University of Southern Maine

Professional Staff Senate

University of Southern Maine

Meeting Minutes for :     August 3 rd , 2005; Wednesday,  2:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Location:                        Room 241, Luther Bonney Hall

• Attendance

Present: Senators Crumb, Granahan, Hassler, Jarry, Kennedy, Krieger, Lapping, Menezes, Moulton, Nickerson, Roy, Volland, White, and Wood.

Excused: Senators Arey, Labelle, Saucier, and Theriault.

• Previous Meeting Minutes to be approved

June minutes approved. No minutes for July as the Senate did not meet.

• President’s Office Report

Bob Caswell attended the meeting in place of Judy Ryan, who had a prior engagement. Judy will be coming to future meetings to represent the President’s Office. Two bond issues were mentioned. One from which two-million dollars is to go to OSHA as part of a Higher Learning Bond. Another of which two-million dollars is for UMS to be divided among the “smaller” campuses of the system and five-million to be distributed throughout Maine’s Community Colleges.

There is a separate bond earmarking two-million dollars to begin expansion of LAC. University Commons is continuing on schedule to include a 250 bed residents hall, primarily for graduate students. Construction of the Commons is set to start in 2006. Senator Nickerson asked about the “over-lay zoning” issue. The zoning laws are hoped to be addressed this fall. However, Bob said no “road-block” is expected to occur. Portland Plastic Pipe will be moving. USM will be paying 1.8 million dollars to help expedite this move.

In the current fiscal year (July 1 through June 30 of 2006) USM is

facing a $400,000 shortfall.

In the next fiscal year (July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007) we could

be facing a $1.4 million shortfall.

Both projections, however, need to be qualified because they are

based on certain assumptions, among them enrollment increases,

tuition increases, and salary/wage increases.

• Senate Reports

• Classified Staff – Senator Granahan has offered to continue as our liaison.

Sam Andrews announced that there will be three new deans. The Classified Staff Senate talked about the bond issues that Bob Caswell mentioned above. The Faculty Staff Breakfast was announced to be September 2 nd. The Classified Staff Senate discussed how funds for the Employee Development Day event were handled. The Senate discussed fund raising to supplement their budget. The Senate discussed sending representatives to various department meetings.

• Faculty- Senators Nickerson and Lapping have offered to continue as our co-liaisons.

The Faculty Senate does not meeting during summer months.

• Student- The Senate is still in need of liaisons to the Student Senate. It was discussed that those senators able to attend the Student Senates weekly meetings will do so and report back to the Professional Staff Senate. Senator Menezes will try to attend the first Student Senate meeting.

The Student Senate does not meet during summer months.

• Election of New Officers

• Vise-Chair – The Senate elected Senator Granahan.
• Co-Secretaries – The Senate elected Senators Crumb and LaBelle.

• Executive Committee Updates

• Senate Chair
• Board of Visitors Meeting

The Board of Visitors first item of business was to assign names of “Friends of USM” to committee members. The members agreed to contact the Friends to voice their concern over the four-million dollar cut to UMS. The Board also discussed how to best offer their services to USM to help ensure the University remains as one of the state’s valued institutions of higher learning.

• Vice-Chair/Treasurer’s Report - $650 overage that is unaccounted for to date. Senators Wood and Granahan will be looking in to this.
• Co-Secretaries – no report.

• Old Business

• Funding for Employee Development Day

The Senate voted to approve funding of $250.

• Committees

• Standing Committees

The following are committee members to date.

• Elections Committee – no volunteers to date.
• Professional Recognition & Rewards – Senator Krieger
• Professional Staff Divisional Awards – Senator LaBelle
• Emerging Professional Staff – Senator Lapping
• Professional Development Program Committee – no volunteers to date.
• Colleague Connection Committee – Senator Saucier
• Communication Committee – Senators Crumb, Labelle, Menezes, and Wood.

• Other and Ad Hoc Committees
• Space Planning Committee – Former Senator Dana Gray.
• Portland Campus Master Planning – Senator Wood.
• Employee Development Day – Former Senator Robin Audesse and Senator Jarry.
• Parking – Senator Arey

Following committees are suspended

• University Review & Improvement Committee (URIC)
• University Business Process Improvement Committee (UPBIC)
• University Planning and Budgetary Advisory Committee (UPBAC) (Tom W.) UPBAC is still active. Senator Wood agreed to remain as this committee’s representative.

• New Business/Open Forum

• 2005-06 Meeting Dates and Location Review

Meeting dates will remain the first Wednesday of each month from 2:30 to 4:30, alternating between the Portland and Gorham campuses. Senator Roy will be at LAC on these days and has agreed to attend meetings via teleconference. It is the Senate’s hope that having Senator Roy at LAC will stimulate interest in the Professional Staff Senate at LAC and encourage LAC participation. Though meetings will officially be on a designated campus, meetings will be held in the campuses’ teleconference rooms enabling senators to attend meetings from all campuses.

• Next meetings locations

Room 9, Bailey Hall - Wednesday September 7 th, 2:30pm to 4:30pm.

• Senate Goals for 2005-2006

The Senate discussed several possible goals for the upcoming year. They include:

• Creating a quarterly or bi-annual news letter to include information about USM as it pertains to professional staff as well as other goings on within the community. This information could also include the reports made to the Senate from the President’s Office.
• Having the Senate create a database to aid Space and Scheduling. The goal would be to help reduce the problem of over-booking rooms for various USM functions. It would also create a central unit for scheduling. This database would be not include class room scheduling, only spaces used for large functions.
• Create and/or aid the appropriate department in creating an online web portal. This portal would list upcoming events.
• Offer information and act as a “clearinghouse” for the dispersing of information regarding union and other job related information to non-represented professional staff.
• Create and offer workshops for both represented and non-represented staff that would discuss job related issues.

It was mentioned that this Senate needs to find commonality in order to adopt a goal that could be globally shared.

Other:

Senator Menezes will be emailing Zark Vanzandt to see if he may be influential in encouraging professional staff from LAC to participate in the Senate.

Senator Lapping proposed the need for an Historian for the Professional Staff Senate. Senator Granahan suggested this to be an added responsibility of the vice-chair.

X. Adjourn

Meeting adjourned at 4:35pm.

Next Meeting:  Wednesday September 7, 2:30 – 4:30, Bailey Hall Gorham Campus