Staff Council meeting with Administration (Feb 24 notes)

Hello Staff,

The goal of this update is to be as transparent as possible to contribute to improved communication and information sharing among folks at SRSU in support of our University mission and vision – and our students.

On Monday, February 24, outgoing Chair Katy Williams, Vice Chair Taylor Moore, and I met with Vice President Bonnie Albright and President Carlos Hernandez.

An agenda was provided but no formal minutes were recorded. These notes represent only my perspective and views as the Chair of Staff Council.

Please review and submit questions/comments/praise/concerns to the Suggestion Box or via email.

Have a good Tuesday!

-Betsy

• We discussed communication expectations for remote employees. We recommended that the administration consider amending APM 5.28 Remote Work, Telecommuting, and Flexible Work Schedule Policy to include more specific information about expectations for communication and how to be reached via phone while working remotely.
  • It was noted that anyone may make an LTAC request to have their office line forwarded to another line.
  • We might recommend further education about call forwarding to those involved with Onboarding and Professional Development.
• We asked about Organization Charts. Executive Assistant to the President Janice Espinoza-Valenzuela is in charge of updating organization charts. Current charts (from March and June 2024) are here: https://www.sulross.edu/about/administration/
  • Janice expects to be able to update charts in March of this year.
  • It was noted that Org Chart updates are tedious and manual and that the crux of the issue/interest in having updated org charts is to better understand who works at the University and what we all do.
    • Did you know that you can help? Update your SR INFO Directory Listing to reflect the most accurate information for yourself. Encourage your colleagues and direct reports to do the same.
      • navigate to my.sulross.edu
      • log in with your LoboID and password
      • click (edit my directory page) in red text under your listing
      • if any information is incorrect, use the Override column to make updates to your listing
        • note that some information may need to be updated in Banner by contacting Human Resources or other offices as well (such as government name change, moving offices, etc. – When in doubt, ask!)
      • click SUBMIT
• We asked about Spring 2025 Staff Awards and Recognition. Dr. Hernandez said that Executive Assistant to the President Janice Espinoza-Valenzuela will coordinate the awards and recognition this year. This year’s event will be open to all.
  • Janice is still pinning down a date in mid-to-late April 2025.
  • Staff Council has offered to volunteer assistance on planning and producing the event. If you’re interested and able to help, please let us know.
• We asked about APM 1.11 Statement on Governance. Staff Council is not mentioned in this policy. Dr. Hernandez recently reviewed and reapproved this policy (December 1, 2024) and said it was re-approved without many changes, and it would not change until it is time to be reviewed again (Next review date: December 1, 2029).
  • We discussed that Staff Council will be working on proposing updates to the Bylaws this summer/fall.
  • We asked about extending Staff Council to SRSU International Campus staff considering that many staff work for the entire University no matter where they are based or whether they are remote. Dr. Hernandez said we should consider ourselves a “single organization” and welcome all staff to Staff Council. We will work on reflecting this in our Bylaws and invitations to future meetings and discussions.
• We briefly touched on information dissemination by EC Members. Dr. Hernandez reminded us that EC Minutes are posted publicly. They are available for your review here: https://srinfo.sulross.edu/university-governance/ec-minutes/
• Because many of our agenda items touched on Vice President Bonnie Albright’s area, it was recommended that Staff Council officers meet with Bonnie Albright more frequently.
  • We have monthly meetings scheduled with Vice President Bonnie Albright through August 2025 on the calendar.
  • We will meet quarterly with Dr. Hernandez. We expect to meet with him again in June or July 2025.

Hopefully you saw the email update (Subject: Monthly Finance and Operations Update) from Vice President Bonnie Albright in your inbox this morning (Feb 25). I’ll copy it here:

SRSU faculty and staff,

This is an update for Finance and Operations.

As we hire new staff in Finance, we will provide more updates on the job duties and the people involved.  We do not have everyone fully trained but we are working to have all completed by summer.  We will update the Finance website to include the positions in Finance and who you need to go to for certain needs in your department.  I will also send a separate email with job duties and an organizational chart.  We are excited to have the new Finance staff!

We are creating an internal Business Services model in Finance (including Accounting).  The positions included are a Purchasing Analyst, HR/Payroll Analyst, Accounts Payable Analyst, and Travel Analyst.  The purpose of these positions are to take business processes from the departments and have the Finance Department handle.  For example, the Purchasing Analyst will be creating requisitions in Banner from the information sent by the department.  The intent is to allow departments to focus more on student recruitment and retention.

We are also working on moving from the Sam Houston State University business support (not for Blackboard) to the Shared Services for TSUS led by the Lamar State Colleges.  We are still working on a timeline but the first proposed implementation is for January 2026.  More will be shared once the timeline is finalized.  This will be incorporated into the internal Business Services.

We are working on the SaaS Banner project.  We have people from different departments participating in the process.  SaaS Banner will move us into the cloud and will help to improve processes as long as we work to make that happen.  For example, Student AR has daily manual processes that will be updated to nightly automated processes.  This will allow time to focus on other student needs.  The implementation will be in late 2025 or early 2026.

We have a new CIO, Patrick Stewart.  He is a shared service with Lamar University.  He has been on campus twice (traveling from Beaumont) and he is working with our OIT staff and other university departments.  He brings with him Taylor Stephenson, AVP from Lamar for Banner support.  Taylor is leading us in the SaaS implementation and working on current Banner as well.  We also have Darren McIntire, our CISO shared with the Lamar State Colleges.  These additions to IT bring years of experience to SRSU while sharing the costs with another university or college.  We are excited to have them at SRSU!

We are actively working on our construction projects.  The Fine Arts Expansion is in process with demolition going on at Fletcher Hall.  Marjorie Scott and faculty in the Fine Arts Department are working with the design team on the Performing Arts Center, Francois Building and other locations for improvements.

HR is working on ePAFs for electronic approvals for employee payments in Banner.  This will add to the JotForm process that we have implemented.  We are working to get those activated as soon as possible.

We continue to improve our vendor payment processes.  We go by the 30 day payment rule but with staff loss, lack of documentation, timing of training and security being processed, we have had a delay in getting all vendor payments completed.  Our staff is working to resolve issues, document processes and cross train.  Please have invoices emailed to AccountsPayable@sulross.edu or mailed to P.O. Box C-500.  We have ACH forms for vendors so that a check does not have to be issued.

I will be providing monthly email updates from Finance and Operations and meeting with the officers of Staff Council monthly on Tuesdays if you have any concerns.

Thank you,

Bonnie