Category Archives: Staff

Merle Kennedy

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Staff Coun­cil is alive and well after 20 years of ser­vice to the staff and uni­ver­sity. This has been a busy year for the Staff Coun­cil as we directed most of our atten­tion toward the actions of the Edu­ca­tional Retire­ment Board in fall 2010 and the New Mex­ico State Leg­is­la­ture in the 90-day ses­sion this spring. These two issues caused a tremen­dous amount of anx­i­ety on cam­pus, but the Staff Coun­cil worked hard to keep every­one informed of changes and encour­aged par­tic­i­pa­tion through com­ments from our constituents.

The ERB pro­pos­als, which dras­ti­cally changed retire­ment eli­gi­bil­ity, were met with campus-wide con­cern and out­rage. Our biggest con­cern was the pro­posed change of age and years of ser­vice require­ments for exist­ing mem­bers. A united effort from the UNM staff and fac­ulty was joined by teach­ers and edu­ca­tors across New Mex­ico to help per­suade the board to recon­sider their pro­posal to the leg­is­la­ture and not change the rules in mid­stream. We did sup­port the board’s con­cern for the sol­vency of the retire­ment fund and joined them in Santa Fe to sup­port bills that would address the sol­vency of our pen­sion fund.

Work­ing with the UNM Office of Gov­ern­ment Rela­tions and the Fac­ulty Sen­ate gov­ern­ment rela­tions com­mit­tee, the Staff Coun­cil spent many hours talk­ing to New Mex­ico leg­is­la­tors, encour­ag­ing them to sup­port fair and log­i­cal bills to repair the ERB. In the end though, the leg­is­la­ture didn’t address the sol­vency of the fund. The leg­is­la­ture added another 1.75 per­cent in employee con­tri­bu­tions on top of the 1.5 per­cent tem­po­rary swap from 2009. This does noth­ing to help the sol­vency of the fund and results in a 3.25 per­cent pay cut for state employ­ees, a bur­den that rests on the backs of all ERB members.

The Staff Coun­cil lead­er­ship tries hard to lis­ten to staff and learn how they feel so that we can respond appro­pri­ately to issues. It seems we have fought a los­ing bat­tle this year with very lit­tle suc­cess in our efforts to influ­ence the leg­is­la­ture, the regents and the gov­er­nor about the effects the ERB swap will have on our lives. How­ever, the emails and phone calls we received from staff were appre­cia­tive of the Staff Council’s efforts. They attest to the fact that staff is united and res­olute in con­tin­u­ing to oppose the prac­tice of using state employee retire­ment funds to bal­ance the state bud­get instead of address­ing the sol­vency issue of our pen­sion fund.

Pres­i­dent David Schmidly and his admin­is­tra­tion sup­ported our efforts with the leg­is­la­ture and ERB. We were also included in the uni­ver­sity bud­get efforts. Staff mem­bers were asked to serve on the cost con­tain­ment task force to solve the bud­get issues that the leg­isla­tive fund­ing cuts have imposed on the uni­ver­sity. I feel that work­ing with the admin­is­tra­tion, fac­ulty, deans and stu­dents in these tight eco­nomic con­di­tions has actu­ally improved the UNM com­mu­nity relationships.

The peo­ple that you meet dur­ing the course of serv­ing as Staff Coun­cil pres­i­dent are a reward I did not antic­i­pate. The board of regents gave untold hours of ser­vice to the uni­ver­sity. They have lis­tened to my reports and shown con­cern for the staff. I would like to extend a spe­cial thanks to for­mer Regents Pres­i­dent Ray­mond Sanchez. He is a true gentleman.

Pres­i­dent David Schmidly has treated me with friend­ship and has dis­played sup­port and respect to the UNM staff. It is good to see him look­ing well after his seri­ous ill­ness. Many mem­bers of the admin­is­tra­tion have helped the staff this year and for that, we are thank­ful. Richard Wood, Fac­ulty Sen­ate pres­i­dent, has dis­played out­stand­ing lead­er­ship this year. We did not solve every prob­lem, but we tried, and we worked together.

Kathy Mead­ows started as Staff Coun­cil admin­is­tra­tive coor­di­na­tor last July, replac­ing retir­ing Karen Ret­skin. Mead­ows is ded­i­cated to the posi­tion and has been invalu­able to the staff and to me dur­ing the past year. The mem­bers of the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee who vet the staff issues and direct the coun­cil are self­less and tire­less work­ers. So many staff serve qui­etly and go unrec­og­nized for their ser­vice on com­mit­tees and as coun­cilors. Thank you for your service!

Since I took office on May 18, 2010, the ERB and UNM bud­get have occu­pied a lot of my time, but the Staff Coun­cil has been busy on other things through­out my term as pres­i­dent. In July, the Staff Coun­cil expanded Staff Appre­ci­a­tion Week into an entire Staff Appre­ci­a­tion Month. Dur­ing the month of July we had sev­eral events that rec­og­nized our hard work­ing staff and showed appre­ci­a­tion for their ded­i­ca­tion to the uni­ver­sity. Also in July, the Staff Coun­cil cel­e­brated its 20th anniver­sary! In August, we pre­sented Elisha Allen with the Jim Davis Staff Coun­cil Award for Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice. Allen is a past pres­i­dent of Staff Coun­cil and con­tin­ues to serve as a coun­cilor and chair of the council’s gov­ern­ment rela­tions committee.

Last August, the Staff Coun­cil joined the UNM com­mu­nity in wel­com­ing the new Les­bian, Gay, Bisex­ual, Trans­gen­der and Ques­tion­ing Resource Cen­ter. The cen­ter adds another level of diver­sity for staff, stu­dents and fac­ulty. Diver­sity does mat­ter at UNM and the Staff Coun­cil is com­mit­ted to endors­ing this view and the new resource cen­ter that embraces it.

The council’s career devel­op­ment com­mit­tee worked hard on revis­ing the lan­guage in the university’s career lad­der pol­icy. In August, the coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion encour­ag­ing Human Resources to revisit and update this pol­icy. As a result of the res­o­lu­tion, HR insti­tuted changes to this pol­icy that make it clearer.

In Novem­ber, the council’s work+life com­mit­tee col­lected more than 600 pounds of left­over Hal­loween candy from the cam­pus com­mu­nity and sent it to Oper­a­tion Grat­i­tude. Oper­a­tion Grat­i­tude accepts dona­tions and sends them to ser­vice men and women over­seas. The Staff Coun­cil, along with a gen­er­ous dona­tion from the Divi­sion of Stu­dent Affairs to off­set ship­ping charges, sent 10 boxes of candy to Cal­i­for­nia for Oper­a­tion Gratitude.

In Decem­ber, the Staff Coun­cil and Interim Pres­i­dent Paul Roth pre­sented three staff employ­ees with the Ger­ald W. May Out­stand­ing Staff Award. The recip­i­ents were Mar­vin Gurule, Mar­ion McGrana­han and Can­dyce Tor­res. The May Award is the most pres­ti­gious award staff can receive. The Staff Coun­cil thanks the President’s Office for their assis­tance in plan­ning and fund­ing a recep­tion for the award recip­i­ents, their fam­i­lies and friends.

In Decem­ber, the Staff Coun­cil insti­tuted a new award pro­gram called the Staff Hero Award. This award is given to staff that have made a spe­cial effort in help­ing with an event, project or pro­vided spe­cial ser­vice to UNM staff. The coun­cil pre­sented three employ­ees with a cer­tifi­cate for their spe­cial achieve­ments: Kim Kloep­pel, Dean Jojola and Bar­bara Gabaldon.

In Decem­ber, the work+life com­mit­tee spon­sored a col­lec­tion drive to help the shel­ter pets at Ani­mal Humane and the city’s Ani­mal Wel­fare Depart­ment. From the main, north, south and branch cam­puses, the Staff Coun­cil col­lected more than six truck­loads of ani­mal items for these home­less pets await­ing adop­tion. We also col­lected more than $400 in cash dona­tions for Ani­mal Humane. It is evi­dent that UNM staff have a soft spot for the needy ani­mals and the two agen­cies were most grate­ful for all the gen­eros­ity shown by staff.

The Staff Coun­cil passed a res­o­lu­tion in March which formed a new coun­cil com­mit­tee called the Health Sci­ences Cen­ter Staff Coun­cilors Com­mit­tee. Mem­ber­ship includes all HSC coun­cilors and addresses issues of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to HSC staff. The chair of the com­mit­tee is Suzanne McConaghy.

Dur­ing March, the Staff Coun­cil held elec­tions to fill 30 seats rep­re­sent­ing job grades. We are pleased to say that all 30 seats have been filled and the new coun­cilors took office May 17, when the coun­cil also elected new offi­cers to carry on the work of the Staff Coun­cil. My only advice to the new offi­cers is to keep the wel­fare of staff as your guid­ing prin­ci­ple. Each per­son brings unique abil­i­ties to the posi­tion you fill so fill the posi­tion with your unique abil­i­ties and have some fun along the way.

By Merle Kennedy, Staff Coun­cil President