Chancellor Rogers

Topics of conversation to the UAF Staff Council during November 16 meeting.

• Supervisor Training - reviewing program to determine what works, what does not work, and possible improvements. 
• New Diversity Director -  Mae Marsh has been selected to replace Earlina Bowden beginning the first week of March 2012.
• Soft closure - memo has been sent out informing staff that soft closure is an option and NOT a requirement.  Staff can choose to take leave during the week before and/or after the Christmas/New Year's holiday.  There will be reduced activitiy on campus during this time. 
• SRC more affordable to staff - Mike Humphrey was the lead on how to make this workable.  He has since taken a position with the University of Alaska Anchorage.  Mike Sfraga, Vice Chancellor for Students, is working on this topic.  When the information is provided to Chancellor Rogers it will be forwarded to the UAF Staff Council.

There was added conversation concerning the soft closure issue:  The Chancellor was asked if a message could be sent out to staff informing them if they felt pressured to take leave during soft closure contacting Kris Racina is an option.  Chancellor Rogers general feeling is that to send out multiple messages regarding the same issue becomes spam and is overkill.  No matter how a message is worded there is always the possibility of misinterpretation.  It was stated there was discussion about not sending anything regarding soft closure.

He stated that if a staff member is feeling pressured to take leave during soft closure; they may contact either Kris Racina, 474-7700 or khracina@alaska.edu, or the Chancellor, 474-7112 or bdrogers@alaska.edu.

Emergency Management Policy

Kris Racina, Human Resources Director, is working on an Emergency Management Policy. This policy is a result of the lesson learned from the Ice Storm last fall and the emergency exercise this summer. The policy will address what action should be taken and how supervisors should work with their employees in regards of missed work hours.

Kris Racina - HR Director

UAF Staff Council would like to welcome Kris Racina. She is the new HR Director and was able to attend our March 20th meeting. During her attendance she shared her philosphy for HR. She believes Human Resources is a support function. It is a means to an end and it is there to assist UAF in meeting the mission statement in balancing campus missions, complying with State and Federal Laws. HR should be a resource to encourage working out of issues between supervisors and employees. Termination should be a last resort.

When asked about the staff levels at UAF HR, she stated that was not an immediate concern as there were some restructuring and cross training that could be done to alliveate some of the bottleneck.