President's Staff Forum
Minutes: President's Staff Forum
September 22, 2003 Staff Forum Minutes for September 22, 2003
President Huntsman called the meeting to order and invited everyone present to introduce themselves.
President Huntsman asked for questions and suggestions from University staff members on how to communicate to the staff community.
President Huntsman and Acting Provost David Thorud reported on the state of the university. The administration works hard to educate the legislature about the mission and goals of the University.
The most recent legislative session was positive for the UW. We asked the Legislature what they thought about students and how do they wanted to support them. Our partnership with WSU to promote the important role of the state universities continues to be successful. Although finances are not good, we have legislators who are now better informed about higher education in general and the UW in particular.
The goal of the administration is to manage and lead the University through a complex and fiscally challenging time. The cost of education will continue to grow placing enormous pressure on tuition. It is critical that financial aid keep pace with tuition levels.
President Huntsman opened the discussion to questions.
• How the new transfer policy had changed?
President Huntsman said that 30% of our students come from community colleges. How we will select these students has changed. We can’t assure admission to all students. We are going to have selection criteria. We will need to manage our enrollments to find 24,000 more slots for students by 2010.
• Can we can expand enrollments?
President Huntsman replied that non-subsidized education can be expanded, including self-sustaining, distance education and special programming such as WAMI.
• Is there a plan to increase enrollment at UW Tacoma and UW Bothell?
If the state provides the money to do so, we will.
• How is the Presidential Search going?
President Huntsman replied that the regents have been struggling with the search and have decided to extend the timeline. Even though he and Provost Thorud are “Temps” there is a lot of momentum going.
President Huntsman discussed coping with increasing workloads, more students, more faculty and less staff. He wants to know how we cope.
Some staff have problems with faculty attitudes and become discouraged. Leaving and going to work in the private sector is more difficult now due to the slow economy. Another concern is the new state personnel system that will be implemented in 2005, which will allow jobs to be outsourced.
Mary Ann Bill, Acting Director of Human Resources, added that they are about to start the Faculty Strategic Leadership Program.
There was discussion of the new Civil Service law and members asked that a representative from Human Resources come to a PSF meeting to discuss the changes and their impact. Mary Ann Bill said that they are hiring someone to manage the implementation.
Tasha Taylor presented information on the Forum for Change (on-line exchange). This was developed by the outgoing members of the President’s Forum. It was set up to be a vehicle through which staff could communicate with one another. It will be a way to share methods that have been developed and implemented to streamline and improve services. The initial launch of the Forum for Change has not had much response. Last month, the Staff Forum met in an off-month meeting and decided they wanted to continue the Forum for Change and re-launch it with a request for feedback from staff regarding techniques to cope with stress and increasing workloads. Tasha will be leaving the Staff Forum and she asked if someone else was willing to continue the project.
Respectfully submitted by Tasha Taylor
President's Staff Forum
