Committees

Communications Committee

Primary Responsibilities:

• Informs the staff, university community, the Board of Visitors, and the Virginia State Legislature as to the mission of the Staff Senate.
• Communicates information to staff concerning new employee orientation, employee training and development, incentives and rewards, benefits, retirement planning, and related matters utilizing university and non-university media and/or other appropriate means as needed.
• Interfaces with university and non-university media sources to provide information on Staff Senate activities when appropriate.
• Fulfills communications needs of Staff Senate as requested by the President or Executive Committee.

Chair: Bruce Harper

Committee Members:

Elections and Nominations Committee

Primary Responsibilities:

• Coordinates the Staff Senate elections process. This committee is responsible for ensuring that the Staff Senate Constitution and Bylaws are followed when electing Staff Senate members, officers and representative to the University Council, Commissions, Advisory Councils, and Committees.
• Composes a list of nominations for Staff Senate officers and representatives to the University Council, Commissions, Advisory Councils, and Committees as needed.
• Makes recommendations to the President for appointment of members and chairs to Staff Senate committees.
• Monitors elections of senators by the staff associations and oversees votes on proposed amendments to the Constitution and Bylaws of the Staff Senate.

Chair: Judy Taylor

Committee Members:

Policies and Issues Committee

Primary Responsibilities:

• Serves as a link between the Staff Senate and the Office of Personnel Services and/or University Administration in general on personnel and related matters.
• Brings to the Staff Senate's attention changes in policies and procedures that may affect the staff and advises the Staff Senate on these issues. This includes monitoring the activities of the University Council, Commissions, Advisory Councils, and Committees that may affect the staff.
• Provides assistance to the staff in obtaining educational leave, tuition waivers, and other educational opportunities.

Chair: Judy Alford

Committee Members:

McComas Leadership Seminar Planning Committee

Primary Responsibilities:

• Under the leadership of the chair(s) this committee plans the annual staff leadership seminar (McComas) that is open to all University and Classified full time staff at Virginia Tech.
• Strategize as a group to find faculty and staff leaders from around campus to speak to issues of staff leadership. (acquiring, communicating with them, coordinating speaker notes, speaker gifts, etc.)
• Provide a program which meets staff where they are, and helps them grow their skills as leaders.
• Other areas of planning include: Venue (acquiring, working with caterer, layout of events, Audio/Visual, ADA compliant, etc.); Registration; Door Prizes; Goody Bags; Sponsors; Vendors, and Helping the day of the event (communicating issues, answering questions, assisting participants/speakers/venders).

Chair: Zerita Montgomery

Committee Members:

Ad hoc Committees

There are currently two ad hoc committees supported by the Staff Senate.

Child Care

Chair: Katrina Loan

Access to affordable childcare is not great in this area. There are long waiting lists for families for a spot at existing child care facilities. This committee will be presenting a report with its findings to BOV and President for possible actions. There are three task forces in this committee.

1. Task Force #1 — Focus on Staff: This task force focused on staffing daycare centers. One solution is to help the Alliance for Better Childcare Strategies (ABC) to recruit people to become qualified childcare workers.
2. Task Force #2 — Research Institutions: This task force focused on research into other universities&srquo; childcare plans in rural areas that are like Virginia Tech. It has reviewed the University of Charleston and a few others and is still collecting information.
3. Task Force#3 — Funding Sources: This task force is focused on a search for different ways to fund a daycare within the University as well as surrounding areas, such as privately owned daycares and partnership-owned daycare facilities. This is a proposal to create two different endowments: one for tuition assistance for childcare and one to go toward building new facilities in and around the surrounding areas.

This committee is also working with HR to create a survey for all staff members to better assess the issue to obtain more solutions to the childcare problems at Virginia Tech.

Strategic Planning

Primary Responsibilities:

The Staff Senate established this ad hoc committee to guide our staff representative to the university's strategic planning group. The Senate's committee will have two phases and areas where they will work:

1. Gather feedback from staff across our extended campuses on the proposed mission, vision, core values, and strategic objects that will guide the creation of the university's new strategic plan for the next few years. Once a draft of that plan is released, the committee will provide additional feedback to ensure staff needs and concerns are addressed within the plan.
2. Once the final strategic plan is released, colleges and other administrative units will write their own strategic plan, and this committee will be tasked with writing an abbreviated plan for Staff Senate, highlighting those strategic objectives most closely related to staff work.

Chair: Tamarah Smith