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Inside Iowa State, a newspaper for faculty and staff, is published by the Office of University Relations.

May 20, 2005

Council suggests additions to T&D program

by Kevin Brown

The Professional and Scientific Council approved a reference guide, "Professional and Scientific Employee Support," for the council's Web site at its May 5 meeting.

Developed by the council's policy and procedures committee, the guide details six committees, positions or offices available to P&S employees who have questions on their employment or work-related issues.

The six are profiled by the type of assistance they perform. They are the P&S Council Peer Advisory Committee, Sexual Harassment Assistors, Employee Assistance Program, Employee Relations manager, Human Resources Services and the provost's office. Contact names and e-mail addresses are provided for each. The reference guide will be posted this summer.

Need for T&D

In other business, the council approved a report on employee training and development programs prepared by a subcommittee of the council's compensation and benefits committee. The report is an overview of training and development programs at Peer 11 institutions, with recommendations for changes to Iowa State's programs.

The report will be sent to the provost with a request for a response by June 7. The report also will be sent to the offices of the president, vice president for business and finance, and associate vice president for human resource services.

According to the report, Iowa State is at the bottom among peers in regularly scheduled T&D programs, especially leadership and supervisory training.

Recommendations in the report include:

  • Develop mandatory training for managers in budgeting, performance evaluation and compensation practices/policy.
  • Implement a leadership training program similar to one used by Texas A&M University, College Station.
  • Conduct an electronic in-depth survey of all staff to assess how many individuals would take advantage of an expanded T&D program.
  • Add personnel to Human Resource Services to increase training and development.
  • Create a centralized list of all training and development programs on AccessPlus.

Teresa Peterson, one of the subcommittee members, said an invigorated training and development program at Iowa State would improve staff retention and professionalism.

In other action at the meeting:

  • Assistant provost Ellen Rasmussen asked the council to suggest new awards that would acknowledge superior service by staff. Council member Nancy Knight, a member of the council's awards committee, said the group had started looking into possibilities for new awards.
  • Officer election was completed. Barb McBreen, communication specialist in the College of Agriculture, was elected secretary/treasurer. Bonnie Whalen, business manager for Academic Information Technologies, and Brenda Van Beek, an administrative specialist in the department of natural resource ecology and management, were elected at-large officers. (Dan Woodin, information systems leader for Administrative Technology Services, and Catherine Good, program coordinator in the Agriculture Experiment Station, were elected president and president-elect in January.)

Next meeting

2 p.m. June 8
Scheman Building

New members will be seated at the June meeting.