LFSA Exec - Minutes - September 18, 2025

LFSA Exec Meeting

Thursday, September 18, 11:00am-12:00pm, Teams  

 

In attendance: Josh Bolick, Rebecca Schroeder, Melissa Mayhew, Elspeth Healey, Sydney McFadden

 

Absence: N/A 

 

Agenda 

  1. Welcome 
  • Sydney Vice Chair -- Introduced
  1. Approve August Minutes [link] 
    • Rebecca moved to approved, Elspeth seconded, motion carried 
  2. Housekeeping 
  • Fall Assembly, to be coordinated with LFA, LSA, Dean and Leadership Team 
    1. Options provided on 9/16: 10/31 9-12; 11/10 1-4; 11/17 1-4 
      1. Discussion on which days work best. Josh gave an overview of the discussion about dates that occurred at LFA meeting. 
        1. There was agreement among the group that 11/17; 1-4 pm works best for everyone with staff first hour, faculty/staff second hour, and faculty last hour as a tentative agreement. 
  • Fall Assembly topics list: Topics for LFSA Fall Assembly.docx 
    1. Josh shared the topics list linked in these minutes to the group. 
      1. All encouraged to add to the document before the October meeting. Plan is to solidify the topics/agenda for Assembly at the next LFSA meeting
        1. Rebecca and Josh will convene and bring something to next meeting 
          1. Agenda for the Assembly must be circulated a week before the meeting (11/17). 
        2. Action item: get a list of people joined KU libraries since last Fall Assembly 
  • LFSA website updates (committees) needed 
    1. Just a reminder that this is still needed. 
      1. Owen has been notified and is working on it, but has a number of other things to do first 
  1. Committee Reports (establish liaisons, update membership on LFSA site, get them going) 
  • Nominating and Balloting (Rebecca) 
    1. Election for Syd’s position done 
      1. There is a future special election in the works with Sabbatical committee—likely November or early Dec. Scott M. is working on that 
        1. Wendy had to step down from Nominating and Balloting, hasn’t had luck finding a replacement. We will help them find someone. That member could be faculty or staff, because requirements for cmte makeup are already satisfied by remaining members (Loren and Adrienne).
          1. We will work to appoint another member, call to KU LIb-L for volunteers first.
  • CRSA (Elspeth) 
    1. Not much to report 
      1. They are meeting in Oct. for outreach and other items 
        1. They have a budget 
        2. They have a system in place to meet with new people after they start now 
  • Code: (Amanda) 
    1. Not much to report
      1. They haven’t met 
        1. Action Item: Rebecca will send an item for them to Amanda to pass on to them 
  • What to do about Salaries and Benefits given faculty are represented by UAKU?  
    1. LSA discussed, on hold, but move to LSA rather than LFSA, will require change to Code 
      1. Will put the LFSA dissolution part of this to the whole at the Assembly 
        1. The suggestion was made to talk to last members to gain a sense of usefulness 
          1. Rationale to move to solely LSA is because Faculty has the Union to bargain. So, makes more sense that it just serve the staff needs. 
        2. Josh will forward us all the ARL salary study to us. The idea is make sure Carol sees it as well. 
  • Meetings with Carol updates (Josh/Elspeth, Rebecca/Syd) 
    1. Josh/Elspeth update: 
      1. Talked about budget with Carol. Took feedback from Faculty to Carol. A lot was about salary concerns and compression, and lack of clarity over what is being cut and critiques of what is being supported and what isn’t. 
        1. Rebecca/Syd update: 
          1. Mike was in attendance at the meeting. The precedence has been for him to be there for LFA and LSA meetings. Moving forward it looks like he will be at LSA/Dean meetings, but not confirmed at this time. 
          2. LSA is now on the new staff orientation 
          3. Talked a lot about Talent Development committee and funds and whether evaluations should be tied to professional development 
          4. There was discussion about tuition reimbursement and time for classwork, and whether supervisor have to approve classes taking (not right it is not required, but there is gray area in if need to leave to go to class and what kinds of discussion need to occur between supervisor and staff)
          5. Discussion of supervisor evaluations—an audit or 360 evaluations set up. Based on what Syd and Rebecca have heard from others 
          6. Discussed more meet and greet and informal gatherings for staff to get info to LSA to bring to the dean. The dean is going to look into a budget for those types of gatherings for LSA and LFA. Update coming soon. 
          7. Talked about alumni student employee group. Also a tentative idea of shadowing librarians for student staff too to support student staff looking at going into libraries 
          8. Incentivizing service for staff as well. That has been considered under other duties as assigned right now. There are some issues with staff having time to do service. There have been discussion on creative solutions to encourage staff service, but no movement or action at this time. 
  • Space to comment on budget presentation 
    • Discussion on anything additional to raise around budget
      • Faculty and LFA is looking for feedback on how to be helpful to staff needs and amount of security and protection. Faculty have raised those issues with the Dean as well. 
      • Discussion on impact on budget on sponsorships 
      • Discussion on student perspectives on the general state of things 
  • New business? 
    • None to note 
  • Conclude 
    • Elspeth motioned to adjourn, Rebecca seconded, motion carried. Meeting ended at 11:59am