieved against, any grievance
filed by an A&P employee will be processed by the A&P Grievance Policy.
Harriette
Huggins read the FAQ currently posted on the Web: “Any grievance filed by an A&P
employee will be processed according to the A&P Grievance Procedure.
This includes situations where an A&P employee files a grievance against a
faculty member.
According to the Faculty
Grievance Procedure a faculty member can only file a grievance against
“…administrators or other members of the faculty.” In the unlikely event
such a grievance is filed against an A&P employee, the Faculty Grievance
Procedure would be utilized.”
Marianne
still expressed concern that it doesn’t specifically say that the A&P
policy is applied if the grievance is against a faculty member.
Cindy
Selman noted that currently A&P employees are not represented in any way if
a Staff person initiates a grievance against them. This proposed policy affords us that
protection. The President requested one grievance
policy for both Staff and A&P and that is what this proposed policy
provides. Staff and A&P developed
this policy together.
Marianne
asks who monitors or certifies the number of days allowed for each step in the
proposed policy.
Cindy
replied that the form (which is new in the proposed policy) has the date the
grievance begins on it, HR will date stamp the form when they receive it and
the date will be recorded by the department when it is received there. E-mail and fax will make the notification
processes faster and will provide records that track the dates – all
improvements over the current process where there is no official monitoring.
Jenny
Swain remarked that this proposed policy simplifies the procedure. It will take about ½ as long to complete a
grievance under the proposed policy as it does now. The proposed policy is better.
Todd
Storey asked where in the proposed policy it states that the Grievance Policy
of the person filing the grievance will be used.
Pat
Deery stated that is standard practice, employee law, so does not have to be
implicitly stated in the policy to be so.
Todd
followed up by asking if we can remove references to Staff.
Cara
Mia asked if we can change this policy later if we approve it today.
Harriette
stated that this proposed policy has already been forwarded to the
Administration when the Staff Council approved it. It is likely to be endorsed by the President
as policy regardless of our approval.
Yes, we can change the policy later if we follow the Constitutional
requirements of 30 days advanced notice prior to a ¾ vote for approval by the
entire A&P membership. We can change
it but it is not a quick or simple process to do so.
Jenny
Swaim reminded everyone that this is not an A&P policy or a Staff policy –
it is a University policy.
Robert
Gottesman remarked that if the Administration is going to change the policy
regardless of our approval we need to ask ourselves as a group “who are we” and
“are there any differences between A&P and Staff?” A&P Assembly may no longer serve a
purpose and it may be most practical to dissolve it and have one governance group
for both. He accused the Assembly of
changing the Constitution without notification or proper procedure by removing
the need for Board of Trustee approval to changes.
Cathy Ramey stated that was untrue. As
previously stated, the Board of Trustees elected to make that change when we
last submitted our Constitution for their approval after more than a year of
Constitutional Reform (Tony’s committee).
The Board approved our Constitutional changes and made one of their own
- to empower the President to approve future changes on their behalf. The Assembly did not request nor facilitate this
change.
A
vote on the motion was taken by ballot.
The vote was 26 yes and 11 no. This motion was supported by a simple
majority but because a ¾ majority is required for any Constitutional change,
the motion failed.
Harriette
noted that today’s vote not withstanding, it is likely the Administration will
approve the proposed policy. If so, that
becomes the official A&P Grievance Policy regardless of what is in our
Constitution.
Information
The next A&P Assembly meeting is Feb. 9 for the election of officers. The Nominating Committee is drawing up a slate and Assembly members will be notified of candidates and provided with brief Bios by Jan. 15. Nominations may be made from the floor on Feb. 9 as well. Election shall be by secret ballot of the Assembly members with a majority of the votes cast required for election. If a majority is not received on the first ballot, a runoff election will be held immediately between the two candidates garnering the largest number of votes. The newly elected officers shall take office April 1 of the year elected.
Public Forum
The floor was opened for discussion
on any topic in accordance with procedures previously outlined for the Public
Forum.
Cara Mia urged the Assembly to
examine our nomination process and to revisit the issue of redistricting for
proportional Assembly member representation to be sure it is Constitutional.
Drew Burgering stated that this
Assembly has done a great deal of good for the membership and accusations that
we have not acted in the group’s best interest are untrue and do a disservice
to the organization.
Pat Deery expressed disappointment
at today’s vote. Many people worked tireless on this policy and their hard work
is appreciated. This group’s failure to
approve the proposed Grievance Policy was a serious mistake and their reasoning
was flawed. A&P and staff policies
should differ from Faculty’s and it is logical to have a joint policy with the staff. Faculty members have “property rights” in
their employment which is another reason why they have separate policies. Historically, A&P was formed from staff
and non-tenured faculty, exempt employees who have no property rights in
employment. There has never been any
need to “protect” the Grievance Policy from Human Resources by keeping it in
the Constitution and to do so is inappropriate.
We have had the chance to participate in the formulation of a new
Grievance Policy that is an improvement over the existing one. The vote today does a disservice to our
A&P group and places the administration in a very difficult position.
Tony Ventimiglia asked those who
voted against the proposed policy we are so against aligning ourselves with Staff. He does not want to be part of group with
those kinds of elitist attitudes. It is
counterproductive since one of the goals of this year’s Assembly was to
increase cohesion between all employee groups.
Harriette has done a great job to that end. A&P employees should
participate in that process.
Cara Mia stated that there hasn’t
been enough participation by A&P employees.
The Assembly is doing more now and we need to be monitoring them.
Robert Gottesman remarked that the
University is different now and maybe it is time for a change. The A&P
Assembly should ask ourselves is we are accomplishing enough as an employee
group to justify our existence.
This meeting was adjourned by the
Chair at 4:20 pm.
Respectfully submitted by
Cathy Ramey, Secretary, A&P
Assembly