Staff
Assembly Minutes
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Echo Bay/Blue Creek Bay Room, SUB
Call to
Order: Noon
Approval
of Minutes: A motion was
made to approve the minutes from the August 9, 2012 meeting; motion
passed.
New
Business:
New
Employee Introductions
·
Matt Sebby introduced Kym Browning, who has joined
Auxiliary Services as a part-time administrative assistant; Kim will be helping
with campus events.
·
Erin Norvell introduced Laura Hill, NIC’s new HR
Director.
·
Bob Murray introduced Jon Downing, the new chemistry
lab technician.
Wellness
Program Update (Andrea Woempner)
Wellness Your Way for 2013 is rolling. Last year NIC had 518 participants in the
wellness program, with 72% of benefit eligible employees participating, and
$280425 deposited in employee HRA accounts.
·
Step 1. Choose Your
Deductible
You already did this
step during open enrollment. Lower
deductibles were earned by employees who completed a tobacco affidavit through
our online benefit enrollment system and an online general health assessment
through MyRegence.com. Once open
enrollment closed, so did your window of opportunity for a lower
deductible.
·
Step 2. Complete the
Core Requirements
Core requirements
include obtaining your biometric screening, getting your annual wellness exam
and exercising regularly.
·
Step 3. Build Your Own Program
You can individualize
your own wellness activities. Don’t forget,
THE FORM is key to documenting your activities
The above steps are
only a brief overview. Complete details
are on the HR website at: http://www.nic.edu/websites/default.aspx?dpt=34&pageId=1821
Campus
Emergency Messaging/Updating My NIC Contact Information (Chantel Black)
Our new campus emergency messaging system is
“Cardinal Contact”. To receive emergency
text messages, your cell phone must be tagged as “cell”, not listed as your
home phone. To edit your information for
Cardinal Contact, login to My NIC, then click on Services Tab, User Account, and
Contact Information. Click in the
appropriate field for “cell phone” to update your cell number and receive emergency
text messages.
You should receive an initial confirmation e-mail
within 24 hours. The next text “test”
for emergency messaging is in October.
Committee
Update
(Nancy Edwards)
All open positions on committees have been
filled. Thank you to everyone who volunteered—we
had more volunteers than openings. If
you have any questions regarding the committee assignments, please feel free to
contact Nancy Edwards.
Professional
Development Fund Update (Erin Norvell)
In support of our new Mission, Vision and Values statement which promotes
professional development, the Professional Development Fund was approved for
FY13. The Professional Development Fund
is in addition to our long-standing PIP funds.
·
Eligibility: Employees in
benefit-eligible positions who have been employed continuously for one year or
more are able to apply for PD funds.
·
Approval: An approval committee that includes the four vice presidents
reviews the applications and prioritizes fund distribution according to
applicability to NIC’s mission/goals and the overall good of the college. Requests that demonstrate the relevance of
your activity to the strategic plan and your current position are given
priority.
·
Eligible
Activities: Activities can include
courses, certifications and exams, conferences and seminars including travel, tuition
and fees assistance (up to 6 credits per semester) and learning materials. The reimbursement rate for tuition is based
on the actual cost or 50% of the University of Idaho’s rate, whichever is
lower.
This is a competitive process, and Erin urges people to clearly state
their professional goals on their application, as well as how your activities
will help you achieve those goals.
Deadline for Spring Professional Development Funds: November 15, 2012
For more detailed information, please go to the Professional Development
Website at:
http://www.nic.edu/websites/default.aspx?dpt=34&pageId=3312
(From the HR home page, click Employee Benefits-Organizational
Learning-Employee Professional Development Training).
Diamond
Parking on Campus (Garry Stark)
Diamond Parking has been contracted to issue parking
citations on campus this semester. We
are working to fine tune this transition, and we put a high priority on our
campus visitors having a good experience while on campus. We do have the same appeal process for
tickets, with a campus committee reviewing the appeals.
Campus
Recycling Program (Bill McElver)
NIC is taking part in a new single-stream recycling program. Based on a pilot study at Ramsey School, we
predict that NIC can reduce refuse costs by 50% or more. With single stream recycling, you can mix
paper, aluminum, cardboard and plastic in one bin without separating them. No glass will be accepted. For this program
to work, everyone needs to do their part:
1) Staff on campus who choose to recycle (and we
hope they will), will have a desk side box for recycling.
2) When
the desk side boxes are full, the staff will empty the boxes in central carts
located in each building.
3) NIC’s
custodial staff will then empty the carts into the recycling containers
outside, and Waste Management will pick them up twice weekly.
We
realize that this program will require a new train of thought—staff and
students will have to actively decide to do their part in recycling. We hope you will see it as a win-win
situation; by working together on a recycling program, NIC could potentially
reduce our use of the landfill by 50% or more, leaving a much smaller footprint
on the environment. And at the same
time, NIC can reduce its costs for landfill use.
Shout-Outs:
·
To Randy Reader and Heather Brownsberger
from Rhonda Smalley—for their teamwork in picking up the extra workload while
Rhonda was training on the large format printer. Thanks so much Amigos!
·
To Allison Hall, CJ Banks, and Amy Mayer for
always being so helpful from Teresa Henderson.
I really appreciate all that you do!
·
To Evie Scrabeck and Vicki Shanley from
Carol Jones for making Lee Hall sparkle and taking such good care of us! Many thanks!
·
To everyone in the Business Office and Student
Accounts—Robin, Leslie, Josh, Carol, Betsy, Marie, Denice, Daniela, Lila,
Diana, Jessica and Sandra from Sarah Garcia for the amazing job everyone
did preparing the annual fiscal audit.
Thank you!
·
To Marissa Struck from Keira Yetter for your help
in finding a work study for the Children’s Center.
·
To Dining Services for doing a tremendous job during the first couple
weeks of school. Thank you everyone!
·
To All
Staff from Kathie O’Brien and Faculty Assembly—many thanks to all the staff
who had everything on campus in tip-top shape for the start of the fall
semester.