LFSA Exec - Minutes - November 17, 2025

LFSA Meeting 

November 17, 2025

2:00pm – 3:00pm 

Watson Library 455 and Zoom 

 

Attending: Josh Bolick, Elspeth Healey, Amanda Schlumpberger, Scott McEathron, Angie Rathmel, Samantha Bishop Simmons, Marianne Reed, Andy Polard, Jeromy Horkman, Eric Bader, Brian Moss, Wendy Covoner, Milton, Machuca-Gilvez, E. Durham, Michiko Ito, Amalia Monroe-Gulick, Jill Becker, Brian Rosenblum, Jon Giullian, Scott Hanrath, David Whittaker, Mary Roach, Mike Broadwell, Carol Smith, Rebekah Ramos, Jason Dean, Kate Stewart, Kat Molly, Melissa Mayhew, Rebecca Schroeder, Carmen Orth-Alfie, Sydney McFadden, Molly Bauer, Warren Lambert, Andrew Hansbrough, Josie Kitchens, Sharon Riley, Morgan Smith, Micki Lubbers, Paul Thomas, Courtney Foat, April Freidl, Angela Andres, Kaite Bryan, Shelia Orth, Kaitlin McGrath, MC Mack, Shelby Schellenger, Erika Earles, Heather MacBean, Michiko Ito, Miloche Kottman, Chris Pincock, Cecilia Zhang, Sara Morris, Sunita Gandhi, Andi Back, Adrienne Sanders, Erin Wolfe, Michael Peper, Sara Outhier, Gwen Geiger Wolfe, Phil Cunningham, Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, Beth Whittaker, Whitney Baker, John McEwan, Amber Ovsak, Sarah McCall

 

 

Minutes:

 

Welcome, Call to Order 

  • Meeting called to order at 2:01pm
  • New members 
    • New members recognized by Josh 

Approve Minutes from Fall 2024 Assembly [link]  

  • Motion to approve
  • Motion second: Rebecca seconded
  • Motion carried to approve minutes

LFSA Committee Reports (CRSA, Nominating and Ballot, Code and Bylaws) 

  • CRSA (Eric Bader, chair): 
    • 14 awards in $4,000+ awards last year 
    • 10 awards To Date in $3000 plus awards 
    • Encouraged people to submit 
    • They are working on some programming – including with PTC 
    • Also putting together, a share out to drum up support 
    • GRF: General Research Fund—deadline is March 13th. Eric will send an email
  • Nominating and Balloting (Adrienne, Chair)
    • Have a committee now is the biggest news 
    • They had one special election 
    • They are ready to handle nominating and balloting in the Spring
  • Code and Bylaws (Milton, Chair) 
    • Members and liaison
    • No holdover members 
    • LSA amend code to have the talent committee to the code
    • Next steps: meet as a committee to review proposal, will continue coordinating with LSA as they work on this 

University Governance Reports 

  • University Senate (Brian Moss)
    • Overview of what the University Senate is—unique to universities 
    • Brian and Samantha Bishop-Simmons are the library members on it 
    • Work done: 
      • Discounted programs
      • Updates from University leadership 
      • Executive Meeting with the board of regents
      • University Senate decided not to make a statement on Federal Compact 
      • Provost and other searches 
  • University Senate Library Committee (Josh B.)
    • Met in Oct. for the first time 
      • Largely getting organized and identifying potential priorities
      • Library planning and strategic objectives 
      • Watson planning and need to coordinate with Anschutz materials
      • Wages
      • Carol added: they raised a few options for what the committee can focus on going forward. One was renovation, one was budget advocacy. There are high hopes for the leadership on this committee. 
  • Faculty Senate (Samantha Bishop-Simmons) 
    • 3 main topics relevant to libraries 
      • KBOR workload equity policy topic. They are concerned that the legislation on tenure will be back, so they want a policy in place ahead of time. Samantha has letter with recs if anyone wants to see it 
      • Watson coffee shop—has not been analyzed in the Union model 
      • Provost search and how faculty senate can be involved. 
  • Other reports from university committees relevant to KU Libraries? 
    • None 
    • Faculty research hasn’t met 
    • ACEC hasn’t met 

Potential Code Changes 

  • Salaries and Benefits (Rebecca) 
    • Has been under LSFA, they want to move to LSA, because LFA has the Union 
    • LSA has provisionally voted to move to LSA and then it will need to be submitted to Committee on the Code if it passes 
    • Marianne moved to send the question to ballot, motion seconded, and motion carried. It will be sent to ballot now. 
  • Add standing charge for Nom & Ballot to maintain Library Faculty Committees Plus page (Josh) 
    • Came from LSFA annual report. Proposed: “Maintains Library Faculty Committees Plus page to assist with recruiting candidates for LFA and LFSA committees.” 
    • Discussion: 
      • Sara Morris suggested that Committee on Code not use specific language on the name of this to prevent future Code changes needed (e.g. don’t call it the Committees Plus page, instead: maintains a list of eligible members to serve, or something like that) 
      • Josh, Adrienne, Jill, Amalia, and E suggested language: “Maintains a record of faculty service for five years to assist with recruiting faculty candidates for LFA and LFSA governance committees.” 
        • Motion to send to Ballot, Elspeth, motion seconded, motion passed, it will go to ballot now. 
      • Whitney raised question on if the list should be periodically saved to University Archives. Beth clarified that there is a libraries records retention schedule, but it needs to have clear documentation of ownership to make that happen. 

Remarks from Dean Smith 

  • Began remarks at 2:36pm 
  • LSA: talent development was the topic 
  • For LSFA: topic is how to determine priorities and determining what we discontinue, what we do more efficiently, what we continue 
    • Emphasized that this is hard to do especially when lots of people have lots going on and there is a lot of change coming from many different directions 
  • How to make these efforts real? 
    • Provost has had these thoughts too 
    • Reference to the book Quit –about human nature and how to work against the bias against quitting or letting things go 
    • Incentive systems (career progress) doesn’t lend to letting things go. 
      • First, leadership needs to model this, so the leadership team has been trying out some frameworks on how to evaluate what to let go 
      • 2 retreats this semester: 1st retreat—3 to 4 top goals that align with Jayhawks RISE goals. Then, look at day and if it contributing to a goal or subgoal, if no examine what needs to be done. At the second retreat—asana project management software system 
      • United Way example and moving away from it was discussed 
  • Message that it is ok to let things go was given 
  • Carol communicated once she thinks we have a framework to move this conversation forward, she will roll it out with the whole library 
  • She also gave the message of the importance of having a healthy organization needs people with work life balance, example of Folio and what that will do for those working on that implementation and what staff roles are needed for it 
  • The nature of library work has changed dramatically, so this is a moment of opportunity to look at how and why we do things 
  • There will be more conversations about this at all staff and we will likely have workshops on it too. 
  • E questions: is part of this involved in consortial efforts and collaboration with other universities 
    • Carol: yes, this is in the strategic plan. Carol is going to Denver with K-State library dean to talk with Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. We have consortial choices, but limited funds, so we are looking at making sure we are getting max. benefits for the consortial funds. Carol mentioned we are in the exploratory phase on this topic right now. 

New Business 

  • None

Adjourn 

  • Motion to adjourn Rebecca 
  • Motion seconded by Josh
  • Meeting adjourned at 2:55pm