University Times

The Staff Association Council (SAC) Nov. 10 affirmed chairs and vice chairs for its nine standing committees. Appointees serve one-year terms, November through October.

New chairs and vice chairs are:

• Benefits: chair, Michael Semcheski; vice chair, Natalie Blais.

• Elections: chair, Barbara Mowery; vice chair, Yuolanda Murray.

• Governance: chair, Meg Mayer-Costa; vice chair, Carol Hodgkiss.

• Grievance: chair, Angela Coldren; vice chair, Rich Colwell.

• Marketing and communications: chair, J.P. Matychak; vice chair, Kathy Krause.

• Program and planning: chair, Monica Costlow; vice chair, Lynn Kachman.

• Research and information: chair, Carol Neuner; vice chair, Fred Schiffer.

• Safety and security: chair, Rick Fabean; vice chair, Kenny Doty.

• Salary and job classification: chair, Jonah Yan McAllister-Erickson; vice chair, Monika Losagio.

In other business:

• The staff group announced the winners of Endowed Book Fund for Children of Staff, which provides financial assistance toward the purchase of books to an undergraduate student whose parent or guardian is a non-union staff member. The annual award carries a $200 prize. Winners will be recognized at the Dec. 9 long-term staff recognition ceremony.

The winners and their parents are:

— Bridgette Dawson, a junior majoring in elementary education at Pitt-Johnstown; parent, Margaret M. Clements-Dawson, School of Dental Medicine.

— Erica Germanoski, a senior majoring in psychology; Joe Germanoski, Computing Services and Systems Development.

— Amanda Gilarski, a sophomore majoring in rehabilitation science; Linda Gilarski, Department of Biostatistics, Graduate School of Public Health.

— Miles McCoy, a sophomore focusing on English writing; Warren J. McCoy, Office of Affirmative Action, Diversity and Inclusion.

• Libby Hilf, vice president for marketing and communications, reported that SAC’s revamped web site now is live at www.sac.pitt.edu.

Hilf said she is seeking approval to establish a discussion board on the My Resources link to the My Pitt portal for SAC members to exchange information between the group’s monthly meetings. “We are in the process of working with CSSD to create a community specifically for SAC. The purpose of this is to supplement our meetings, to help us continue the conversations from the meetings,” she said. If approval is granted, Hilf will arrange a short tutorial to show members how to use the community to post comments.

Hilf also reported that SAC will attempt to hold its spring officer elections online for the first time.

• Fabean reported that SAC-sponsored CPR certification workshops tentatively are planned for Feb. 26 and May 14.

The safety and security committee is working with Parking, Transportation and Services on installing “repeaters” in Pitt’s underground garages to ensure cell phone reliability in the case of emergencies, Fabean said.

• Costlow reported that more than 250 people attended the recent SAC-sponsored fall marketplace, which raised $200 for the Oakland Food Pantry.

• Coldren recommended that SAC consider changing the name of the grievance committee to reflect its limitations.

“Grievance might not be the right word. Grievance, in the union sense, is a formal process,” said Coldren, who chairs that committee. “In terms of SAC, we can only do so much. We can’t contact a supervisor and say, ‘You need to do this, you need to do that.’ We don’t want to disband the committee, but we see the committee as more a counseling type of thing, with suggestions we can give.” She asked that ideas for an alternative name be forwarded to her at acoldren@bc.pitt.edu.

—Peter Hart