August Meeting Minutes | Council of Academic Professionals

Agenda for August 2019 Monthly CAP Meeting
Date: Thursday, August 1, 2019
Time: 1:15 PM
Location: Illini Union – 314A

In attendance:Richard Gegg (1), Maggie Jarvis (3), Mindy Spencer (3), Brandi Barnes (4), Ann Jones (5), Charlie Mitsdarfer (5), Carl Baker (6), Chantelle Thompson (7), Betoel Escobar (7), Brian Brauer (8), Victoria Huart (8), William Schlaack (9), Lisa Bievenue (10), Nancy Walsh (10), John Scott (11)

Excused absence: Jeff Stein (11), Randal Sandstone(2), Lisa Merrifield (6), Brent West (1)

Absent without contact:

Call to Order
- Brian called to order at 1:15
Guest Speaker – None
Public Comment – None
Chair’s Remarks
- Pre-meeting for officer group is open to all. Brown bag or bring your lunch. Learn about how CAP operates, share information, socialize outside meeting time, generate ideas in less formal setting
- Brian followed up with Ellyn about staff council meeting. HAsn’t been able to set a time. Will probably just keep it to officers to start.
- Think about what would we do if we had a budget? Is there something we have a need for a budget for? Is ther3e something we aren’t doing because we don’t have a budget? Chicago brings in speakers. Chicago has happy hour for members and purchases food. Springfield buys cookies. Will put on agenda for discussion next month.
- Location change for September meeting. Room 404 Illini Union. No speaker. Small crowd.
- Amount of turnover lately. Is this more than typical for CAP? Is there something we should be doing to make sure people are more engaged.
  1. Richard said turnover is pretty typical. We don’t do a very good job of advertising what CAP does. APs moving to civil service could have something to do with it. People who are currently in CAP are excelling at their other jobs
  2. Beteol- some members move from one district to another. Retention has been more of an issue in the last 3 years or so.
  3. Richard- people don’t serve as many terms. People come in, don’t serve on committees so they don’t know what we do and how we impact university. Jeff used to encourage members to serve on committees in addition to sitting on council.
- Trying to do a better job of capturing institutional knowledge
- Please be thinking about who we would like to have for speakers in addition to President, Chancellor and Provost. Will send out a survey to CAP officers in the next few weeks. Ann mentioned CITL coming in to talk about classes for staff. Maybe getting someone from research park or a unit that isnt’ as visible tell what they do. Similar to what they are doing with Know Your U.
Review and Approval Previous Month’s Minutes
- Move Carl to excused absence
- Richard motioned
- Second from
Announcements – None
Committee Reports
- Academic Professional Senators
  1. Chantelle – Senate committee for public engagement, will start meeting again once new school year starts
- Senate, Campus, and University Committees
  1. USSP – Jeff
  2. F/S Benefits – Open
  3. SEC – Brian
    1. Committee report presented. Mostly talked about moving meeting time from 5:10 to 5:00. Questioned posed to Chancellor jones why if 4.5 increase only 2.5 raises – 4.5% only represents 10% of budget. 2.5% raises represent 11 million dollars. An increase in state funding only impacts 1/10 of our budget.
  4. Senate Committee on Public Engagement – Chantelle
- University Professional Personnel Advisory Committee
  1. UPPAC – Brian
    1. UIC has now combined student housing student learning facility. (with Starbucks!) New classrooms feature tables vs. rows with professor in the center of the room and projecting to screens. Have yet to have faculty utilizing new technology. Could be worth reaching out to Chicago to see how they are implementing and educating faculty on technology
- HR Committee
  1. Training and Employee Development Advisory Committee (TEDAC) – Open
  2. CAPE Awards Committee- Carl
    1. Vice Chair- Open
      1. Electing someone for vice chair. Vice chair becomes chair the next year
      2. Karen retired they are working on finding a replacement
- Procedures and Elections Committee
  1. Brandi
    1. Two elections to conduct today
- Communications Committee
  1. Maggie
    1. Sending out an email for Know your U program call for activities
- Grievance Officer
  1. Ann
    1. Two grievances in closed session
- Ad Hoc Committee on Harassment
  1. Mindy
    1. About ready to issue a statement about the policy and where it’s at in the process.
- Ad-hoc committee for APDF Distribution
  1. Nancy, Lisa, Jeff
    1. Don’t have an update from committee
    2. Ellyne – doesn’t have an update or final report, but they are obligating funds pretty rapidly
    3. Nancy – As of 2 days ago – 36 applications all but one approved. Already obligated ourselves to almost $25000. 66% obligated for this cycle.
      1. What will happen if we obligate all funds?
      2. All are for this semester (cycle 1, through Dec 31, equivalent of 6 months)
      3. Ellyne – Discussed ideas with Chancellor, set it up in quarters or twice a year, decided on twice a year. When we use all the funds for this cycle, we close applications. IF we go by quarters we hold until next quarter, and encourage people to reapply in the next quarter.
      4. Not accepting applications for next 6-month cycle
      5. If we don’t expend all the funds, we add to the next 6 months. Need to decide when to open up applications for the next 6 months
      6. We could start accepting applications earlier but we could potentially expend all our funds too early
      7. Lisa B. – people would like to know as soon as possible whether or not they are approved. Expending funds early isn’t disadvantaging any one since anyone could apply for that period.
      8. Brian – let’s talk about when we should open spring applications. We did not indicate that it wasn’t open for spring.
      9. Applications are continuously open, we divide funds based on dates event is held
      10. Still first come first served
      11. In addition to not spending all funds in the first month, providing people with the opportunity to attend events later in the year.
      12. No requests for cycle 2 yet.
      13. There is the possibility that we would have to deny applicants for the fall
      14. Brian – When do we start accepting applications for 1 Jan – 30 June? We should tell people there’s a break in the semester.
        
        Nancy – is there a disadvantage to accepting people for next semester?
        
        Elyne – advantage to knowing means they know that they have to apply early and get approval from department
        
        Brian – 3 data points we need to share with APs
        
        There are 2 cycles
        
        Now accepting apps for spring
        
        66% obligated for fall
        
        Make clear that funds are awarded date of event, not date of application
        
        Currently not clear on website
        
        Mindy – there’s not a good way to make equitable. It might make it more fair to accept applications now, but don’t review until January.
        
        Brian – Out of our control if department doesn’t know about event. Could they upload information from annual conference if they know its’ happening but don’t know exact dates? Who sees that document? (HR and committee)
        
        Elyne – will accept department confirmation that conference is occurring
        
        Department needs to provide funding plan as well
        
        Brian- add something about accepting verification from dept head if official conference dates are not posted. We have enough controls in place where someone shouldn’t be able to game the system.
        
        Lisa – encourage people to get application in even if it’s incomplete and claim their spot and submit information
      15. Are we denying completely or just saying they may not get reimbursed
        
        If we have funds left, could we still reimburse applicants?
        
        Elyne needs to ask Chancellor’s office what they plan to do
    4. Will send recommendations from CAP to chancellor’s office.
      1. Brian will send to Maggie and committee for review/polishing before sending to Elyne
      2. Deb – Chicago has a very short and defined application period, then they consider everything all at once, not ongoing like ours
        
        Could consider implementing something like this next year
      3. Can we request additional funds if we exhaust funds again this year?
        
        Elyne – we’ll address that if/when it happens
Academic Human Resources Report Senior Associate Chancellor for Human Resources
1. Functional area reviews have been going well (Reviews of job descriptions as it pertains to CS rule changes)
  1. Reviewing by functional area
  2. First area was HR
  3. Next area is Business
  4. Will have jobs that are titled by responsibility/duties, and can level those jobs accordingly
  5. Will allow us to address potential pay scale for jobs
  6. Don’t know if they will be able to cover the entire campus within three years
  7. Mindy – Will there be a gender-equity review in accordance with this review?
    1. Elyne – Gender equity and equity period is a big issue, we don’t know if we can do both at the same time but are aware that is an aspect that we will need to review
2. Correspondence coming out from president about Know your U. Official kickoff Aug 13. Putting together guidelines to be shared soon
3. Lisa B. – Are you tracking the number of APs it is impacting?
  1. Elyne – yes, we are tracking this but I don’t have this exact number
  2. Brian – should we talk about this monthly or wait until review period is over
    1. Elyne – people are already fearful, so withholding info doesn’t help. Let us take a look at information we have and see how it is impacting employees.
    2. Deb – we will need to look at numbers both globally and discreetly, if we only pick several points to look at there will be fluctuations. Grants can impact numbers and people leaving (and rehiring) positions will impact numbers.
    3. Brian – situation in Chicago is different than the one in Champaign. Chicago saw a 50% decrease in APs. Context is important. Our job is to inform without frightening.
    4. Public comment – Can you share with us the job category types that the review is undertaking at them moment?
      1. Elyne – IT is another one, but I don’t recall offhand
      2. Deb – Advancement, student services(?). Positions that have multiple functions: we create a list of functions and provide that to departments so they can provide a list of positions that have duties in that particular area
    5. Brian – thank you HR for being available to answer our questions and keep up informed.
Unfinished Business
- None
New Business
- ByLaws Review Committee (4 Members)
  1. Still waiting for a chair.
  2. Brent will coordinate
- 2018-2019 Annual report
  1. Feedback, motion to accept report or submit any changes
  2. Lisa Bievenue moves to accept
  3. Second by John Scott
  4. Approved
- Charlie Mitsdarfer is leaving University so he will be vacating his CAP seat
Closed Session as needed
- 2 closed sessions for grievances
- Closed session for elections
Adjournment
- Adjourned at 3:19pm