Posts Tagged: Matt Baur

Nominations open for staff assembly leadership

The staff assembly is seeking volunteers interested in serving a leadership role within the staff assembly on the Staff Assembly Council. This is an exciting opportunity for senior and junior staff to engage senior leadership, expand their network, and help to improve the working experience for fellow staff members. 

The Staff Assembly Council currently consists of a chair, a vice chair/treasurer, a scribe, a program chair, a senior Council of University of California Staff Assemblies (CUCSA) delegate and a junior CUCSA delegate. 

ANR staff members are being sought to serve in the posts of junior CUCSA delegate, vice chair, program chair (s) and scribe. Candidates can be self-nominated or nominated by someone else.

Matt Baur is currently chairing the nominating committee, which conducts the elections and will communicate the results of the elections at the Staff Assembly Networking function at the ANR Statewide meeting in Ontario in April. In addition to Baur, the nominating committee includes two UC ANR Staff Assembly members at large. 

Nominations for positions on the Staff Assembly Council will take place from March 1 through March 9. Voting will be by survey and will take place March 19 through March 30. 

The duties of the positions can be found on the Staff Assembly website http://staffassembly.ucanr.edu under the “Bylaws” tab. In short, the vice chair/treasurer drafts annual budgets, the scribe takes meeting minutes, program chair develops programs and meetings, and the Junior CUCSA representative attends quarterly CUCSA meetings and participates in CUCSA workgroups.  All members of the council assist with committee responsibilities and committee assignments as needed. The council meets monthly by zoom and has in-person meetings once or twice a year.

If you have additional questions, please contact your local staff assembly ambassador.

 

Humiston introduces new Staff Assembly and Principles of Community

UC ANR now has its own Staff Assembly and Principles of Community, announced UC ANR vice president Glenda Humiston at a town hall in the ANR Building in Davis on May 20, which was broadcast at ANR facilities and offices throughout the state. The two new initiatives are direct results of the Work Environment Assessment (systemwide campus climate study) conducted in 2012 and UC ANR's Work Environment Assessment workshops in 2015.

“I'm especially pleased to be able to bring this announcement to you,” Humiston said. “Principles of Community and staff assembly are milestones in the history of the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.”

Late last year, Humiston appointed a committee to draft the Principles of Community and she appointed a committee to develop the process for forming the statewide ANR Staff Assembly.

“I want to offer my sincere thanks to the members of these committees for their commitment and their work,” Humiston said.

Both committees completed draft documents, which are now on the web for review and input. Staff Assembly bylaws are on the Staff Assembly website. The Principles of Community are on UC ANR's main website. Forms for submitting questions and comments are available for both documents.

Matt Baur, chair of the Staff Assembly committee and associate director of the Western Region IPM Center, introduced the new Staff Assembly framework at the town hall meeting. He said all staff in ANR are part of the Staff Assembly, including all appointment types and county employees.

“Everyone needs to participate in the assembly for it to function properly,” Baur said. “We want to offer opinions and recommendations to leadership on policies, processes and programs, and to channel information from leadership back to the staff. It's a two-way information flow.”

Part of the assembly's mission will be offering learning opportunities, career training and professional development to ANR staff to further career advancement. Humiston said the Staff Assembly joins Academic Assembly as equally important pieces of shared governance for UC ANR.

Two members of the Staff Assembly committee will represent ANR at the statewide meeting in June of the Council of UC Staff Assemblies. In the fall, winter and spring, ANR Staff Assembly plans to hold regional meetings around the state to engage staff in the organization.

The Principles of Community were outlined at the Town Hall by committee chair Terri White, executive assistant for Communication Services and Information Technology. She said the committee started its work with 31 pages of comments from the environmental assessment workshops. They looked for commonalities to identify workshop participants' suggestions for creating a welcoming and inclusive workplace.

“With our group, we determined that fairness, trust, respect, physical and emotional safety and security were important. That was what we felt our target was,” White said. “We vetted our early draft with 12 academics and staff and introduced it to leadership in March. Now we're looking to all of you for input.”

The principles outlined in the document are:

• Ensure open communication
• Work together to achieve common goals and mutual understandings
• Value the contribution and worth of all members
• Appreciate and celebrate differences and diversity
• Foster a sense of belonging and emotional safety
• Practice mutual respect
• Demonstrate ethics and integrity
• Invest in all members
• Recognize that all members are important

In closing the town hall session, Humiston noted that the larger vision of the Division is outlined in the Strategic Vision 2025 and that the existing Strategic Initiatives will continue for at least another five years.

“As we're working together, that's our vision of where we are and where we are going as we implement the Principals of Community and utilize the Staff Assembly to get us there,” Humiston said.

View the 27-minute video of the town hall below.

UC ANR Staff Assembly and Principles of Community committees formed

On behalf of the Work Environment Assessment Committee, we want to thank all who volunteered to be part of statewide committees to create an ANR Staff Assembly and to develop UC ANR Principles of Community. Response throughout the six regional workshops was tremendous and we appreciate your enthusiasm.

From the list of nearly 50 volunteers, committee rosters were developed that balance people from different areas of the state and different job responsibilities in order to provide a diverse representation of UC ANR. For those not selected, we sincerely appreciate your willingness to serve and to be part of these committees. 

Here are the committee members:

UC ANR Staff Assembly	UC ANR Principles of Community
Matt Baur Andrew Besson Janelle Hansen Tammy Majcherek Lori Renstrom Nikolai Schweitzer Jeannette Warnert	Mary Blackburn Tina Jordan Emily LaRue Chris Martinez Laura Snell Katherine Soule Erin Thompson Jeff Tibayan Liz Villalobos Terri White

The Staff Assembly will be a mechanism through which non-academic staff will be able to voice their issues, concerns and suggestions. The committee will meet throughout the fall and then provide a report to UC ANR Senior Leadership in February 2016.  

The Principles of Community Committee will also work throughout the fall, taking the input from all of the Work Environment Assessment Workshops. The committee will work together to develop a draft set of Principles of Community for UC ANR by February 2016.

Both committees will reach out for feedback and will provide updates on a regular basis.  

Thank you again to our volunteers who stepped up to create the first UC ANR Staff Assembly and to develop our own UC ANR Principles of Community.

Sincerely,

Jan Corlett, chief of staff to the vice president

Linda Marie Manton, executive director for ANR Staff Personnel   

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