Faculty Senate Meeting, October 18, 2022

Minutes

2022/2023 FACULTY SENATE

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

2:00pm – 3:00pm

Virtual Meeting-Zoom

1) Call to Order

There was a call to order at 2:02 PM

Roll Call

1. Present:
   • Ed Boog (SCS)
   • Cheryl Olson (SA)
   • Michele Casella (SA)
   • Tillery Williams (SA)
   • Glenn Heath (SCS)
   • Marinn Clampit (SCS)
   • Gar Casale (SCS)
   • Eric March (SCS)
   • Monica Aguilar (SCS)
   • Danielle Donato (SA)
   • Cruz Chacon (SCS)

1. Absent:

• Jim Lowe (SCS)
• Gibran Chavez-Gudino (SA)
• Crystal Chang (SA)

1. Quorum established.

2) Approval of Minutes

Minutes were not available for approval. Tabled for next meeting.

3) Welcome to Crystal Chang and Public Comments

1. Welcome Crystal Chang for serving as our new Faculty Senate member, she replaced Christine Haynes.

4) Guest(s): Andrew Clinger & Anne Milkovich

• • Was money taken from SCS for Dr. Rose’s settlement? If so, will it be returned to SCS? [Andrew] No money was taken from SCS. It was taken from a Special Project account which is funded from Investment Income Distribution. There is a program that supports System Office that has been used for a structural deficit in System Administration and it is funneled from SCS. It has been this way for over 10 years. Andrew and Anne are going to take this to the legislature to fix this. There was a position that was lost to SCS because an SA position was taken by it. The second part of the question is going to be a one-shot for Mainframe savings and part of that money will be used to fund back the state and indirectly be put back for SCS.
  • There was Broadband funding that is coming to SCS for expansion. It is a one-shot process and is still a ways out. Once it goes through the Governor’s office and Legislature there is a good chance that the money will be more readily available. February is the next legislative session, and we will know by mid-January what is in the Governor’s budget for 2024-2025.
  • Has UNR reclaimed space in SCS-North. [Anne] UNR would like to occupy the space. At one time we did clear out things so that they could occupy some of the space. That is not the case and SCS still occupies the space. There are still talks about potential moves, which would require a multi-year process. [GH] there was more to the question if UNR was occupying the space such as: What if we must return to work and there is no space to work? Since we occupy the space, this is not relevant. Is there more construction planned?
  • Does UNLV also want SCS-South? [Anne] UNLV has never had questions reclaiming the South Data Center. [Andrew] There have been questions regarding the SA building, and its use at UNR. They would love to have the whole building or to share the building, but nothing has yet been worked out. In their words “It has got to be worth their while to invest in the building. If they want to invest money and upgrade the building, they must utilize it for their staff.” In the long run does this meet the needs of SCS? That is something that has yet to be determined.
  • What did BOR decide on remote work policy? [Andrew] The Board has not weighed in on this. Unless a Regent takes this up under New Business we will not visit it or change the Board Policy which stands. However, we still have to establish the policy for SCS and how to implement remote work. Monday we have to create an internal police for working from home. Nothing has been adopted but just ideas/options.
  • i) Full time remote — depends on position/what kind of work is done which would require coming to the building twice a month-possibly something scheduled around a staff meeting. There would be no permanent office for individuals working full time remote. ii) Hybrid option — up to 3 days remote and the rest in-office

iii) Flex schedule – set up between employee and supervisor. The requirement being that an individual must be available through Teams and Ring Central. Everyone must work out the Space options for the Flex schedule.

We do not anticipate that the Board will change anything. [Anne] In Reno, if we did return from remote work, we would need to find further office/bench space. Nowhere do we have enough space for our Data Center. We have funding questions pertaining to it. Eliza Chancellor’s new assistant has contacted us, she is part of a space study. They are doing a site-tour and looking at available space. A space study is being conducted. [Andrew] SANorth is not as bad as SA-South.

• [MC] She solicited questions for the Workday Team for questions. They covered the question on remote work. Are there plans for employee retention and the issues for retaining employees at SA and SCS? [Andrew] Unfortunately we do not have a lot of tools to retain employees. Remote work is one of the tools we can use to offer. It is one of the reasons why we are moving forward with it. [Anne] Retention is important for her and managing equity and pay and compensation across the board is a good tool. SCS is always comparing salaries to see if everyone is equitable within their jobs. Anne is proactively managing with the constraints of the state.
• [CO] Is there funding for professional development training? [Andrew] SCS departments have training dollars, but it is more restrictive for SA. [Anne] It is projected out to budget to build in cost for what will be needed for travel and training. We have to invest to stay current with professional development and not fall behind. [Andrew] It is built into some department budgets so people would have to check with their supervisors at SA for funding.
• [MA] How would we expect to recruit, support and diversify faculty and staff — along the lines of retention? [Andrew] We would have to look at and identify the data. What should diversity look like at NSHE? Should it be representative of the students? Probably. What do the targets look like? What does diversity look like? We begin to operationalize that and as we look at our search committees. The search committees then have to be deliberate in their approach. They have to talk about it, we also have to check our biases because most people don’t realize we have them. [Anne] We have had some good recruits recently because SCS is seen as a desirable place to work. We have employees from the institutions who have asked us to find positions for them. One of the reasons why she is a proponent of remote work is this will help us accommodate and advertise positions as remote friendly. It helps on our recruitment efforts to advertise as remote-friendly.
• [EB]Do we have a grant or state funds to move SCS-North to a new location? [Anne] We do not have any grants for moving, that is not typically how grant funds are used. We have some funding to use/move the Data Center? We need RFP for a consultant to come in and lay out a plan. We may be short $700 thousand dollars with a one-shot for moving. What happens if we don’t get the funds? [Andrew] The crux of the funding and the request are low priority. [Anne] We can do an assessment on the institution since we all rely on that infrastructure. We are working on grants and collaborating with the state on a federal grant for broadband expansion. Scotty is leading the research on large-scale research grant.
• [EB] What percentage of SCS is remote? [Anne] 85% of SCS is remote/working full-time from home. There are people who go in because they like it and there are those whose job requires them to touch equipment.
• [EB] If someone is working remotely is there a policy that states they should answer there phone or be readily available on Teams or how to dress for business? [Anne] Our policy pretty much states that we must wear a shirt, there is no other rules. There are those who do not want to turn on their camera. She thinks it can be detrimental to not turn on their camera. [Andrew] From a policy standpoint pretty much we should Ring Central and Teams readily available. We may not talk about dress code as part of it and does not see it as something which will be discussed at the meeting.
• [EB] Donated money to club at UNR and part of it was given to NSHE. How does it get distributed? [Anne[ It may be something that Ed will have to follow up because every institution is different. [MC] They may have a program set up that can then distributed.
• [EB] What is the budget for BOR meetings? BOR meetings used to be once a quarter and now they are every-other-week so is there an open budget. [Andrew]There is a budget but they have to make amendments for it due to the volume of events.

6) New Business

1. • We will send an invitation to the Chancellor so he can be our next guest speaker.
   • [TW] Dale will recommend that we keep/continue our remote policy to operate and not make it an issue or draw attention. [CO] We should send it for approval as we can recruit people and offer them a permanent position with the full-time remote option as a benefit. [GH] Regent elections are in November so voting may/may not go to a calendar year depending on if it is a recommendation. [MC] It would be a great way to diversify for the jobs that are hard to fill. She will also send a list that Marcie sent to search the candidates.
   • We need to have an updated email list for Faculty Senate. (GH) said he would submit a request to update the email list.

7) Next Meeting

Tuesday, October 18, 2022, at 2:00 PM

8) Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 2:55 pm

Placeholder