Nominations will be accepted online through Thursday, Feb. 29, for candidates for the Professional and Scientific (P&S) Council. This spring, terms expire for 20 of the council's 44 seats. Three of those council members are concluding their second terms and aren't eligible for reelection. The vacancies are distributed across the four representative divisions:
- Academic affairs: 13
- Student affairs: 3
- Operations and finance: 2
- President: 2
Any P&S employee who would like to serve on the council may seek a vacant seat in their division by completing the online nomination form. P&S employees also may nominate a colleague for service on the council using the same form, and a member of the council's governance committee will contact the nominee to confirm their interest. In either instance, the submitter provides information about the employee's qualifications or experience that would make them an effective council member and advocate for P&S staff. That information is used on the council's election website.
The election is held online in March and elected council members will be seated at the group's May 16 meeting.
Spreading out the meetings
To ease the time demand of monthly meetings on council members, president-elect Jason Follett shared several changes to the council's meeting schedule that lengthen the time between meetings. The group's constitution requires a meeting at least every 75 days. The revised schedule through the start of fall semester is:
- March 7 (no change)
- April 11 (no change)
- May 2: moved to May 16
- June 6: canceled
- July 11
- August: canceled
- Sept. 5
More council business
When early bird registration closed Jan. 31, 237 non-presenters had registered for the council-hosted annual professional development conference for P&S employees on Wednesday, Feb. 28 (8 a.m.-4 p.m., Gateway Center). Registration ($160) remains open through Feb. 20.
Workday Student co-leaders Kristen Constant and Steve Mickelson presented an update on the multiyear implementation of student-related functions in the platform. Some highlights:
- The third rollout of functions (March through June) is a big one. It includes 80% of the content in Workday Student.
- The mock semester exercise (Jan. 29-Feb. 2) is going very well, and participants are sharing ideas for how to improve its usability. As the largest university to date implementing Workday Student, Iowa State is able to make modifications and make some "bold requests" of Workday, Constant said. The company has been responsive to Iowa State suggestions and requests, she added.
- For privacy and compliance purposes, the goal is to minimize the Workday Student apps that employees see in their own portal. Just like human resources and finance apps in Workday, access is set according to employees' job responsibilities. Employee job transfers may create temporary lags in accuracy.
- When Workday Student becomes available to students (March 4 is the anticipated date), college student services offices will set up staffed local "help rooms" for students (and employees) as they learn the new platform.
- A new training website opening soon in WorkCyte will organize materials by position type.
