PSS -

Professional Staff Senate
Regular Meeting - September 06, 2002

Senators Present: Ruth Smith, Phyllis Spethman, Lin Brummels, Cheri Polenske, Jeff Carstens, Mitch DeBoer, Stan Gardner

Senators Absent:

Guests: Steve Saunders, Dorothy Weber, Ron Vick

Visitors: 1

The meeting was called to order at 9:35 a.m. Consensus was to re-order the agenda to begin with Steve Saunders. He provided some background information on himself, as well as some history of his company and how it was selected to do the human resources audit for Wayne State. He discussed the timeline for the audit and how information would be gathered, and then he listened and recorded comments and recommendations from Senators.

Minutes of the last general meeting and the annual meeting were approved as written.

There was no change in the Treasurer's Report from last meeting. (no pun intended J)

Committee reports:

Mentoring (Brummels) - no report

Social (Spethman) - Nearly 40 people attended the potluck luncheon. The recommendation from the Social Committee is to make this an annual event, but to move the date to earlier in August.

Recognition (DeBoer) - no report

Continuing Education (Gardner) - no report

Membership (Polenske) - In regards to the re-classification of some supervisory positions currently listed as support staff, other colleges in the system have tried unsuccessfully to make changes. It was suggested that we might consider amending our constitution to include these positions so that the people who hold these positions would be represented. No action was taken on this recommendation. This committee will continue to look at the issue of years of service for those people who change from a support staff position to a professional staff position.

Hospitality (Dorothy Weber reporting) - The committee has received money from 23 of the eligible 88 members of the professional staff, and the money has been deposited in an account at State National Bank. Eligible signers on the account are Dorothy Weber and Deb Lundahl. Cards and/or flowers will be sent for babies, funerals, retirements, surgery/hospitalizations, accidents, and occasions when congratulations are in order. Dorothy asked that all professional staff members send her information and keep her informed about any of these special events. When asked for her input, Deb Whitt, Faculty Club coordinator, did say that $3.00 has proved to not be enough to meet the needs of their organization.

Policy (Carstens) - no report

Communication (Smith) - no report

Other Agenda Items:

The consensus was to begin to include part-time professional staff members in all notifications and activities. Cheri will keep a list of part-timers.

Ron Vick was present to answer any questions about the Senate webpages. The webpages will have 'hot links'. The suggestion was made to include the name of the article, i.e. Article I, Preamble on the front page (perhaps in a pull-down menu) so that people would not have to sort through all of the articles to find the information they need.

Mitch will be our representative to the President's Budget Committee. Meetings will start in October.

The next regular meeting will be October 4th at 9:30 a.m.

Meeting adjourned at 10:55 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Phyllis Spethman, Secretary

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