-: These yo-yo temperatures.
Ooh-ooh, March in Vermont and you go up and down.
And it starts to flirt with sugaring season, right?
All set? -: Sure.
Monika: All right, good afternoon
and welcome to the March 2025 Staff Council monthly meeting.
I'd like to call the meeting to order at,
let's see what time it is here, 12:07.
We scared Jen away from the minutes.
-: Must have. -: Must have.
All right, I know today is a challenging day.
So we have limited attendance for a variety of reasons;
spring break, town meeting, lots of stuff going on
on campus with different organizations
and working groups and things like that.
So I'd like to put out a motion
to have the minutes from our February meeting approved.
-: I make a motion.
-: Sue, thank you and a second, please.
Jon: I'll second.
-: Okay, perfect. Any discussion?
All those in favor of approving the minutes,
please raise your hand.
Any in opposition and any abstentions.
The minutes have been approved for February Meeting.
Thank you.
I'd like to open this up to opportunity
for noncouncil members to bring forward
any questions, concerns or thoughts.
Anyone have anything they'd like to bring forward?
A lot going on out there in the world. (laughs)
All right.
Okay, hearing no such comments or remarks,
we're gonna move on to have Erika Lala help discuss
and review the Climate Survey.
Thanks for being with us today.
Erika: Thanks for having me.
So I'm asking Carly to put something in the chat
for those that aren't able to be here in person.
And I'm passing around a flyer
regarding the Campus Climate Survey.
So for those of you who don't know me,
my name is Erika Lala.
I use she/her pronouns.
I joined UVM for the first time in August of 2022.
I was the Assistant Dean for Strategic Equity Initiatives
in the College of Arts and Sciences.
I currently serve, and have since August of 2024,
the Senior Director for Intergroup Dialogue
and Inclusive Excellence in the Office of the Vice Provost
for Inclusive Excellence.
And our office paired with Rich's office,
the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment
are tasked every three years with delivering,
collecting and assessing Campus Climate Surveys.
So the Campus Climate Survey in 2022
had a 54% response rate among employees
and a 32% response rate among students.
And that's inclusive of graduate, undergraduate students
as well as PACE students.
So this year's response rates
currently in the Campus Climate Survey,
it's been open for three weeks,
are 15% for employees and 5% for students.
I'll let Rich be the expert in statistical significance
and all of that kind of stuff,
but I can say from the contrast
between the 2022 response rates
and the 2025 response rates,
that 2025 so far is going much lower.
I think that's as much as I will say in terms of analysis.
But the goal for me being here
is that we still have 2 1/2, three weeks
to complete the Campus Climate Survey.
So it's not a done deal.
This is sort of our pitch across university groups
to increase response rates to the Campus Climate Survey.
The Campus Climate Survey,
especially in the current national political climate,
is a vital tool for us to be able to leverage data
and research regarding people's experiences of belonging
or lack thereof on this campus.
So in this environment that we consider
this a very privileged opportunity to explore
these conversations, it's all the more critical
that we get a statistically significant
and, hopefully, comparable response rate
to 2022's Campus Climate Survey.
So everyone in this room and on this chat,
including the graduate assistants that I see there,
are eligible to respond to the Campus Climate Survey.
It's open to everybody, that's students, staff and faculty.
Each have their own pools of incentives
and so the more we get the better
in terms of response rates.
And I'm really just here to advocate for folks
to respond to the survey
and to tell a friend to respond to the survey.
It takes about 10 to 15 minutes
and it's done online via a website
that is linked to the flyers.
-: So I did take the survey,
it took about 15 minutes,
but one thing that I found out
is it asked for your birth date and your salary.
But nowhere did it ask length of service.
Like how long have you been working for UVM.
And maybe it's scaring people away.
Although, we felt like you could skip over
your birth date if you wanted to
and you didn't have to answer your salary
if you didn't want to.
But yeah, I found it interesting
that it didn't even ask how long you've been working.
Erika: No, that's really good feedback.
Thinking about the anonymity of the survey,
that's really important.
Yes so, Rich, correct me if I'm wrong,
a lot of the fields are optional and all will be anonymous.
-: All the fields are anonymous.
I mean, sorry, all the fields are optional.
There is nothing mandatory so you can skip over
anything you do not want to answer.
Exactly why the question of how long you have worked at UVM
is not asked is not something I'm aware of.
We did the best we could to not change
as much of the survey as possible
because there was a lot of turmoil
in the development of the survey originally.
So the idea was to keep as little of it,
change as little of it as possible
since the last iteration three years ago.
So honestly, we did not really think about
adding a question of that sort,
because the powers that be before Erika and I
got involved in the survey
decided three plus years ago not to ask that question.
And unless we go back through documentation,
I don't know why that decision was made.
But that's certainly very valuable feedback
and we will bring that to the powers that be now
and say, hey, in the next iteration
this is something we want to add in.
In terms of anonymity,
yes, the survey is 100% anonymous.
We have absolutely no way of knowing
who has responded or who is responding.
No identifying information is collected whatsoever.
-: Except I'm curious as to why ask somebody's birth date.
I mean that would help identify you. (laughs)
-: You know, we try to keep units as broad as possible
to minimize the chance of being able to say,
well, if someone says your birthdate is this
and they're in this unit, then it must be this person.
So we try to keep things as broad as possible
to minimize chances of that.
But you're not wrong that if someone answers
a specific birthdate in a specific unit...
Now, was the birthdate
just a specific date or was it just a year?
I assume it was just the year-
-: Seems to be the date.
I'm thinking the year might've been a better question.
What's your birth year? But I can't remember exactly.
I might be wrong.
Erika: I thought it was year, but-
Monika: It might be the year.
I might be remembering that wrong.
-: But even then, like if you're talking about
the Provost Office and you say the year you were born
and there's only one person in the Provost Office
who's born in that year, yes,
in that case, you could be identified.
Now, we're not going to present the data in any way
that would make people identifiable.
We're not gonna say, well in this campus setting,
this person who was born in this year answered this,
hint, hint, nudge, nudge,
-: I just didn't know (speaks faintly)
how old you are bears on it.
-: Yeah, so but that is a very valid point
and that's something we can look
to potentially change three years from now.
Erika: Yes, I will say that OIRA is the steel trap
for that information and keeping things anonymous.
And all the more reason that a higher response rate
is critical because the more incidences
that OIRA in doing things little c, conservatively,
withholds information because it would expose someone
or compromise even the possibility of anonymity
the less that we actually get to use and the more incidents,
I mean the fewer responses
the more incidents of that happening there are,
because there would be fewer respondents in the pool.
-: I have a question and a follow up.
-: Yeah. -: When you look back
at the last survey at this point in time,
were the response rates higher, lower-
Erika: Much higher.
-: At this point in time?
-: Yeah. -: Okay.
So the follow up to that is,
I'm wondering one of two things.
If we can improve response rate
by highlighting the top three areas
that benefit from this information
so people can identify with this impact.
'Cause just saying it impacts a lot of areas
and decisions the University makes.
Or if the response rate is low,
these are the three areas that could see lack of funding,
lack of resources or be compromised by that.
-: Well, I would echo, Erika, you know echo
or change whatever we're about to note.
But we had just gotten out of a meeting
with Dr. Amer Ahmed and he has noted on numerous fronts
that completing this survey in this climate
is the biggest thing that you can do
to preserve higher education, as with think,
at this time in this climate.
And so there are of course,
and, Erika, maybe you can speak in more specificity
about the groups specifically that'll be affected.
But as it relates to talking about climate on campus
and preserving the work that Erika and I do,
but as well as it's integrated
through the majority of our institution.
Being able to complete something like this
and with the 15 minutes it does take you,
it's the affirmation of the work that we do
as justifiable as to learning, as justifiable
and the protection of said concepts.
So I'll just add that.
Sweepingly, of course, it's difficult to justify
and at this time in this moment if there's anything
anybody could do is contribute to the survey.
-: Well, one of my greatest concerns, though too,
is that I think given the current climate,
people are more reluctant to share information about self.
-: I hear that and that's a climate piece,
a culture piece of the University of Vermont
I would articulate as a specific piece, right.
But that also speaks to the understanding
of how this kind of data's utilized
and maybe that's a different question
of where does this data go and how do we use it?
That's a different kind of question, right.
Sorry, Erika.
-: So do you have specific suggestions
on how we can energize the community,
the campus to complete the survey?
Are we gonna start giving prizes? (laughs)
Erika: We already do.
So the prizes are via a separate raffle.
So keeping to the anonymity standards,
at the end of each survey you're given a prompt
that says thank you for completing the survey
and sort of that separation of the survey with other links.
And one of those links is to enter a raffle,
because obviously with the raffle we need to know your name.
But in order to do that, it needs to be a separate entity
so that it is a separate ticket from the actual survey.
So the prizes are, actually funny enough,
the same as they were three years ago.
So I thought that that was like, oh yeah, we got it
we did it and now we don't have it.
But we will get it.
So yes, we do have the personal incentives,
but as for the communal incentives,
going back to what Carly said in supporting those
that are already responding with,
let's say, their concerns, their experiences,
their dissatisfaction with the areas
that the Campus Climate Survey address.
So issues of belonging, discrimination, bias
and things like that,
that the value of everyone responding
is that we can use and uplift that data.
We can talk about it in percentages,
discrepancies and all of that kind of stuff.
So even if you haven't personally experienced it,
your response to the survey gives the survey greater spread
and statistical significance in actually speaking to it.
So a compelling reason is that
like even if your voice is different
from the voice that you want to uplift,
like if you don't necessarily have those experiences
that you want to uplift yourself, just adding to the numbers
and adding to the strength of the survey
is one of the best things you can do.
Does that help?
-: Yep, definitely. Thank you.
-: So to add to that,
I don't know if Liv is in a position
that she can add into this.
But she and I have had multiple email conversations,
hey Liv, about potentially having units
offer things like coffee.
Like if you hit a specific response rate
you get free coffee.
So Liv, I don't know if you wanna talk about
what HR's doing in terms of that
and then there was one or two other things
I wanna add in after that.
-: Sure. Yeah, can everyone hear me?
-: Yes. -: Yes.
Liv: Okay, great. Thanks.
I have different headphones today
so I didn't know if the mic was picking me up or not.
Yeah, so I've been emailing with HR reps across campus
and I share with them the response rates
and I encourage them as an HR rep
to speak with their leadership
and if their unit reaches a certain percentage
of a response rate based on the numbers
that Richard's team is pulling,
that they could give them a free coffee coupon
to Hendrick's or a free ice cream coupon to the Dairy Bar.
Specifically in HR and central HR,
if we reach a certain response rate
then we're gonna order pizza for the office for one day.
And all of that is, there are no tax implications
with any of those offerings because they're infrequent
and there's no monetary value
associated with any of the items.
If anyone has any questions about that,
you're more than welcome to reach out to me directly,
but I've been sharing that info with the HR reps.
But if you wanna bring that back to your teams
or your senior leaders, I encourage you to do so.
-: I know J. Dickinson in her unit is,
potentially, gonna be doing a pizza party for people
if they hit a specific response rate.
Bill Falls in CAS has been sending out
regular emails saying our response rate is this,
we're trailing behind these other colleges by this much.
We can't lose to them.
We wanna beat them, so let's all respond so that way
we're the highest response rate for all colleges.
So kind of just making a competitive thing
to see who can generate the highest response rate.
If specific units want to do things like I think,
Lucy, you said your office has taken a window or two lunch.
So if you have people respond to the incentive drawing
and units wanna reach out to me
and say, well can you give me a list of everyone
from my unit that filled out the incentive
and we're gonna pick a certain,
you know a winner from that list to give a mug
or a lunch or whatever, to just reach on out.
I'm happy to provide you the list of everyone
from your unit who responded to the incentive survey.
If people have already responded to the survey
and did not enter the incentive drawing
but they wanna enter the unit drawing for like a lunch
or something, you could also just have them reach out to me
and I'll be more than happy to add their name to that list.
So be creative, be fun, be exciting.
Whatever people can do to really increase the response rate
that would be fantastic.
-: I'm not believing this.
Is there any sense, any use in asking why?
Why people aren't filling it out?
I mean that might not help for this year,
but it's something like unwillingness or lack of time,
you know something just to-
-: Totally. -: Get a better handle
on the barriers.
Erika: Totally. Yeah, for our office it was time.
Just like, even though it's 10 to 15 minutes,
just dedicating that 10 to 15 minutes.
Which is why for our division,
we're adding it to our divisional meeting
where we can't require you to respond to the survey
but we can dedicate the time and say use your laptop,
whether you're doing the survey, we don't know,
but this is the time to do it, right.
Like that kind of thing.
So yes, there is value.
Whether you hesitate to read the survey or not survey.
-: But yeah, I think that's a really valid point,
giving people permission.
Like it's one thing to ask and say please do this,
but the dedicated time seems really important to me.
And maybe messaging,
if you haven't already done so supervisors,
like we're really working hard to bump these numbers up,
have Climate Survey time for those
that haven't done it from 1:00 to 1:15 today
or on Tuesdays for the next two weeks or something that...
Because people are like, "Oh, I wanna do this.
I've got this big stack over here."
Erika: Some of those (indistinct) tasks.
-: Yeah, giving them permission
and saying, "You know what?
I want you to do this right now
if you haven't done it already."
Erika: Yeah.
-: Do you have any sense about your department
and how that's going with the campus?
-: I've- -: I know
you have a large group.
-: I've asked everyone to fill it out and sent them the link.
-: And I did the same too.
-: Okay. -: Did you ask the questions
that you had at the Executive Board Meeting?
-: About the birthdate?
-: Yeah. Okay.
-: I did.
-: Wanted to make sure those got answered.
-: Believe you remembered. -: And they said
it's optional.
All the questions, the answers are optional.
-: Yeah, okay.
-: So, maybe just to bring you up to speed,
we're at really, really low numbers.
Like 15% compared to final response rate
three years ago was over 50.
So how do we go from 15 to over 50
in 2 1/2, three weeks is really,
I think, the big question here.
'Cause once you fall below 50
you lose a lot of legitimacy in the survey
and the findings and just the overall perspective, right.
-: Overall, like even if it's not statistical,
I think the statistical minimum
is probably closer to 30, but-
-: Probably. -: Yeah, think about that.
But just hearing it culturally,
over half of the people responded last time,
that's a lot of humans.
-: Um-hm and I think what Richard mentioned
about the competitive spirit,
if there's any way to energize that,
that can get a lot of traction really quickly, right.
'Cause people like to play
or they like to be, you know, like-
Erika: Oh, totally.
I mean it doesn't surprise me
that you mentioned J. Dickinson with the thing
and Bill Falls, those are both CAS people.
They're a very competitive bunch.
Like, and it did work.
Jay has the highest response rate of all.
That division has the highest response rate of all campus.
Carly: I'm seeing a comment in the chat
that says I heard from some it's too long and too involved.
And I'm wondering if you can speak to
the nature of some of the prompts
as like what is the justification
for some of those prompts?
Erika: Yeah, yeah.
I mean a lot of them are connected to one another.
So it's not one question,
it's a series of questions related to belonging.
And then, of course, those questions are both related
to how you experience it and how you offer it
and how you extend it to others.
With the questions about our Common Ground,
it's not just how you abide by them,
it's how you experience them from other people.
So in making those statements, like in the 2022 survey,
there was a higher proportion of people
who said that they abide by our Common Ground
and they enact it and they live it out,
but they don't experience it from other people
and the numbers didn't match.
So that there's like a difference
between sort of self-assessment
versus experience of other people
and that talks to each other.
That data talks to each other.
So although yes, Rich and I,
the Campus Climate Survey predates both of us,
so we're not sort of the decision makers,
the justification for keeping it that way
is that we can continue having those data pieces
talk to each other instead of just saying
something to the effect of like 25% of people
strongly disagree that they belong on this campus.
So what does that actually say?
Why is that? Like all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, I totally hear you.
It is a very long survey in terms of number of questions.
That's an undeniable fact.
-: The other piece I would add
is data like this is utilized for grants.
If you were trying to get a grant
to justify campus culture in some way
or create funding opportunities
to justify a better climate for students,
for staff or faculty,
these are the kinds of datasets that are referenced
and then those metrics are used later
to justify the renewal of that grant.
And so I think as it relates,
and I know that might seem more faculty facing,
but there's actually quite a bit of staff
that are involved in those kinds of grants.
So I'd give that as a specific example
of how this directly affects just taking the 15 minutes.
-: Well, I know we're bumping up against our time so-
-: I have one quick question.
-: Go ahead, yeah.
-: I'm on the site looking,
is there a QR code to that survey?
Erika: Yeah, it's on the flyer in the Teams,
but it's also on
all of our print also. -: Okay.
-: 'Cause I can do a slide for our college meeting.
Erika: Oh, yes, and I can give you the PDF or this-
-: That would great.
Erika: As well.
-: Yes, oh that would be so great. Thank you.
Here I'll-
-: If anyone needs any marketing materials,
they could also just email me
and I'm happy to forward you all-
-: Okay, we'll do that. Will do.
-: Is this up in the chat?
-: Yep. -: Yes.
-: Okay. -: And it's a jpeg in the chat
so that you can paste it wherever it needs to be in an email
or a PowerPoint slide or whatever.
Carly: Let me know if the permissions
are still being funky.
-: So I guess I would just ask
all of our Staff Council members
to maybe get this out forward facing
in front of your constituents, whether that's email
or if you have a board in your lunchroom
or a lunch area, post this up.
And I think word of mouth is always really nice.
Like reference this, say, "Hey, have you done this?
If not take care, now more than ever
this is super important for so many reasons."
And be very intentional about
encouraging your constituents to complete the survey
and let's get those numbers up.
Erika: Thank you.
-: Thank you. -: Thank you
so much for coming.
Carly: I also added the meet and greet flyer
into the chat.
Erika: Thank you.
-: And that one is for staff of color
and welcome allies to the Vermont Professionals of Color.
Erika: Okay.
Carly: How's that?
Erika: Thank you.
-: Thank you.
(both speaking faintly)
All right, that takes us to the Standing Committee updates.
So I'd like to welcome our Chairs
and Co-Chairs to provide updates at this time please.
-: Chelsea's ready. -: Chelsea's ready?
All right, Chelsea.
-: Hello, everyone.
Community engagement, I'm looking at the Staff Art Exhibit,
pun intended, which will be open until March 17th.
So if you haven't visited
the fourth floor of the Davis Center,
I believe it's the Fireplace Lounge, check it out.
We have staff art up there
and from what I heard I was not able to go
but I heard that the opening, the reception,
was a success and very nice.
Moving over to some of our upcoming activities.
Tomorrow will be our first Wednesday Walk.
So we've shifted from Tuesdays to Wednesdays.
Hopefully, that works for folks as well
and we would love to see you.
We depart 12:15 from the Howe Library steps.
So get some fresh air.
I'll have an umbrella if it's raining.
Rain or shine. -: Rain or shine.
Chelsea: Getting away from the desks.
And if there's anyone from the group
who knows if we're doing,
if we have future Book Club dates.
I don't think we have a future Book Club date.
But there are developments for future Book Club activities.
Jennifer: We do. Do you want me to jump in?
-: Yes, please take it away.
Jennifer: Okay, so there are now two book clubs.
The regular book club is meeting April 9th, I believe,
reading "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" by James McBride.
And then there's also the Fantasy Book Club meeting in May.
But if Sam's here she can correct me or confirm that.
And they're reading "The Priory of The Orange Tree"
by Samantha Shannon, I think.
So, yeah, those are upcoming.
We've had good response so far
from the main book club anyway, so.
-: Thank you.
-: I can go for the Social Committee.
Very short and sweet.
We have Skate Night coming up Friday, March 28th,
5:00 to 7:00 PM so be sure to join us.
And then we're just waiting on some more information
before proceeding with some other events
like a Monsters game the summer.
Looking into possible miniature golf and other events.
So we're kind of in standby mode on that
till we get more information.
-: So one of the things that came up in a recent meeting
was just kind of what can we do to uplift people's spirits?
Wednesday Walks are important.
Jen, I mean this would be an impressive feat to accomplish
but we thought it would be super fun
and maybe we have to wait a year
but to host a Sugar on Snow event.
Karen on the Social Committee has a maple sugaring business
and we might be able to get like snow from Food Services
like in little- -: I think they've done that
outside the bookstore,
'cause I remember coming up to the bookstore one year
and it was for students, but staff was welcome to do it.
But they did have a spring maple sugaring
where you just walked up and you got your-
-: You got a little sugar on snow?
-: You got a little sugar on snow
with a little piece of donut or pickle or whatever.
But they offered that already.
-: Wow, do they do it every year?
-: Well, they had it last year.
I don't know who, was it Dining Services maybe?
I don't know who organized it,
but I'm thinking it's already offered.
It's a matter of getting the word out about it
but it didn't seem to be restricted to students,
I don't think.
-: There's a note in chat that says UVM Program Board
hosts a Sugar on Snow event every year.
-: Really?
-: What is this Sugar on Snow?
(others laughing)
-: Typical advice why we did it.
-: They get some snow and they pour hot maple syrup over it,
it gets all taffy-
-: And so it turns into-
-: Set off the sweet with a sour pickle
and maybe a plain donut on the side.
-: Okay. -: It's a very Vermont
thing to do.
-: Yeah, very Vermont.
-: It will sell out, sell out totally.
This is a picture of it.
-: Okay. -: So they just really
just pour maple syrup on snow and it just makes,
cheese would be good maybe with it.
-: You can make some yourself in the backyard
just to collect some fresh snow and then we pour-
-: A little acid rain with your maple syrup.
-: I got it,
sort of like taffy- -: Yeah, like taffy.
(others chattering faintly)
-: All right, thank you.
-: In March, there's an open house-
-: You telling me there's no acid rain?
-: It's around most weekends, I think so.
(all chattering faintly)
-: Well, thank you.
-: I think what we're trying to lean into
with some of the meetings
that we've been at with senior leadership
and some of the governance meetings
is finding ways to experience joy on campus
and community with others.
We're not gonna be able to change
what's happening with the administration
and the chaos that's being created.
And there are people that are also
completely aligned with those actions, right.
So we have to remember
that there's a broad representation of ideas,
thoughts and feelings, emotions.
And so there were a lot of conversations
about what do we lean into
and leaning into fun activities, playfulness.
You know, food always brings community together
and so maybe the real challenge
is let's identify what already exists.
So guess what?
Sugar on Snow already exists and just kind of helping
to hype that up and encourage people.
'Cause I feel like it's very easy for people
to kind of drift down and back and into the corner
and that is not a great position for wellness.
And then even on the different committees,
thinking about activities that you can help to support that.
Maybe new activities and especially, things we can do
on campus during the lunch hour
or that it's easy for people to step away
and join in on something like that.
-: So that's why we were also exploring
getting a portable mini golf to come on campus.
Maybe coinciding with the staff appreciation.
And I did locate one with the help of Amanda
that they're using for students in April.
So we'd like to check that out first,
see how it goes for them.
It's like a simple nine, it's very simple.
-: It's really inexpensive too.
-: Oh! -: And plus it would be a way
to interact at like-
Samuel: I'm organizing that April event.
-: Oh yeah. -: So contact with the vendor
but if they do have-
-: Well, I know what the contact is.
I actually know-
-: Okay. -: The person who does it.
He's a young male, graduate of South Burlington High School
who started this in 2020 and I have the information.
Nine holes versus 18 holes.
He comes and he sets it up and it's a two hour minimum.
And I don't think any of these places need a lot of notice,
but we're not sure when staff appreciation
is exactly taking place this year.
And Essex Mini Golf has said
they can do something like a pass
and probably work out one fee for children
and adults where it could be available
from July to September that people could go.
-: Oh, that's great.
-: So we could offer that.
We could purchase say 30 passes to begin with
and if we wanna purchase more we can purchase more,
but they won't know more until April
when their office opens and then we can get more details.
He only needs like a week's notice to do that.
So that's another thing that people can coordinate
and do at a discount that we could offer.
And then like I said, the Lake Monsters' game
and then there'll be the SMOPs vacation
and different offerings coming up and funfair tickets,
different offerings coming up this summer.
So yes, oh, here's the information on the,
nine-hole rental, $125 per hour, two hour minimum.
18-hole rental, $200 per hour, two hour minimum.
-: And you're thinking multiple courses or one course or?
-: Take a look at those.
These are just very simple little setups.
I mean it's-
-: No, but it's fun, right?
-: Yeah, it's just a good way to interact
and something fun to do.
It's very simplified, but...
-: Yeah, no, this was exactly...
-: And there's something set up at the University Mall too
where I think South Burlington and the Rec Department
is offering that this month be going.
(others laughing)
(members chattering faintly)
-: If it's something that people could reasonably eat lunch
and then play golf and back-
-: I'll look at it from here.
-: So cool.
-: What if we had a mini golf summer?
We had like a weekly mini golf
and we could do like a round robin
with different departments.
(others laughing)
-: Yeah, something that's recurring,
things like that too.
Okay, thank you.
Who do we have left? CBB and PPD?
Nichole: I can go for PPD.
-: All right, thank you.
Nichole: I'm gonna leave my camera off
because I've been having some issues
with sound when I talk with it on. (chuckles)
So during our last meeting,
oh well, we welcomed our new members, Carly and Doug.
And we have our CatChat promotion
or our CatChat coming up March 13th.
And we're very excited.
We have three speakers
and so that will be in the Davis Center in Joe's.
So everybody plan to come.
It's from 12:15 to 1:00.
HR update from Jack,
the last Lunch and Learn that they had
they had 30 people signed up,
I thought he said about eight to 10 people showed up.
I don't know if I heard him right,
but somebody said they were there
and there was more people than that.
But he said that there were a lot of people
that attended online.
They're gonna have another one next month.
And there's the HERS training coming up,
which we're now promoting in the Staffline.
We started talking about the physical work environment
and office ergonomics assessment.
And so we formed a subcommittee
on that to talk more about that
and talked about having people fill out a form.
Is Amanda here?
I don't know if Amanda's here.
Does she wanna
brief everybody on that? -: I am.
Again what Nichole had referenced,
we discussed, (clears throat) excuse me,
that ergonomic assessment and the other things
that are available through Risk Management.
And Alan actually shared some of those resources
out through the Staffline today.
And we had kind of gone back and forth
on how heavily we really wanted to promote
these ergonomic assessments.
Because a lot of times it comes with it
a financial investment and which isn't an obligation,
but it's a suggestion.
So we discussed that and how
and sort of the implications of that.
But also just looking at a lot of other opportunities
and our next steps are to bring back to the committee
questions that we will pose to you,
the Staff Council at large to try to,
again, kind of solicit some feedback
and some input from your constituents
about their work environments
based on sort of different criteria.
So more to come is the big message.
Nichole: Thanks, Amanda.
-: Thank you.
Nichole: And then the only other thing
that we talked about was the performance review process.
We're planning to give feedback back to HR
and so we were looking to collect information
from all nonrepresented members
so that we can share feedback to HR
on the performance review process.
So I know in our group we were looking to get feedback,
but also to the greater Staff Council
we wanted to get feedback as well.
That was it for PPD.
-: And one other thing to add for Social Committee
is we normally would do a door decorating contest
coming up for spring,
but we wanted to do something different
than a spring theme this year.
We had thought about maybe a golf theme
but then it was thrown out.
Maybe graduation theme
or welcome to new president theme.
So that's another thing we're waiting on
in terms of something different in terms of our theme.
Last year, we only had like nine people participate.
They got a basket of leftover-
(laughing drowns out speaker).
Which is fun.
-: They've always got a lot of success
at the hospital with those.
So I wonder what they do differently.
-: Again, I think it's an issue of time.
Everybody is so strapped
and departments don't have that help that they need.
You can barely get through your work by the end of the day.
So to add other stuff it's very hard.
-: I was just gonna add, if there is,
you know I love the golf thing.
I always just am cognizant of accessibility.
-: That's why we're trying to do mini golf
and offer it at a discount.
-: Oh yeah, I just mean like in terms of like walkability
and like wheelchair users, those kinds of things.
So yeah.
You know, it's a small portion of campus
but just making sure.
-: Sure, and I think this little mini golf setup
would probably be accessible for wheelchair people
I would think or have them, I should mention if we do it,
to have them spread it out enough
that leaves room for wheelchairs to go in.
Certainly, that's a great idea.
Carly: Yeah.
Jon: All right, last but not least,
is Compensation, Benefits and Budget.
-: Yep. -: Can everybody
hear me all right?
-: Yes. -: Yes.
Jon: Awesome. Great, thanks.
We've been working through our priority list
and recently had our retiree constituents
speak up about some concerns that they had
and we've been going through that process
with the two members on our committee
who are part of that retiree constituency.
Rich can also speak to some of the things,
I believe he can speak to it I should say,
with regards to UBAC.
But we've got a little bit of a feedback loop there
with the administration on that.
Otherwise, it's just business as usual.
Rich, is there anything you wanna chime in
with UBAC at all?
Sorry to put you on the spot.
-: No, just as I was about to start eating my lunch,
so perfect timing.
(others laughing)
I don't have huge amounts of updates from UBAC.
The main discussion point is what's gonna be happening
with retiree healthcare going into next year,
'cause as I'm sure the majority of people know,
our contract was canceled early last year
so they needed to come up with a short-term solution
and there are significant issues moving forward
with BlueCross BlueShield for retiree healthcare.
So that's probably not a long-term solution.
So there are discussions going on
in terms of putting out the new call for proposals
or whatever the official term is
to try to figure out what retiree healthcare's
gonna look like starting next year.
So it's a long process.
If anyone has specific questions,
I'm happy to go back through minutes from the discussions
over the last couple of months
and happy to fill you in on any questions you have.
-: Awesome. -: Rich, can you just speak to
exactly what UBAC is, what that stands for
and what that group does for new people here
and probably for a lot of people here
that don't know what it is.
-: Sure, UBAC is the University Benefits Advisory Committee.
So this is the group that gets together
that discuss all benefits related issues to come up with
recommendations to present to senior leadership.
So it is an advisory council,
but I have found the discussions
to be really fruitful and beneficial.
Caitlyn Sisler sits on the committee from HR
and she's been extraordinarily open
and forthcoming with tons of information.
So it really goes to show you that having people
serving from all the different campus constituencies
coming together to discuss really important issues,
really does work.
It's been a fantastic experience.
I really feel that the administration
has taken the advice from the committee seriously.
So it's not just one of those fake advisory councils
where people say, "Oh well,
we claim we got people's feedback."
They're actually interested in people's feedback
and presenting that to the administration
and having them follow it.
So it's been a great experience.
One of the pain points has been
retired staff having representation on UBAC.
That's something that has come up
in CCB a lot over this academic year.
Retired faculty have several members
who sit on the committee,
but there is no official representative from retired staff.
So I know that is something that retired staff are pursuing.
I think the reason for that has been
that there's been no official
retired staff organizational body
where they can vote to have someone represent them
and then have that representative come back
and present information to them.
So I think there are some
initiatives underway to rectify that.
I don't know what the current status of that is.
But if there's additional questions, please let me know.
Obviously, last year healthcare significant increase,
multiple successive years of significant increases.
So they came up with the four options
as opposed to just having a singular option.
Those four options were only available
to nonrepresentative staff for this year.
So they're looking to potentially
come to agreement with unions on campus in order
to have those four options available to everyone
and not just nonrepresentative staff.
-: Thank you.
It's a very tricky road to navigate
and I don't see that getting any easier
in the short term for sure.
So I'm very grateful to hear that the feedback is welcomed
and taken into consideration.
That's great news.
-: Yeah, I've served on many committees
prior to my time to coming UVM, some of them fruitful,
some of them just kind of fake committees.
So coming from experience, I feel like this committee
is actually a very good use of my time,
good use of time in general
and actually makes a difference.
-: Wow, that's great.
I'll use that as my lead off for the Officer's Report.
And that theme continues as the University
seeks to address some of the changes
that are happening or may happen.
So we talked a little bit in the Executive Committee
that there's a lot of noise
coming out of the current administration,
but that doesn't necessarily mean
that those actions are taking place.
So some of this has to be processed
through the legal system to actually become official.
So it's really important that staff, students
and faculty understand that, yes, you may be hearing this,
but the reality of that actually happening
may or may not happen.
And the second piece of that is that the community of UVM
is working with many other academic institutions
to ensure that the collaboration of those voices is used.
And I think to-date we're a part of six lawsuits
and that's expected to increase.
And just as a point of contrast,
years ago during President Trump's first administration,
the University was involved in, what was it?
Over, do you remember that number? Was it over?
Oh, I just had it on the tip of my tongue.
I think it was in the 50s.
So it's relatively early stages.
But what I really wanna draw into
is that with all of this activity,
senior leadership are forming
different working groups across campus
and they have already reached out to me for nominees,
I guess you can call it.
Who would we like to nominate for staff?
We've been invited to nominate staff members,
Staff Council members to be a part of these groups
and I think we'll see more of that.
And that's really, really validating to have them come to us
and say, we want your voice.
We want you to be a part of this.
And I think that is gonna ensure that ideas
and thoughts and concerns from across campus
are gonna be brought forward.
So hopefully, mirroring the success
that Richard experiences.
So that really covers
the bulk of our conversation with Jonathan.
This also might seem like kind of a quiet time
in the presidential search process.
So just a reminder that,
that process is broken up into different sections.
The final section resides with the Board of Trustees
and they take finalists
and interview them and drill down that list.
And, hold on just a second.
(Alan speaking faintly)
Okay, so email from Jonathan as we're speaking about him,
his ears must be ringing.
Please pass along that we can expect an update
on the presidential search within the week.
I think the Board of Trustees might be meeting today.
Carly: They are.
-: And that he also is supporting
and encouraging everyone to complete the campus survey.
Okay. So he stands behind all of us with that.
So the timeline I think is moving forward as planned
and we will wait to see what the Board
has to share with us.
On that front, just a reminder that the current process
is for a single finalist to come on campus.
That doesn't mean that the finalists
aren't all interviewed very carefully and diligently.
That's more of a culture issue
where it's protecting the applicant who,
you know if we would bring multiple people
they might be at risk for their job
since they're applying for the president's position.
So it's a difficult landscape to navigate
but that's the current process
and we see that across the country
and other presidential searches.
The Board will interview all finalists
and then bring a single finalist to campus
and more to come on that according to Jonathan.
Let's see, I think a lot of those conversations
were mirrored with HR.
Again, I think Carly brought up the fact
that we do have a lot of staff on research grants
and so there could be a lot of tension
and anxiety about my job and those research dollars.
So I think what we need to focus on
is we have earned R1 status that is very prestigious.
We wanna encourage everyone
to keep doing the work to maintain R1 status.
A little nugget that I thought
was really helpful for me to understand.
So two things about R1.
It is something that people across the country
can identify with.
So if you're looking to build your populations
from California and Arizona and Florida,
having that R1 status gives them something to say,
okay, I'm research-oriented, UVM checks that box for me.
And of course,
out-of-staters are gonna pay those higher tuition rates.
But perhaps the most surprising piece of information for me
was that a R1 status, for us,
the challenge was not in the number of research projects
but in the number of graduate students
that we have on campus.
So we are looking to build that population,
that's very intentional.
And just yesterday, Jen,
Nick brought around a potential student
that's considering the grad program here.
So if you have anybody that you know
that's interested in graduate education
and it kind of aligns with what UVM is doing.
One of the graduate students in my officer department,
I guess you could say he's really in Jen's department,
He was recently at a conference
and what he said is that his experience
at UVM is very well-rounded.
And when he was talking to other people at the conference,
there were students that were working on a project
but it was I work on part A, I work on part B
and he could talk about all the parts
and he felt really empowered by that experience.
So building the graduate student population
is the part of R1 that is important, most important to UVM.
-: So you said graduate students on campus.
did you mean that literally?
Are they looking to build in-person graduate programs
or online or both?
Do you know?
-: Yeah- -: Although, literally, then.
Carly: Yeah, so you know we have PACE, right?
-: Uh-huh. -: And PACE
is a lot of the online Continuing Ed.
-: Yeah. -: And that's a different
kind of framing like grad school R1-
-: Right, (indistinct) work.
-: So my understanding is that they're intending
to bring graduate students to campus
and by consequence, there'll be more staff positions
to support those grads.
So it would be a bolstering of the university community,
the hiring and retention practices.
But it also makes us
a really wonderful location to be doing research.
To be having, hopefully, new grants
and new opportunities for grad work
and then that'll attract a really amazing faculty.
It is the consequences of the ripples.
So it's my understanding it's both.
-: Okay. -: But certainly,
increasing graduate students will bring more dollars
and more jobs to campus.
-: Okay, thank you.
-: I can offer 2 cents here too from Enrollment Management.
One of the big shifts to make this happen
to bring more students on campus, graduate students,
is that Jay Jacobs no longer is overseeing
just undergraduate admissions.
But now it's been combined,
it's undergraduate and graduate admissions.
So now our teams are all working together to focus on that
and try and have consistency
and marketing for all populations.
And there are just so many different graduate programs
that they're trying to create
better streams of communication and marketing tools
to let students know about all these different programs.
And it's so complex 'cause each program
has its different requirements and admissions and whatnot.
So they're trying to streamline and work all of that,
all in an effort to get more graduate students to campus.
-: Thank you.
I met with STRATCOM last week.
The other part I would say
about some of these working groups and governance groups
is a real concern around communication,
sounds like a recurring theme because it is,
for several reasons.
One, we're challenged with so many
different mechanisms of communication
that people feel really overburdened,
like email, texting, voicemail.
And so it becomes harder and harder
to get that singular messaging.
One of the things that was pretty profound was talking about
different groups on campus and accessibility.
So we have entire populations on campus
that don't use a laptop for their jobs.
So you're talking about facilities
or maintenance, custodial.
And so a lot of the concern is if we're putting
a lot of messaging out there that's via email
or even on the webpage that this is not necessarily
gonna hit home with them.
There are some additional efforts being put into in-person,
like they have more regular meetings.
Also a lot of concern about language barriers
and then an additional concern
about potential visits from immigration on campus.
And what I'd like to make sure everyone knows,
because I myself did not, this has been longstanding policy
that if you are approached by an officer
or an immigration officer, the campus supports
having a person there with you to go through the process.
So you can contact or they can contact
the Office of General Counsel
or just even campus police.
They can get somebody there like you are not alone.
You do not have to go through this by yourself.
And certainly, when we talk about people
who might have language barriers, it's really important.
So one of the things we talked about
was maybe putting an accessibility like radio button
on the CATSafe app that people can just click on
because a lot of members of that population
do have cell phones.
So looking at how do we use what we already have CATSafe.
And so Alex was gonna talk to Mike Shirley
because CATSafe falls under Risk Management
to talk about potentially utilizing that platform
for some additional communication tools.
I think that was really important.
We're also talking about having like more of a landing page.
Not necessarily when you log in,
but when you open your browser
that it would just go to myUVM, so it just pops up.
And then that could be a little bit of a messaging board
for some really like important information.
And one of the avenues we talked about
is not pushing everything out there,
but more having a platform where there's just highlights
that if it applies to you, you can click on it.
'Cause not all information applies to everybody.
Some limited information does apply to everybody
and just trying to juggle who gets what information.
And also having an opportunity for people
to go to a place to select
versus just pushing everything out there.
And definitely, feedback from constituents
and like what works, what doesn't work?
What would you like to see?
What do you experience in your life outside of UVM,
that is like, well this works really well
with my local group or something like that.
'Cause plenty of people
have figured out things that work better, so (chuckles),
And I think that probably summarizes
those visits pretty well.
I think I'm gonna be meeting with the president,
aren't we meeting with the president in two-ish.
-: Two weeks. -: In two weeks.
So if you have any thoughts, ideas.
Patty's very engaging. She's always looking for input.
She and Linda Schadler have been very proactive
about creating working groups,
bringing union, governance, leadership together
for these discussions.
That's where a lot of the concern
about communication came out.
So very productive.
To steal a word from Richard, very fruitful.
You wanna add anything to that, guys?
-: No. -: All good?
All right.
How are we doing on time? Pretty good.
Any questions?
Anything that you want us to bring forward?
So I'll open it up to council members
for you to bring forward any thoughts or ideas,
concerns, things you've come across
that you wanna make sure get talked about here?
Yes. -: I just have a couple.
So we have the IES,
the Inclusive Excellence Symposium next week
and I encourage you to register, if you have not already,
or to ask your colleagues to register if they haven't.
It's gonna be really lovely and super excited.
It's a great opportunity for professional development.
I also have two sessions next week that I'm training for.
So one is My Identity.
It's just like some foundation identity level concepts
and then What is Culture?
So one on Monday and one on Friday
and I encourage you to register.
If you wanna hang out with me, I'm kind of fun.
So there's those pieces.
And then the other piece that I wanted to just note
is that there's conversations happening
around affinity groups in Employee Resource model,
Employee Resource Group-
-: IRG? -: Yes.
And that I am hoping to support
that work with Nick Stanton.
As a HR Staff Council faculty,
I come from Latino staff and Faculty Association.
So not so much an update,
but just that there's curiosity
about what that structure looks like.
I'm super open to having time to talk through
what that means and some of what I'm hoping for, so.
That's all I have.
-: And Carly, how would we find more information
on how to register and stuff or what you're offering?
-: So the link went out on Staffline
for the register links for my sessions.
And then the other one
was I put it in the chat for Teams today, yeah.
-: Yeah, thanks for bringing up the affinity groups.
So Nick Stanton has done a tremendous amount of work on this
and I think we're getting a lot of traction
by joining forces with faculty Senate
and Staff Council and HR.
And this will really generate an opportunity
for groups that already exist on campus
to have more of a presence, more of a voice
and accessibility to university funding.
There are dollars that are gonna be available
in addition to, you know you can book space for your event:
if you're the Knitting Club,
if you're the Salsa Dancing Club, if you're the Ski Club,
if you're the Cookie Baking Club, all of those things.
So we're probably gonna be looking
at a pilot program to start with a couple groups
and then they can provide feedback.
'Cause one of the concerns
is I don't really want everybody knowing my business, right.
So we want certain level of anonymity to the groups
and that's different for each group.
You know some people aren't gonna care if you knit.
But if we start talking about like your ethnicity
or your religion, your race, your sexuality,
that gets much more complex.
And I think you mentioned
that you come from an institution where you lived that,
-: Yeah. -: So you're really excited
to see us building this out, right?
-: Yeah, I'm super excited.
The shared responsibility piece
is what makes me really eager
for what the potential could be.
So at my previous institution
it was a staff and faculty association
and so those things were very deeply connected.
But then there's opportunities for mentorship
and cross collaboration and professional development.
We had staff go faculty and faculty come back to staff.
And so it creates a kind of pocket.
And then there's opportunities
for mentorship with students, right.
So it really kind of takes on a life of its own,
depending on the topic to your point.
But it's also, pathways for funding
for certain opportunities and things like that.
So, yeah.
-: And you know Linda is very invested in this, right?
-: Um-hmm. -: She's putting money
into the pot.
So more to come on that we're trying to be intentional
and mindful about concerns and also get it off the ground.
And I think we're hoping,
like I said, maybe five for the pilot
and then it'll start attracting.
People will start hearing about it
and then get some really solid numbers,
around 10 or more in year two.
Yeah. -: I have something,
I don't think this was in Staffline,
but there was an email that went out,
I can't find it right now,
but just putting in a plug for the Campus Safety Awards
and this is the second year it's happening.
From my division, I had no idea what it,
I went 'cause I got a free lunch, you know.
(others laughing)
But it was incredibly moving.
And as a member of the campus community
you don't realize what people do to just,
you don't even realize what's happening
because they're so good at their jobs.
It happens in the background.
It's a really great group of people.
And I just wanna say if you have time to attend,
it's both an opportunity to learn about
what's happening on campus
and then also to kind of connect with some good people
and hear what's happening.
So yeah, last year was the first year,
so I don't know if it's gonna be different,
but it was kind of, it's interesting.
And I think it's gonna be here in Davis this year.
-: Do you know when?
-: Just like March, April.
It is coming now, Tuesday the 15th of April,
from 2:00 to 5:00.
And you can register it's in the, I got an email directly,
but I think it's in the online calendar.
You can it look up.
I don't think the winners have been announced yet.
I don't know, I think the winners,
I don't know if the winners know before the ceremony.
Obviously, they have to attending the ceremony,
but like how soon they have (indistinct) of...
The safety nominations just closed yesterday.
-: Okay. -: So again,
like from a learning perspective,
like what are these categories?
Like how's that even a thing?
But it's like, oh my god,
yeah that's actually real important.
People- -: It's another way
to recognize.
-: Yeah. -: Yeah, yeah. Great.
Anyone on Teams have anything they wanna bring forward?
-: I think Al. Al? -: Thank you.
If nobody else has anything at this moment?
So our annual End of Year Luncheon
is currently scheduled for June 4th.
That's a Wednesday from noon to 1:30.
It's sponsored by the President's Office.
For our newer folks on an annual basis
at the end of our year we have a luncheon
that's recognized by senior administration.
As I said, the President's Office actually organizes
and runs the whole thing.
It's a really nice event, hour and a half. Nice lunch.
Get to rub elbows with people
you might not otherwise rub elbows with.
And also staff council members are recognized
for their work over the course of the year.
And this particular year is also the transfer of the gavel,
yes, there is a gavel.
-: There is. -: Pass the gavel of the office
from the outgoing president to the newly elected president
we'll have that event as well.
So remember that date.
There will be an official invitation
coming out from the President's Office,
probably, I think in May is when we'll send that out.
I'll probably send out an invite,
calendar invite just for save the date so it's blocked out
before you actually get the official invitation
from the President's Office.
-: Thank you. -: Yeah.
Monika: That's a great event.
It's really a high-value event, I guess I would call it.
-: Oh, Waterman Manor this year is where it'll be.
-: Oh, okay. Great.
Anyone else?
All right, not hearing anyone or seeing any hands,
I think we can go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 1:18.
Thanks all for coming
and all the work and contributions.
Really grateful. Thank you.
-: Thank. -: Thank you.
Monika: Jen, great job
not having to do the minutes. -: Oh yeah, I forgot.