University of North Carolina, Greensboro
PA-3: Governance

All students have opportunities to participate in elections for student government. Their peers would elect them. Students can also choose to be on governance committees or volunteer to be involved with these committees or with student government.

The President of the Student Government Association is a member of the University Board of Trustees.

Students get many opportunities to provide input. The campus has held forums workshops, and surveys related to tuition and fee changes and the construction of the new Campus Recreation Center. The President of Student Government, who serves as a member of the Board of Trustees, casts votes on many issues that affect students, serving as the voice of the student body. Some examples include: voting on tuition and fees; approving fees for the new Campus Recreation Center; and overview and selection of designers and design elements of the new Campus Rec Center.

All staff have the opportunity to be elected to serve on the UNCG Staff Senate for a 2-year term. Staff are eligible to be nominated to serve by any UNCG employee. Elections are held within divisions (Business Affairs, Academic Affairs, etc.).

Establishing new policies, programs, or initiatives: Staff Senate leadership acts in an advisory capacity in a number of key areas; while it is not always directly involved in the creation of new policies, programs, or initiatives, it is responsible for assisting in those processes. Some initiatives include: • Campus Culture Forums • Staff recognition programs • Morale programming • Employee development initiatives (workshops, seminars) • Membership on ad-hoc policy advisory committees (Aycock Auditorium Naming Committee, Electronic Cigarette Policy Committee) Strategic and long-term planning: Staff Senate is involved with coordinating strategic planning forums and is a seated member on the UNCG Strategic Planning Leadership Committee. • Facilitated 2 strategic planning open forums for staff. • Ongoing service on leadership committee • Service on the Chancellor Search Committee • Facilitating Staff Open Forums on the Chancellor Search Budgeting, staffing and financial planning: Staff Senate representatives serve on the Chancellor’s Budget Sounding Board and participate in some planning and discussion. Other members include campus senior leadership, stakeholder departments, and Faculty Senate leadership. Communications processes and transparency practices: One of the Staff Senate’s primary purpose is to ensure that staff voices are heard by senior leadership. To that end the Senate meets regularly with the Chancellor. In addition, the Chancellor's Chief of Staff and the AVC for Human Resources are both ex-officio members of the Senate. The Senate also presents to the Board of Trustees on an annual basis. • Facilitated multiple open forums surrounding employee relations issues. • Working Group to investigate implementation of campus Ombudsman's office. • Creation of a staff relations committee to facilitate better communications between HR and staff.

Tenured, tenure-track, and non tenure track (full time) employees can participate in and be elected to the UNCG Faculty Senate. Adjunct faculty, teaching less than full time, cannot be elected representatives, but can certainly contribute ideas/concerns/comments to their department Faculty Senate representative or through General Faculty meetings.

Faculty contribute ideas and generally are represented on smaller committees to make final “recommendations” on the organizational mission and goals, but not final decisions. Faculty are well represented on the current strategic planning committee and faculty met to provide input.

Information for this credit was received from: Alexandra Marchesano, Director of Campus Activities and Programs (Students) Sean Farrell, Co-chair of the UNCG Staff Senate (Staff) Dr. Spoma Jovanovic, Chair of the UNCG Faculty Senate (Faculty)