Staff Executive Council

All-Staff Meeting
Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 3:00pm
Roberts Drive Campus Teleconference Room

Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. by Chair Sheila Marcum.

Approval of Minutes
There were no corrections to the minutes. Vickie Stidham made a motion, seconded by Monty Fowler, to approve the minutes. The minutes were approved.

President's Report

• Dr. Adkins said that the June 3 Staff Learning Conference will be held at the Technology Drive Campus, and we will have lunch there. Staff members from across the KCTCS System have not been there. Also, we will dedicate that campus some time around the last of April or first of May. There were some maintenance problems that have been cleared up. It was very important to get that taken care of before the dedication.
• Dr. Adkins said, as many of you know, a few weeks ago there was an electrical outage. Kentucky Electric Power (KEP) folks thought they were able to fix over the weekend, but there were problems. Our Maintenance Staff did a wonderful job in dealing with all of this.
• There are conduits that are about 30 years old that are failing. Water has submerged part of a conduit over time. KEP owns them, and they have the responsibility of replacing them. They will also upgrade the power supply. Staff from KEP have said they think we can wait until mid – late May to do this.
• There will be a planned outage after commencement. We may be able to keep the CDC campus open with a generator. If not, we will have a plan to have some employees come to RDC and some to TDC. KEP will start on a weekend and work double shifts in order to try to get this done as quickly as possible. We will be open for business.
• Dr. Adkins said we will be able to pay our bills with the current budget. There has been a decrease form last year. There are contingency funds built in that will be used. Within the proposed house budget, most of KCTCS cuts for the current year have been restored in the house budget. Rocky Adkins has indicated $18 million is appropriated for the TDC. This will go a long way toward helping the college. Dr. Adkins met with Rocky Adkins and 30 other members of the delegation. They put in the additional funds to get us closer to where we need to be.
• In the next two to three months, the college will have purchased a manufactured, high quality float for use in area parades, and it will be assigned to the Student Government Association. This is being purchased from proceeds from the Bookstore, from extra funds generated from the sale of soft goods.
• We are going to invest in a great float. In the next 6 – 8 months, we will have a new truck capable of pulling the float. It will have the KCTCS/ACTC logo. We will encourage SGA to be creative and do some of these things. We will be able to store it at RDC and work on it inside. We need more presence out there and will be able to use it in the other counties and communities.
• Dr. Adkins reported on the Strategic Planning process. He said we now have had an opportunity for faculty, staff, students, the Board of Directors and the Foundation Board to participate in a SWOT Analysis. Approximately 125 employees participated in sessions, and it was voluntary. We had a very good session with our Board members last week.
• We will pull this all together for one more session with faculty, staff and students to report back to you what we have done. From there, we will develop the results into our narrative describing what we plan to do for the next five years. This will include a strategic plan for facilities.
• We have a group working on a master plan for facilities, and Dr. Adkins shared with Staff where we are. He said Evans & Associates has worked hard to give us feedback very quickly. He also showed some display boards of some proposed plans that Evans & Associates have prepared for all three campuses.
• For TDC, he pointed out the existing building and parking and showed the proposed Phase II building of approximately 50,000 square feet. The drawing was based on less money from last week, so it could be a little larger if funding permits. The high bay areas from the shops will be the last to go to TDC (i.e. Diesel, Auto and Carpentry). Phase II would have, as a centerpiece, areas for Student Services, Culinary Arts and other classes. We will need to do a programmatic analysis.
• He showed the proposed access road around the campus. We want to put this in a rough form from the very beginning. This area is a former strip mine. It was dynamically compacted with a lot of fill dirt and compaction. The compaction on new areas is vital to not affect the structure of existing buildings as they go up. It is expensive, but very important. Heavy trucks and equipment will use this access road to help with the compaction.
• He showed additional parking for Phase II. Also, by having Culinary Arts there at the TDC Phase II, they could use this as a learning opportunity for students and provide a service to other business entities in the area.
• He showed the display board for the RDC and said part of the RDC campus would rotate to TDC. The South Campus can be sold as an educational site or as a medical complex. We have various ideas on how this could be marketed. We will maintain the South and North Campuses in good shape until we leave it for reasons of safety and convenience, as well as for marketability.
• He showed the CDC board with existing facilities and parking, as well as new facilities. Dr. Adkins said the last plan for these facilities was in 1994. Behind the Main Building and LRC were two new buildings. The first was conceived as a new Library/LRC facility. The current LRC will have general classrooms upstairs.
• The second building is earmarked as a Student Services area with a Student Center. We are discussing combining these two proposed one-story facilities into one two-story facility. This would save a lot on some of the more expensive parts of the construction (i.e. the foundations and roof expenses).
• In addition, the display showed a new Allied Health Programs facility. He said there are some funds available for health education facilities. We will also be able to bring the science labs up to date. There is a possibility that the current proposed location of the Allied Health facility could change. Dr. Adkins also pointed out and described the areas of the new child development center and playground area across the street from the campus.
• He said next Wednesday we will execute a final document for purchase of the house on the corner. We then will own all property from corner to corner here along Ramey. He said Frank Salisbury and he are closer and closer to a breakthrough on funds to build the Child Development Center. Now we own all the property on which to build it, and this will aid us in our asking for funds.
• Having this facility across the street will help with faculty/staff parking. We will be able to have parking for the Child Development Center across the street. There will be improved pedestrian walkways.
• He showed parking areas on Oakview. Within the month of March, we should have title to the two pieces of property on Oakview. There will need to be more rock base put down, and then the graded lot is to be paved. This will yield another 100 parking places. We will do this with angled parking for a better flow. People have been blocked in previously on the lower lot. We have added extra lights for safety and security, and having the area striped and marked should relieve some of these problems.
• He discussed usage of an area on Oakview with trees and grass where we will retain the greenery and build a gazebo or shelter for faculty, staff and students. He also talked a little more about the Allied Health facility saying it could be moved. It is a stand alone facility.
• Dr. Adkins was asked about the timeline, and he said the Board of Directors has to act on this. It will be presented in May. It helps also to know more about the appropriations. We may be able to expand the plan at TDC with additional funding.
• The BOR has to sign off on this. We will also have to see where we fit on the KCTCS priority of the colleges. The first step is the approved plan. We will work on the funding for the Child Development Center with private dollars. We will be checking on federal moneys for the Allied Health building.
• The question was also posed to Dr. Adkins as to whether the anatomy and science labs would go in the Allied Health Building, and he replied yes.
• In discussing current facilities, he said there are easily three to four million dollars worth of repairs needed. We cannot spend it all at one time, so we are working on it as we can. Our investment is not being very well protected if we do not maintain our facilities. The Board of Directors and Foundation Board have made this a high priority. We will need to balance new facilities with maintenance of facilities we already have.
• Another question was raised as to whether there is a different way to bring power in to the facility. He said one way proposed would be good for another 20 – 30 years. There is a way, however, to come in with a new approach, so that it is not now under the facility. This would be a much easier add on. So we are waiting to hear on this. It would be a lot less expense and trouble to energize the facility and the new load.

New Business

• Staff Learning Conference – Chair Marcum reminded Staff that the Staff Learning Conference will be held June 3. She said more details will be coming. The keynote speaker will be Sandra Kerry from Lexington Community College. She will be presenting a session on personal/professional balance (learning to balance your personal and professional life).
• This session will be held during the morning, followed by lunch. Breakout sessions will be held in the afternoon, and she will conduct one of the breakout sessions, in addition to others from which Staff will be able to choose.
• For Staff from Ashland, there will be no charge for registration. Staff should be able to register online soon. Marcum thanked all on the planning committee for their hard work.
• Staff Excellence Award – Marcum said that she has asked Martha Persinger to chair a committee to look at a process for developing a Staff Excellence Award.
• Persinger said we will be asking Staff for help in defining staff excellence. She said that we will want to have Staff meet as a group and then in breakout sessions, similar to what we did with the Strategic Planning meetings in the fall.
• She said that there has been discussion about defining three levels of staff for purposes of the award with some definitions for the three levels of staff excellence. These would include, for example, service staff (such as Maintenance & Operations and Housekeeping), office support/clerical staff, and Administrative/Professional Staff (some of whom may be supervisors with additional responsibilities). This is something that can be discussed at the meetings. She said this award would not be tied to the normal evaluation process. It is more a sense of pride in recognizing excellence and what you do for the college.
• She said faculty will help us as they developed a Teaching Excellence Award. They held a series of forums where they asked people, “What does “teaching excellence” mean?
• The Valued Employees Committee would like Staff to come up with a process to be implemented beginning July 2006. We will need to come up with a statement of guidelines/principles. There will be more than one forum to reach everyone, as there are different shifts and different campuses. It would not be possible to reach everyone on the same day, so we will announce those dates soon.
• Employee Recognition for All-College Meeting – Louise Shytle reported that last year for the first time we were able to recognize all college employees. Last year we recognized years of service and educational milestones that were presented to us. She said everyone will need to notify Human Resources of their educational achievements, and she said HR will tell us so we can make your educational achievement known.
• Shytle said if you were left out last year because we did not know, please let us know for this year. We are working hard to make those corrections, so she emphasized the need to let them know.
• Staff Elections – Marcum said Staff elections will be held in April. A Nominating Committee has been appointed to identify people for various offices. Kathy Riley will chair this subcommittee. If members of Staff would like to email suggestions for nominees to Riley, she would be grateful. Marcum said they will let Staff know which officers are up for re-election.
• The Nominating Committee will give a slate of officers, and nominations will also be accepted from the floor. Additional members of the Nominating Committee include Carol Roe, Jackie Binion, Elvona Wilson, Anna Tolliver, Janice Jenkins and Rae Ann Caldwell.
• The elections will be held during the April 25 meeting at 3:00 p.m. at the College Drive Campus. If you have any questions, please see Kathy Riley or Sheila Marcum.
• In-Service Day – Dr. Greg Adkins announced that the first spring In-Service Day is March 18, on a Friday. It was placed in the calendar for the first time this year. The fall In-Service Day in the future will be the Teaching/Learning Conference.
• The spring day is one for which we can decide as a college what we want to do. There will be no students, so we should be able to come together. It is a work day, but it is an in-service day. The Faculty will be meeting in the morning. We will have a meeting of the entire college community for a discussion of SACS requirements and preparation for the accreditation visit. There have been a lot of changes, and Steve Flouhouse and Keith Brammell will brief us on these changes.
• Dr. Adkins said several folks will attend a meeting on April 1 at KCTCS. Someone will be there from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ staff to brief us on the requirements. We are now accredited and will continue to be accredited, but it will require a great deal of work on our part.
• He also said Staff will have breakout sessions at the In-Service Day. Also, Jack Trautwein will present on credit for prior learning. Lunch will be served. He said we will let more information will be sent out about locations on campus for the meetings.
• Announcements – Marcum said two names were submitted to her to announce as new employees to be introduced at the meeting. They are Susan Thompson and Shirley McKinley. Marcum welcomed them on board as new employees in the Library area.
• She also announced that Ruth Leone will be the Team Captain for the March of Dimes Walk-a-thon. She encouraged everyone to participate in this great cause. The walk is April 30. Leone will send additional information out on it.
• Kim Minnehan announced that she had been asked to be on the Executive Committee for the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk. She will be unable to do it at this time. She said it is a once a month meeting, but there is a lot of work involved. If anyone is willing to volunteer, please let her know.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m
Submitted by: Sherri Apostolon
ACTC Staff Secretary