Reps of campus staff groups meet
Representatives of the regional campus Staff Association Councils joined the Pittsburgh campus SAC for the annual Council of Campuses prior to the Pittsburgh group’s July 9 meeting.
Said Lindsay J. Rodzwicz, vice president of marketing, in welcoming the group: “We just wanted to establish open lines of communications and … talk about what we can do for each other.”
Pittsburgh SAC President Rich Colwell said that shared governance with campus administration is a common goal of all staff groups at Pitt.
“I know that the new chancellor supports it,” he said. “We actually do have a voice.” He noted that SAC has representatives on all Senate committees and all Board of Trustees committees, and that SAC officers meet regularly with the chancellor, vice chancellor, provost and Human Resources officials.
SAC officers from each regional gave brief presentations about their activities and the moods of their campuses:
• Patrick Daniel, president of Bradford SAC and the campus’s women’s basketball coach, noted that “our biggest [concern] right now is enrollment.”
He acknowledged that the administrative link between the Bradford and Titusville campuses had caused “some resentment” among UPB staff. But he saw the recent response of 55 percent of Bradford staff to a survey of campus needs as a good sign of continued staff investment in UPB’s future.
Noting the social and fundraising activities that all SACs offer, Daniel said the Bradford SAC hoped to involve the local community more in campus activities.
• Mark Dougherty, Johnstown SAC president and executive director of housing and residence life, said UPJ was focused on its strategic planning process.
“We hear consistently from staff (that) they don’t feel like they’re involved in the governance,” he said but noted recent improvements, including the campus president involving SAC in planning talks. “That’s a really big step for Johnstown,” Dougherty said.
The campus also is planning staff development days during the fall and spring breaks, when the entire campus will close its offices to allow all staff to attend. Johnstown’s SAC also has worked to get more campus jobs posted for all staff to see.
He is hoping that SAC’s greater visibility on campus will result in increased SAC membership.
• Gayle Pamerlau, vice president of Greensburg SAC and director of the campus’s counseling services and its sole counselor, reported that “getting staff to participate has been an ongoing challenge for us,” with perhaps 12-15 members of the campus’s 130 staff attending meetings.
The group has worked to make the campus’s annual climate survey truly anonymous by removing demographics from survey answers and to make the annual staff recognition program, predicated on the accumulation of written kudos from encounters with the public, less of a contest.
• Tammy Knapp, Titusville SAC president and campus director of public relations and alumni relations, said the campus SAC was wrapping up its first year with no budget but a lot of participation, attracting up to 25 staff members to meetings on a campus of slightly more than 30 employees.
Colwell concluded the gathering by pledging to press the new chancellor for shared governance at all the regionals and to make certain that all SACs had at least minimal budgets and its members received two hours a month release time for SAC work — something codified in the Pittsburgh campus SAC bylaws.
Said SAC parliamentarian Lynn Rosen: “We want to be partners. We want to hear from you. We want to work with you in any way we can.”
—Marty Levine
Staff Association Councils from all Pitt campuses met for their annual Council of Campuses on July 9 to discuss ways to coordinate their work for campus staff. Among the officers in attendance were, from left: Marjorie Straub, vice president, Titusville; Tammy Knapp, president, Titusville; Mark Dougherty, president, Johnstown; Rich Colwell, president, Pittsburgh; Sherri Rae, vice president, Johnstown; Gayle Pamerlau, vice president, Greensburg; Patrick Daniel, president, Bradford.