Staff Senate Newsletter | Spring 2024

The Public Relations committee will be looking for both a Chair and Chair-Elect for the 2024-2025 session. The Public Relations committee assists with publishing the bi-annual newsletter by collecting committee updates and works to maintain the Staff Senate website. If you have an interest in raising awareness of the vital role of Staff Senate or experience with website management, consider joining the Public Relations committee.

Jessica Chilcoat | FY2024 Treasurer & Interim Newsletter Coordinator

Legislative Affairs extends a sincere gratitude to every staff member that has worked with this committee throughout its time. At the March Staff Senate meeting, a vote was approved to dissolve this committee and disperse the committee’s standing charges amongst the Staff Senate President/President-Elect and the Elections and Public Relations Committees. For those that wish to be involved in encouraging civic engagement amongst staff moving forward, we recommend you join the Public Relations Committee or the Center for Service Learning’s Civic Ambassadors team. For those that wish to develop Staff Senate’s code, the Elections Committee is the new home for your efforts. These changes will hopefully increase membership and support for all of our Staff Senate’s committees and needs.

Sarah Wilson Merriman | FY2024 Legislative Affairs Chair

The committee aligned its 2023-2024 work with the focus areas of the Docking Institute USS and UPS Employee Satisfaction Survey Results 2022. The 2023-2024 overall goal was to concentrate on Culture, Inclusion, and Retention. The ACTION Teams specifically focused on Compensation and Benefits; Nature of Work; and Leadership, Appreciation, and Recognition.   

The Compensation and Benefits ACTION Team worked on clarifying questions regarding benefits, such as shared leave, and the maximum amount of optional life insurance. Additional items being researched by the Team are internet hotspots, yoga classes, and health insurance benefits. 

The Nature of Work ACTION originally was working on addressing the issue of additional workload added to staff and how that can be evaluated and to include a copy of the Position Description into MyTalent for review during evaluation. HR mentioned that this is something they have considered and is a part of the HR Transformation Initiative that is ongoing. The Team has been gathering information on KBOR and the surrounding state's policies for inclement weather. Based on that research, the Team is formalizing and submitting a recommendation to the Staff Senate by the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. 

The Leadership, Appreciation, and Recognition ACTION Team has identified the current professional development and leadership opportunities available at KU. The plan is to work with Human Resources and their plans for leadership, appreciation, and recognition. 

Michelle Wilson | FY2024 Personnel Affairs Chair

The Spring 2024 elections have wrapped up and have a good roster of senators for the 2024-2025 term. The elections filled 12 seats for a new three-year term.

KU Staff Senate is a great way to meet people, network, and participate in shaping the future for Staff at KU. We encourage anyone interested in joining KU Staff Senate to email staffsenate@ku.edu.

Kevin Liu | FY2024 Elections Chair

Angela Robb | FY2024 Elections Chair-Elect

This fiscal year for the Staff Senate Professional Development Fund has been exceptional, as we received a record-breaking number of 61 applications, demonstrating a keen interest in professional growth within the University of Kansas. Notably, 51 of these applications came from first-time applicants, indicating a widening reach and enthusiasm for professional development opportunities. We are proud to announce that the committee has already awarded 43 applications, totaling an impressive $31,949.00 in funds disbursed. This remarkable progress underscores our commitment to supporting the career advancement and skill development of our valued unclassified professional and university support staff (UPS and USS) members.

Candace Bond | FY2024 Professional Development Chair

Corinna Lynn Johnson | FY2024 Professional Development Chair-Elect

Our committee is broken into 3 ACTION teams with goals for each team that we work on throughout the year.

The Accountability and Engagement ACTION Team has been working with the Communication ACTION Team to create more exposure to our committee & recruit more members. They have also been tabling at staff networking events to have a more visual presence on campus and are planning to host an event for Staff Senate D&I committee members to meet one another, hopefully in person.

The Communication ACTION Team published two issues of The Lens this year, in fall and spring. We hope that the newsletter will inspire others to begin or continue DEIB work. Previous issues of The Lens are all available online.

The Education ACTION Team continued to host the “Unpacking Whiteness in the Workplace” workshop series in an online environment via Zoom. In the Fall 2023 and the Spring 2024 semesters, the team of 11 facilitators guided three 2-hour discussion sessions every other week for the span of approximately a month. There was an average of 15-30 attendees per workshop over the course of the two semesters, though participation was down slightly compared to previous years.

Kim Conard | FY2024 Diversity & Inclusion Chair

Trina Weekly | FY2024 Diversity & Inclusion Chair-Elect

Our group’s work is coming to an end soon with the development of the Staff Senate Teams site. We created a plan for transferring the various senate committees, including their documents, notes, and sub-channels, to a single site and presented this to the Executive Committee. With our plan approved, we began the work of shifting content and users to the new site and hope to have the transfer completed prior to the start of the fall senate session. This will facilitate senate and committee transitions and reduce the number of separate Teams sites populating our people’s apps. Thank you to all who worked and provided feedback on both this project and the Staff Senate website!

Caty Movich | FY2024 Ad Hoc Technology Chair