Prepping for meetings

Review meeting materials

A few days ahead of a monthly meeting, the Staff Senate Secretary will email you the new meeting agenda along with additional meeting materials to be reviewed ahead of time. On average, you should allow 30 minutes or so to review these documents:

• New meeting agenda
• Previous meeting minutes
  • One of the first orders of business in every Senate meeting is for the President to call for approval or necessary changes to the previous full Senate meeting's minutes. Reviewing these thoroughly ahead of time will prepare you for that call and will help refresh your memory about what happened at the previous meeting.
• Standing reports
  • President's report gives details of takeaways from various University governance meetings
    • Staff Senate Executive Committee meetings
    • University Senate meetings
    • University Senate Executive Committee (SenEx) meetings
    • Meetings with KU Chancellor and Provost
  • Treasurer's monthly budget report provides updated balances and details on expenditures since last full Senate meeting
  • Standing Committeemeeting minutes detail committee activities since last full Senate meeting
    • These committee meeting schedules vary, so not all may have activity to report in a given month
  • KBOR UPS-USS Special Council meeting minutes (if a meeting has occurred)

You will also have access to an internal document repository for current Staff Senators in Microsoft Teams, where you can go back and review archived meeting materials if you wish.

Familiarize yourself with role responsibilities of open leadership positions

If the meeting agenda indicates that there will be a call for nominations for open Staff Senate leadership positions, go back and review the role responsibilities of these positions before the meeting to determine if you may be interested to self-nominate!

These leadership opportunities may include:

• Staff Senate Executive Committee officers
  • President-Elect
  • Secretary-Elect
  • Treasurer-Elect
• Chairs-Elect of Staff Senate Standing Committees
• University Senate representatives
• KBOR UPS-USS Shared Council representatives

Your first full Staff Senate experience: the transition meeting

As a newly elected Staff Senator, the first full Staff Senate meeting you will attend in April is referred to as a "transition meeting". Different from the rest of the full Senate meetings you will attend throughout the year, the transition meeting has a dual purpose.   Click here for a sneak peak into the logistics of a transition meeting.

For an overview of regular Staff Senate meetings, including a look at typical meeting agenda items, minutes, and more, hop over to the Meeting Overview webpage.