Previous articles on the merger:
In the previous article, we looked at the history of the merger proposal and the reasons that persuaded the Civil Service Council (CS) and Administrative/Professional (AP) councils to support it. Now we’ll investigate what the Staff Council would look like. This article focuses on its overall structure, while a later article will focus on committees.
Both councils continue to be interested in hearing your views on the proposal. This is why your feedback is always important. Feedback and questions can now be sent to a new email address, StaffCouncil@IllinoisState.edu.
Core structure of a Staff Council
Below are the major structural features of the proposed Staff Council, with explanations for each:
19 total voting members, plus 2 non-voting ex-officio Human Resources liaisons
The current CS Council has 15 voting member seats and four non-voting ex-officio seats. The AP Council has 17 voting member seats and one ex-officio Human Resources liaison. There was discussion both of shrinking and of increasing the Staff Council relative to these numbers. In the end, the councils agreed to increase the total slightly, to 19 voting members and two non-voting ex-officio liaisons from Human Resources.
Why not fewer? The CS and AP councils engage in substantial work, such as providing representatives for shared governance bodies like the Academic Senate and intensive temporary roles like administrator searches; overseeing awards and scholarship funds for CS and AP employees; communicating with staff, administration, and the University community; creating social and professional development programming; and more. A smaller council, it was agreed, would struggle to carry out all of this and risk member burnout, especially since a merged council will have more to do than each individual council currently does.
In that case, why not even more than 19 members? It’s important not to become something like a staff senate, but to remain a council whose members work closely together on specific tasks and emphasize consensus. Coordination is key to carrying out the required roles well, as is the case on the currently existing councils. Increasing the total number of voting members more than necessary would, ironically, risk bloat, inefficiency, and lack of coordination.
In short, the general principle was, “As many members as necessary—and no more!” Nineteen was agreed upon as the best number for regular, full voting members.
The role of “ex officio member,” meaning non-voting members who are on the council in special roles, was reserved for Human Resources liaisons. HR liaisons for the CS and AP councils are unique, appointed by HR specifically to advise on HR policies and perspectives. Given that HR is one area where the CS/AP distinction is quite important, it is important to have an HR liaison for each job class on a merged council.
Beyond HR reps, the Staff Council could also appoint people to act as temporary ex officio members when need be. For instance, if there is someone especially qualified to work on a task related to awards or scholarships, they might be brought in as an ex officio to support the appropriate committee. (More on this in a later article.)
All seats elected “at-large”; representatives and special roles selected from at-large members
The CS and AP councils have different methods for assigning members to special roles. For instance, on the CS Council, the role of Academic Senate representative is assigned to the council chair, while on AP Council, the senate rep is appointed by majority vote of the council and cannot also be the chair. Some roles are elected externally, some are elected internally by a council, and some are appointed.
Having different ways of assigning and designating special roles complicates the election process and limits the number of people who run for certain roles. For instance, if someone wants to run for Campus Communications Committee on the AP Council, they cannot also run to be an at-large member. Most representative roles on the AP Council have voting privileges, and they often have different terms of office and responsibilities. Besides leading to some confusion, the variation can lead to a lack of flexibility when changes are needed in representative roles or when someone must vacate a role. Meanwhile, the several ex officio representatives on CS Council have important roles, but are not voting members.
The CS and AP councils concluded that, to provide greater clarity and consistency, all elected seats should be at-large. The Staff Council would fill representative roles from the at-large membership, subject to approval by majority vote of the council. Those selected for such roles are then subject to continuing approval by the council as a whole. The result is a more consistent process that is also more responsive to issues like vacancies. It does not mean that just anyone on the Staff Council can take such a representative role, either; their selection for the role, and continuation in it, is subject to the support of fellow council members, all of whom were (like they themselves) elected to the Council.
Division of staff: seven guaranteed CS seats, seven guaranteed AP seats, five open seats; no CS “groups”
One of the chief concerns in feedback thus far is about making sure both job classes are adequately represented on a Staff Council. To ensure an adequate baseline of representation, the proposal mandates a minimum number of seats guaranteed to each job class. This also guarantees that when there is job-class specific work to be done—such as providing class-specific representatives to outside committees, reviewing class-specific awards or scholarships, or when the council is discussing concerns specific to a job class—existing membership will be able to meet that need.
At the same time, it is important that voting staff have their say in terms of how the council is shaped. It may be that the highest vote-getters in a given year come more from one job class than another—and that it switches the following year. Allowing for “swing” in the council seems just as important as guaranteeing minimum representation.
The way to satisfy both these goals is to guarantee a minimum number of seats for each class while also having a substantial number of “swing” seats that can be filled by either CS or AP employees. As such, it could be that either CS or AP are the majority in any given year, reflecting the preferences of voters, but the council will never lack a substantial voice from one or the other class.
It was also agreed upon by both CS and AP councils that the “groups” into which Civil Service staff are divided on the current CS Council would not be used. The reasons for these are, in part, practical. It has long been difficult or impossible for the CS Council to fill seats for some groups, thus keeping the CS Council below full membership for many years. It was also decided, after much consideration, that there is no way of dividing staff that appropriately balances factors like similarity of job titles/classifications, type of duties, equitable division of units or departments, and so on. Dividing by unit is too large, as some units have hundreds of staff while others are tiny, while dividing by department leads to dozens of divisions. Not all jobs under a given title are the same, or equally represented across units—for instance, some “academic advisors” are AP while some are CS, and advisors are heavily clustered in some units while absent from many others. Duties don’t always line up neatly with job titles, and job titles don’t always line up with job classifications, which may have been created by either Illinois State (AP) or the State of Illinois (CS), and so on. Ultimately, it was concluded that making divisions beyond CS/AP itself would likely cause more problems than it solves.
On the other hand, voting staff want to know who is representing them and where they come from! As such, when staff run for a position, they would be expected to include information on their job class (CS or AP), job title, and the department they work in. With this, voting staff would have the information to determine what composition of the council is best.
Executive board of four: Two co-chairs, one CS and one AP, a secretary, and a treasurer
The secretary and treasurer roles need little explanation. Why, on the other hand, go with two co-chairs instead of a more typical chair and vice chair? This was a topic of considerable discussion, with those involved coming down strongly in favor of co-chairs.
The primary reason is to maintain a balance between emphasizing the fundamental unity of staff and recognizing real differences between the staff classes. One possible concern with having AP and a CS co-chairs is that it goes against the purpose of a merged council. After all, isn’t the point that all staff are the same? On the other hand, the fact that all are staff doesn’t mean there aren’t significant differences, such as who defines those job descriptions! And as the article on subcommittees will discuss in more detail, there are areas where the differences will be of importance for the council itself. Recognizing unity is not incompatible with recognizing points of difference. Thus, to ensure that each job class has an equal voice “at the top,” co-chairs were seen as a good solution.
There are several other advantages to having co-chairs. It guarantees that a member of each job class participates in significant discussions, especially sensitive activities where only the chairs can take part. The co-chairs can work together as a team, strengthening their shared voice and informing each other on class-specific issues when need be. It guarantees that whenever the services of the chair are needed for class-specific issues, someone from the right job class can be involved. And finally, it helps to divide and manage the heavy workload that the chair takes on. (If you wonder whether there’s a heavy workload, ask the current CS and AP chairs!)
We now have the general sense of how such a council will be shaped: nineteen voting members guaranteed to draw substantially from both CS and AP job classes, selecting representatives based on the common view of the council itself, and providing co-chairs from both CS and AP. Next time, we’ll round out the structural picture of the council by looking at the subcommittees for the Staff Council, what they will be, and how they are structured.
