Staff
Assembly Minutes
December 13, 2012
Todd Lecture Hall
Call to
Order: 2:00 PM
Approval
of Minutes: A motion was
made to approve the minutes of the November 8, 2012 meeting; motion was
seconded and passed unanimously.
New
Employee Introductions: Richard King, the new peer tutor coordinator
in the College Skills Center, was introduced to the group. Welcome, Richard!
Guest
Speaker Mark Browning--Debriefing of September Police Presence on Campus
Following the September incident in which there was
a police presence on campus for several days, NIC hosted a debriefing session
recently with all involved parties—the Police Department, Sherriff’s
Department, and NIC administrators. The
goal of the debriefing was to look at what transpired and what we could improve
in the future. The consensus was that a
communications representative, either Mark or Stacy, would be included in
incident communications. There is a
balance in providing appropriate information to keep the campus informed
without hindering the investigation. In retrospect, President Dunlap said he
wished NIC had provided more information sooner.
You will be seeing an increased focus on safety and security on campus. We have gone through our crisis
communications plan, and Stacy updated the emergency handbook which will be
distributed after the holidays. We are
looking at training on the portal. Mark,
Ron Dorn, Alex Harris and Graydon Stanley will be participating in a tabletop
exercise of a crisis incident at Kootenai Medical Center next month.
Guest
Speaker Steve Ruppel—Official Employee Photos
At President Dunlap’s request, we are implementing
official college employee photos. These
photos are required by December 20th; they are for internal campus
use only and will not be published externally.
They will also be integrated with the One-Card system when that comes
on-board. These photos will help us to get to know each
other, as well as serve as a security measure.
We recently upgraded our Outlook system to integrate the pictures with
our e-mail, though you can opt-out of publishing your picture on internal
e-mails.
Guest
Speaker Judith George—I-BEST Program
Judith George,
Advisor for the I-BEST program, introduced herself as half of the program, with
Molly Kreyssler, the I-BEST Coordinator, being the other half. Molly sends her
regrets for not being able to attend today. I-BEST started last fall and is now in their
last year of grant funding by the Albertson’s Foundation. I-BEST students were able to spend their
first year concurrently completing their GED and enrolled in up to 19 credits
of college courses, with a 100% success rate in placing in the appropriate math
and English courses for their programs. The I-BEST program promotes completion,
retention and persistence, and assists students with every aspect of going to
college. They incorporate ATEC job search classes and extend the learning community
to include conflict resolution, problem solving, and study groups. I-BEST programs include Machining, Welding,
Office Specialist and CNA. Every one of
the I-BEST students plan to complete an AAS degree, and our goal is to give
them the confidence to do it on their own.
Information/Updates:
·
Staff Sabbatical (Nancy Edwards)
We had an information session
on November 28th and eight people stopped by. The soft deadline is December 14th;
if you need a few extra days, just contact Nancy or Alex. One item we want to clarify is that your 4
week sabbatical does not have to be continuous time off; you could break-up your
time off into a staggered schedule to total 160 hours. Nancy also reminded us that you must be
employed at NIC for at least seven years to be eligible for the sabbatical.
·
NIC Holiday Party (Garry Stark)
The NIC holiday party is
Friday, December 14th from 1-3 pm in the dining room of the Student
Union Building. Please bring canned food
donations for the food bank.
·
AED’s (Bill McElver)
AED’s (Automated External
Defibrillators) are now in several locations on campus and one at Workforce
Training. Linda Michal and Bill recently
completed an assessment of additional locations and eight more units are in the
works. The new locations of the first
four units will be in Lee Hall, Seiter Hall, Molstead Library and Meyer Health
Science Building. Four more units will
be purchased in the next budget year in July.
We will post locations of the AED’s on our website. NIC Security Officer Stuart Wagner is
certified in CPR and AED training, and there will be upcoming opportunities for
employee training.
·
Update on Professional Development Funds (Erin Norvell)
The Vice Presidents met last
week to award the funds for spring. In
the first round of applications last fall, $81,000 was requested; in the second
round for spring, $42,000 was requested.
In total, $50,000 was awarded in Professional Development funds for fall
2012 and spring 2013. Letters have been
sent to applicants notifying them of the funding allocations. The deadline for consideration of fall 2013
funding will be in July. Erin reminded
employees that this is a competitive process; requests that demonstrate
expectation of significant return of value to the college will have
priority. At this time we still have PIP
funds remaining; get PIP fund requests in as soon as possible.
·
Employee Day (Erin Norvell)
Employee Day is scheduled for
Tuesday, February 19th, which is the day after the President’s Day
holiday. There will be a welcome with a
keynote speaker and two morning sessions; the afternoon is reserved for
departmental activities to promote team building. Employee Day activities end at 3:30; this is
still a full work day.
Reports:
·
Board Meeting – Garry Stark
Garry gave an overview of the
November Board of Trustees meeting.
Recognizing success included presentations from the GED and I-BEST
programs, There were many accolades for departing trustees Mic Armon and Ron
Vieselmeyer. Garry encouraged us to watch
the recording of the meeting, especially to hear the parting comments of Mic
Armon. New trustees Ron Nilson and Todd
Banducci were sworn in. Ken Howard is
the new Chair, Judy Meyer is the Vice-Chair, and Christie Wood is the
secretary.
Shout-Outs:
·
To Sarah Fladeland from Pat
DeSmet for being a super grant coach and mentor.
·
To Jan Pederson from Nancy, Marsha
and Staff Assembly for doing a fabulous job putting together over 50 food
baskets for St. ASNIC.
·
To Sarah Johnson from Linda Michal
and Barb Breitenberg for her stellar efforts supporting our students in the
Center for New Directions.
·
To Sheri Hautala from Linda Michal
for her outstanding service in Student Health Services.
·
To Pat DeSmet from Linda
Michal—congratulations on your Foundation grant!
Raffle
Prize Winners:
Ft Ground Grill gift certificate—Kathy Kraus
Garry’s Golf Cart (including safety
training)—Richard King