Greetings!

Spring vacation is almost upon us and some of us will be using that time to catch up and others will be taking a much needed and deserved break.

There are some important updates and information I need to share with you:

Sadly, Marilyn Simons, our Recording Secretary for the last four years has resigned. Marilyn had given much dedicated service in her officer capacity and has struggled to keep up with both the demands of her job and the responsibilities of the Senate and needs to devote more energy to her work. Marilyn will remain as a Classified Senator and has said she could help out with other small tasks. Thanks to Marilyn for her service to the Senate and to classified employees. Good luck Marilyn!

This unfortunately brings us to a precarious position. The Executive Committee now has only two remaining officers. While our new officer elections are only a few months away, they will not officially take office until July 1 and we really need to have some assistance on the Executive Committee until then. You will notice that on this month’s agenda, I have put an item to nominate and affirm some temporary officers to fill the remainder of the term. I feel the need to explain my reasoning. The Executive Committee began their two year terms with a full group but there were several challenges that have given us difficulties. CSEA Chapter 36 changed their bylaws that made it impossible for an elected or appointed officer or negotiating team member of the Chapter to hold another officer position in any other classified organization. Because of this we lost both our Treasurer/Fundraiser and Corresponding Secretary. We had hopes of having special elections to fill them, but we needed to get our own bylaws written and approved and it the special elections never happened. If you recall the Senate as a group agreed that for officers it really wanted to have senators with at least one year of experience to be eligible rather than open the nominations to the entire classified community. I believe this was a sound decision and provides for experienced officers. I reviewed the bylaws and could find nothing that would prevent us from nominating and affirming temporary officers to fill the remainder of the terms. I would say that if the vacancies were longer than six months it would be more appropriate to have elections but at this point, the organization needs more than two officers to conduct Executive Committee business. This might also allow some of you as Senators to try out an officer role in a temporary capacity to see if this level of responsibility is appropriate for you. Please review your bylaws and when this agenda item comes up, let’s see if we can work this out.

With the assistance of Barbara Siegel the letter to Dr. Robertson concerning our desire for more formal input into the Personnel Commissioner Selection process has been developed and sent. I will provide copies of the letter at the Senate meeting and I believe you will agree the letter adequately reflects the Senate viewpoint on this matter. Thanks to Barbara Siegel and the members of the Executive Committee for working on this.

I sent an email to both Dr. Robertson and Robert Sammis asking for a recommitment of support for the Classified Senate. Per your direction last month. This will help us as we try to bring new classified employees to the Senate. I had a very good meeting with Robert Sammis on March 30 and again he confirmed that the Administration is in full support of a Classified Senate and will do what they can do assist us. In this meeting we also talked about the future projects for the Classified Senate. As we have all heard, the Administrative Regulations and Policies and Procedures are being reviewed and revised. Mr. Sammis feels that the Senate will play an important role in reviewing these policies. He hopes that these will be coming to us by the end of April. We discussed Professional Development and there needs to be a change to how we provide orientation to new employees to the campus. He states that when we hire someone we send them to their worksite but really don’t give them even minimal training or orientation to the college community. He sees that the Classified Senate could give valuable input to how a new system is developed.

I am the Senate representative to the District Technology Committee. One of our tasks is to update the Technology Master Plan for the next three years. It is fairly well known that for instructional technology needs there is funding and a way to apply for new or upgraded software and hardware. Most of these requests go the Academic and Classified Senate Joint Information Services Committee. Student Services requests go through a similar process however the funding isn’t always as plentiful. The other areas that don’t fall in those two categories such as the administrative functions and services areas (maintenance, operations, etc) are nearly left out of the process entirely. This is not to say they are never given opportunities for technology but it would have to come from the general fund money and not specialized block grants, as do institutional requests. My concern as I related to the committee was for the service areas. I understand that maintenance has one computer and it may not be readily accessible. These areas need to feel connected and have the same opportunities for email and inter/intranet access as do the rest of us. I stated very strongly that we need to find a way to give these areas more computers. The committee is in agreement and that is a very important step. What we talked about was the process of migration or cascading. What this really means is recycling. Many of the computers in the student labs are extremely fast and on the high end of the technology. These computers are replaced usually every three years with new computers from grants. The recycled computers are then passed on to either other labs or departments. The computers that are replaced in those departments are passed along to other departments and so on. We are getting to the stage, where for the needs of the areas with only a few or no computer access, these recycled computers would be appropriate. Now, I must tell you that this isn’t going to happen tomorrow. There is no value in just dumping an older computer into a department or area without one when it might be really ready for the scrap heap. Some of these computers by the time the migration/cascading or recycling gets to them might be better as paperweights and cause more frustration and problems. We must also keep in mind that older computers might need more service and repair and if parts are no longer available it just simply isn’t worth it to give this to the employee. It's just like teasing them. Well, you know what I mean. The Telecom staff has done a pretty extensive inventory and is even working on a replacement schedule. There are a few colleges that have good working examples of computer recycling programs and the members of the committee are getting reports from these colleges to help us work up our own plan. It’s happening, but we just have to be a little patient.

While we are on the subject of technology, begin asking your colleagues what they feel would their input on technology needs. I know that for instance I have been an advocate for electronic forms. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to type forms (Bravo to Campus events for making the Application for Use of College Facilities an electronic form!!!). Technology training needs or software standardization are probably important ones to consider.

Congratulations to Bernie Rosenloecher, Marilyn Goodrich, Olga Chao and Gloria Mottler for being approved to attend the Classified Leadership Institute, "Expanded Roles in the New Century," sponsored by the California Community College Classified Senate and the Community College League of California. The institute will be held once again in Reno June 21-23. There are still a few spaces remaining for classified to attend. Please contact Olga Chao or myself if you need more information.

Resolution recognizing Exclusive Representative for Shared Governance

Bakersfield College has drafted a resolution to be voted on at the CSEA Annual conference in Las Vegas during the summer. This resolution discusses that the classified employees are most appropriately represented by its exclusive representative for all aspects of labor relations including shared governance. Their resolution would seek legislation to establish a college’s exclusive representative as the legally authorized classified units shared governance representative. This is an extremely dangerous and detrimental resolution to all classified employees. Unfortunately this resolution is in response to some colleges having Senates which function as opposition to collective bargaining agents rather than work in harmony. Should this legislation be enacted, Classified Senates would most undoubtedly cease to exist. Here at Santa Monica College this would be very bad. Where we currently have four representatives to committees, we would then have two and a host of other problems would occur. I have sent this information on to the state Classified Senate and already local Senates are adopting resolutions in direct opposition to this resolution. This has nothing to do with our local CSEA chapter 36. Our relationship is not in question, but I think it might be wise for us to adopt some sort of position on this issue.

I have been working on a newsletter for our local Senate. I have called it "The Agenda." I feel that we need to do some public relations work and get the information out on what the Senate is and how classified can get involved. I expect the first issue will be out in approximately a week or so.

I was approached by a member of the Academic Senate, John Hoover about the Student Relief Fund. This is a fund established and facilitated by the Academic Senate to provide financial assistance to students in dire need. Any employee may contribute to this fund by payroll deduction. My information on this Relief Fund is limited and I did ask that we have a representative on the committee to approve the funding requests. Since we have some experience on emergency funds of this nature our experience could be utilized. I think that for instance a student applying to this fund should be somehow required to apply for financial aid and look at other forms of assistance. As more information becomes available, I will pass it along to you.

I know this was a lot of information this month, but things are picking up for the Senate and I needed to give you all this information. Please, please pass this along to your colleagues. I have asked you to email me your thoughts on how to get our classified community informed on Senate and college activities. Your responses have indicated that you would like me to send out an email directing classified to the information on the Senate webpage and requesting anyone who does not have access to be given hard copies. However, the employees who most need to let us know they don’t have access won’t get the email to give us this information. Please be the ears of the Senate and let me know who needs hard copies if someone tells you. I always make extra copies of the agenda packet and will gladly provide you with an extra copy so you can post one if you wish.

Our meeting is early this month due to spring break. It is this coming Thursday, April 6, at 12noon. Invite someone new to our meeting and tell them we provide snacks!

See you on April 6^th!

Tony

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