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Staff Council Committee Accomplishments

Boulder Campus Staff Council recognizes all staff members who reached a career milestone in the 2024 - 2025 academic year. You are an integral part of the CU Boulder campus, and we sincerely thank you for your service and dedication. Read more about the staff career milestones.

We'd also like to recognize the four awardees of the Chancellor's 2024 Employee of the Year award: Miki Brooks, Janelle Henderson, Sally Lowell, and Jeanne McDonald and University of Colorado Staff Council (UCSC) 2025 Staff Excellence Awardees: Kai Amey and Estrella Lastre. This year's winners represent incredible dedication to the students, faculty, and staff of the CU Boulder campus.

Awards and Staff Recognition (ASR) Committee 
  1. We honored a total of 767 CU Boulder university staff, classified staff, and profession research assistants and research associate members for their years of service: 318 for five years; 205 for ten years; 83 for fifteen years and they received a $25.00 gift card; 67 for twenty years and they received a $50.00 gift card; 53 twenty-five years and they received a $75.00 gift card; 29 for thirty years and they received $100.00 gift card; 7 for thirty-five years and they received a $150.00 gift card; 2 for forty years and they received a $150.00 gift card.
  2. We honored the four Chancellor’s Employees of the Year and the two University of Colorado Staff Council Staff Excellence Award winners with a gift bag made up of Staff Council swag and purchased items from the bookstore.
  3. ASR planned and launched the successful revival of the Brightest Buffs recognition program in spring 2025! This refreshed initiative was brought to life to honor the creativity, dedication, and innovation of our incredible staff community. So far, we've launched a brand-new website featuring a recognition form and an optional public spotlight for honorees, giving them the opportunity to share their stories with the broader campus community. Recipients are also awarded a CU gold star pin as a token of appreciation. Thanks to campus-wide collaboration and enthusiasm, Brightest Buffs is already creating a meaningful platform to celebrate the people who make CU Boulder thrive.
Belonging, Equity, Accessibility and Mattering (BEAM) Committee 
  1. BEAM has purchased a Little Free Library (LFL), the first to be established on the CU Boulder campus. The nearest LFL is on the hill, in downtown Boulder, and east of 28th Street, so it will fill a much needed void in the area. The long-term plan is for the LFL to float between major hubs on campus indoors, like the C4C, the UMC, Williams Village, etc. to allow all staff, students, researchers, and faculty to visit easily.  BEAM is planning a ribbon-cutting for the LFL's first location and hope to fill it with books that celebrate and affirm the LGBTQIA+, transgender, intersex and non-binary community for the inaugural opening.
  2. BEAM presented a resolution to the full Staff Council on April 16, 2025 called "Reaffirm and Commit Support for a Positive Work Environment for the Transgender, Intersex, and Non-Binary Community" co-authored by Kathleen Stutzman and Rose Smith. This resolution was adopted by Staff Council and will be presented to leadership on campus. This resolution affirmed the positive steps that have already been established on campus to support a positive work environment for the transgender, intersex and non-binary community over the past few years, and provided an outline of recommendations to the administration to improve morale and safety for this community.
  3. In collaboration with UCSC and Dr. Kelsey Draper of Infrastructure and Resilience, BEAM is co-sponsoring the screening of This Is [Not] Who We Are on campus during the month of June 2025. This movie is directed and produced by Dr. Beret Strong and Katrina Miller and explores the lived experiences and discrimination of Boulder's Black citizens both historically and in contemporary times.
  4. The Many Voices: Co-Creating CU Boulder summit on April 21st, was sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Office of Leadership Support and Programming, and all four of CU's shared governance organizations. Staff Council tri-chairs, as well as the BEAM committee members attended planning meetings throughout the past year, and helped to solidify the goals and content of the summit. Dr. Adrianna Kezar (Director of the Pullias Center of Higher Education at the University of Southern California and Dean’s Professor of Leadership and Wilbur-Kieffer Professor of Higher Education at USC) and Dr. Ángel de Jesus González (Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Fresno State University) facilitated the day long event, focusing on the Shared Equity Leadership model. This model has been adopted by the campus as a collaborative approach to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, by emphasizing shared decision-making, representation and continuous learning. 
     
Blood Drive and Community Service Committee

The Blood Drive and Community Service Committee, along with long-time partner Vitalant, hosted blood drives in October, December, February, and April. Between these four drives, over 742 units of blood were collected to be used by those in need in the community. Each unit of blood donated has the possibility of saving three lives, meaning that the cumulative effort could save 2,226 lives.

This effort involved recruiting students, staff, faculty, and community to commit to helping be a positive force in the community.

The committee also partnered with Meals on Wheels Boulder to create Valentine’s Day cards.

The committee is focused on continuing to host successful Blood Drives on campus and expanding community service opportunities that directly impact our community and support the staff on our campus.

Communications Committee
  1. Partnered with 20+ campus organizations to send out three newsletters during the academic year to over 6,000 staff and research faculty. ​
    1. Received 613 individual responses from four newsletter surveys relating to Wellness Barriers, Why Stay/What to Change at CU, Prescription Challenges, and Staff Council Priorities/Future Goals​.
  2. Collaborated with the ASR committee to launch the Brightest Buffs Program.
Experience & Elections (ExEl) Committee
  1. The committee updated the Elections Code to make it clearer and to reflect current practices. The proposed changes were voted on and adopted in April 2025.
  2. The committee successfully proposed a name and scope change from the Elections Committee to the Experience and Elections Committee to include new responsibilities around onboarding and supporting Staff Council Representatives.
  3. The committee facilitated successful voting processes for new Staff Council Representatives and Officers for the 2025-2026 year.
Front Line Staff Committee

This year, Front Line Staff was voted in as a full standing committee!  This not only has allowed the committee to be more secure in our future, but has reaffirmed Staff Council's commitment to supporting, uplifting, and celebrating our frontline staff across campus.  This year, we welcomed our very first frontline staff council member.  We hosted two lively roundtable discussions with frontline staff in multiple languages and heard critical feedback from them about their jobs around campus.  This year, we started outlining a white paper to bring frontline staff concerns to campus leadership.  We continue to champion language access for all frontline workers on campus.  We have repeatedly connected with supervisors on campus on how to support frontline staff.  This has been a great year, and we can't wait for what next year has in store!

Outreach & Events Committee

The Outreach & Events Committee hosted Staff Council’s annual Staff Appreciation Breakfast and food drive on December 12, 2024. As with previous years, the event was well attended with over 1,100 staff attending this year. Campus leadership once again did an outstanding job volunteering in their serving roles and Chip the mascot even came by to say hello. The generosity of staff with food donations supported several food pantries in the area with welcome donations before the holiday season. This event is continually one of Staff Council’s most successful offerings and it is a highlight of our year.

We also collaborated with campus partners to host an all day event for all CU employees to bring their kids to work for a day of discovery and fun! We are proud of how many campus units joined us in offering activities for little buffs in addition to the Kickoff Party hosted by our committee. Almost 200 little buffs showed up with their parents to the kickoff party and enjoyed ice skating, snacks, games, activities and pictures with Chip and his Dad, Chip Sr.


Payroll, Benefits, Retirement & Legislative (PBRL) Committee
  1. Raised awareness with HR about issues related to the uneven process for performance management across campus, created a survey regarding staff and the performance management system to be shared with campus in the May newsletter. HR shared concerns and committed to continuing to work on improvements to this process for staff.
  2. Partnered with CU Boulder MyLeave Replacement Initiative to discuss payroll in arrears as they move into the Design phase.
  3. Spoke with Jess Doty at health and wellness to better understand current benefits & perks landscape to see what is available for staff and if changes should be made.
  4. Met with Kelly Reel about salary transparency and checked where the compensation framework initiative project is at.
  5. Continued to staying informed on the HR Blueprint project and kept in touch with HR regarding how it's being developed.
NEW! Research Faculty Special Committee

In the May Staff Council meeting, a special committee to serve interests of Professional Research Assistants, Senior Professional Research Assistants, Research Associates, and Senior Research Associates was ratified by a majority vote. 

The committee will assemble through the 2025-2026 academic year with the goals of:

  • Enhancing outreach and education efforts about Staff Council with Research Faculty, particularly through translating Staff Council and standing committee efforts for Research Faculty constituents.
  • Providing understanding and perspective on CU Boulder policies, procedures, and funding of Research Faculty for Staff Council members.
  • Promoting and advocating for equitable and proportional representation of Research Faculty as elected or appointed representatives on Staff Council.
  • Supporting the implementation and evaluating the effectiveness of the Research Faculty special committee.

Be on the lookout for future communications and contact ginnie.hershbarger@colorado.edu or kate.cochran@colorado.edu for more information, with questions, and if you are interested in joining the committee.