March 17, 2021 Minutes

The March meeting took place from 3:00pm – 4:30pm on Wednesday, March 17, 2021, via Zoom. 

Zoom Webinar Recording
(you must be logged into your WFU email to view)

Steph Trilling, Director, Women’s Center

Bethany Fay, Assistant Vice President of Total Rewards & HR Solutions

PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS COMMITTEE UPDATE

Child Care Review

  • Exploration on pause for now. Still discussing it as a child care group.
  • Wake Forest University, assisted by WFD Consulting, conducted a
  • Comprehensive child care study in fall 2019 including:
    • Online survey – fall 2019
    • Nine faculty and staff focus group meetings
    • Eleven stakeholder meetings
    • Community assessment of child care resources in Winston-Salem.
  • Overall Response: 1,438 surveys (of 3,130) = 46% response rate
    • Faculty: 461 (of 898) = 51% response rate
    • Staff: 977 (of 2,232) = 44% response rate
  • Family and Child Care Composition (refer to slides)
    • Faculty and Staff Families
    • Age of Child and Primary Care Arrangements
    • Cost of Care
      • Cost depends on: quality, type, location, and demand for care 
      • Highest cost: 0-5 years: $150-199 (23%); $200-249 (20%); $250+ (16%)
      • Lowest cost: 6-9 years: $0 (38%); $1-99 (31%) and 10-14 years: $0 (67%)

Assessment Observations

  • Impact of WFU Child Care Center
    • Help to attract and retain faculty (92-95%)
    • Feel more positive about WFU (81-93%)
  • Care Arrangement: Challenges & Factors
  • Cost of Care: What you are willing to pay (refer to slides)
    • Willing to to pay up to $225/week
    • 64% willing to pay $200/week for infant care
  • When asked to identify the top factors in choosing child care:
  • Quality of staff tops the list (86%) of parents.
  • Affordability (60%) and educational program (43%) are the next top considerations for parents.
  1. A center for 120 – 150 children that operates weekdays, 7:30am – 6:00pm.
  • Offer care during school holidays, summer vacations, inclement weather, after school, backup, and occasional evenings/weekends.
    • Integrate children with disabilities.
    • Provide for parent involvement, education, resources, and special events.
    • Create a model program of the highest quality.
    • Explore options to provide financial support for families as may be needed.
  1. Continue to benchmark all leave policies and practices against peers and local employers.
  2. Consider a resource to help faculty and staff find occasional, backup care services, and before and after school programs.
  • Partners with Imprints Care – provide before and after school care / provided online programming

WFU Resources

  • Opportunity to speak with other parents and caregivers 
  • Peer Support
    • Monthly caregiver coffee break – hosted about Women’s Center and PDC
    • Asynchronous involvement to share and find resources: 
    • Benefits and Community Resources
    • Become involved:
      • The Child Care Advisory Committee is in the process of updating our charge to be inclusive of broader parent and caregiver needs on campus.
      • To learn more or to join the committee, email Steph Trilling at trillis@wfu.edu.

Bethany Fay, Assistant Vice President of Total Rewards & HR Solutions

COVID VACCINATION PLANNING UPDATE

  • 3,500 faculty, staff, students vaccinated as of 3/17/21
  • 1K vaccinations provided to Group 2 and Group 3 last week
  • 520 being administered on 3/22
  • Will be communicating about another clinic for those who meet the criteria for Groups 2 and 3
  • Another clinic will be available on Friday, 3/26
  • Critical that you register and attend or cancel the appointment. Have to be sure we vaccinate the number of people registered indicated on the roster. 
  • Messaging continues to go broader as the weeks progress to provide vaccines for those in other groups. 

Ashley Hawkins Parham, Wellbeing Program Manager

RESILIENTWAKE AND THE THRIVE DIMENSION CHAMPION AWARDS UPDATE 

ResilientWake: skill building opportunities to navigate managing challenge and change *well*

  • Skill building opportunity to navigate challenge and change well
    • Offer varying opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to engage in 
    • Workshop Series
      • 4 workshops across 1 month (resilience & stress; thoughts & reactions; relationships; identity, strengths, and planning)
    • Skillshares
      • Resilience and COVD-19 
      • Gratitude, Strengths, and Values
      • Routine and Resilience Planning
      • Disrupting Negative Thinking Traps
      • Loneliness and Building Connection
    • Weekly Livestream on WFUThrive IG channel
  • Gathering Insights 
    • Invited 20+ members of WFU Staff/Faculty community from various divisions/departments across campus to contribute to (form) with 5 prompts & 20 more specific statements:
      • What concerns are staff/faculty bringing to you about their own wellbeing?
      • What is your primary concern for staff/faculty’s current wellbeing?
      • What is your primary concern for staff/faculty’s long term wellbeing?
      • In what format do you think staff/faculty would be most receptive to receiving information about resilience and wellbeing? (in a way that would make an impact)
      • What do you see as the biggest barrier to staff/faculty addressing their own wellbeing?
    • Our real experiences show (Collected information about a month ago)
      • People don’t want to be told to be resilient or to find time for self-care
      • Not everyone has been impacted to the same degree personally or professionally by the pandemic
      • We are still under threat and in the middle of this traumatic and challenging time, although seeing light
      • Many are still being asked to manage their regular jobs and to do more to 
    • Our insights suggest
      • An unspoken norm and expectation of overworking could be taking hold
      • People don’t feel their work is being seen/acknowledged
      • People don’t feel like they can stick to work/life boundaries
      • People don’t have enough time during or after work to recharge or take meaningful breaks throughout the day
    • Our insights suggest barriers to focusing on ourselves include
      • Time
      • Ongoing workload
      • Wanting to help each other, not leave colleagues feeling alone
      • Tension between “nonessential” roles during and after pandemic
      • Permission and agency
  • 1-year Anniversary of Pandemic
    • Disaster – Impact – Heroic – Honeymoon – Disillusionment – Reconstruction
  • Natural Disaster Psychology: lowest of emotional lows
    • Navigating and processing grief that is unique to everyone yet collective
    • Trauma and Recovery Literature – suggests we have been re-traumatized throughout the year
      • Thought we were in the clear…we weren’t
      • Multiple surges
      • Personal and interpersonal exposure and experiences of COVID19
      • Our unique position as Higher Education professionals has been directly affected
    • Our bodies have been in a stress response for a long time which increases cortisol in the system
    • We know that this much time with high levels of cortisol and arousal in our systems is very bad long term for our bodies.  
    • We must find ways to interrupt the cortisol in our systems, even if only for small amounts of time
      • Self preservation – proactive rest and renewal; remove barriers; provide permission for colleagues and from superiors; everyone creates the culture
    • Prioritizing Staff and Faculty – Self Preservation
      • Need to have buy-in from leadership
      • Increased energy towards gratitude and recognition
      • Acknowledge time and energy constraints
      • Making the evidence-based content of ResilientWake available to everyone in accessible and time-sensitive ways
        • Creating a Toolkit for Managers and Supervisors
          • Context and Terms
          • Leading by Example
          • Creating a Culture
          • Launch Bite-Sized Tips to easily integrate into daily activities
          • Resource bank being developed and shared with faculty and staff
  • THRIVE Dimension Champion Awards
    • Opportunities to recognize colleagues who champion the eight dimensions of Thrive: Emotional, Environmental, Financial, Intellectual, Occupational, Physical, Social, and Spiritual
    • Nominate colleagues to be recognized for the award at thrive.wfu.edu under Programs. Nominations due March 22 at 5pm. 
    • President Hatch and Vice President for Campus Life Penny Rue will recognize THRIVE Nominees and Champions at a virtual ceremony on April 15 at 3:30 pm

SAC COMMITTEE UPDATES:

PRO HUMANITATE COMMITTEE – UPDATES

  • Our committee wrote 43 thank you notes and assembled goodie bags which were delivered to the Parking & Transportation and Mail Services teams to thank them for their continued service
  • We are making plans to assist with the food insecurity needs in our community.  Additional details will be shared at a later date so members of the campus community can partner with us in this effort

MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE – UPDATES

  • Prepared announcements for newsletter and campus wide for nominations that are currently in progress.
    • Promoted through Inside WFU and SAC newsletter
      • Only received 2 nominations
      • Encourage more nominations or self-nominate
  • Finished up the project to identify the correct number of representatives in each staff group for upcoming elections.
    • Identified representatives needed for SAC:  Need to have 1 SAC member for every 50 staff members
  • Committee will meet the first week of April to review nominations, contact nominees, and prepare ballots to go out the middle of April.

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE – UPDATES

  • No new updates this month.
  • Reminders:
    • The recording of this meeting will be included in the meeting minutes and posted to the SAC website next week. 
    • Be sure to follow us on social media for more frequent updates from campus partners: @wfusac (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter)
    • Make sure your announcements are included in the next newsletter – join the SAC Call for Items listserv: go.wfu.edu/SACcallforitems

FRINGE BENEFITS COMMITTEE – UPDATES

  • Joint HR/Faculty/Staff Fringe Benefits meetings scheduled for spring semester.
  • At our last fringe committee meeting in January, we discussed open items carried over from last year’s committee and will continue to prioritize and work on those opportunities
  • Reminder that we are always available to bring any staff concerns forward to HR on your behalf

EVENTS COMMITTEE – UPDATES

  • Co-chairs talked with Exec Committee about possibilities of engaging staff around the time the event typically takes place
  • Committee will meet next week to discuss ideas for Staff Appreciation
  • Survey sent yesterday to SAC members about interest in Virtual Game Event

FACULTY SENATE – No updates

OUTSIDE COMMITTEE CHAIR UPDATES: (SAC representatives on other committees)

No updates from the following committees:

  • Capital Planning Advisory
  • Faculty Senate
  • Parking & Transportation
  • Tree Advisory
  • Council on Inclusion and Diversity
  • Finance Advisory
  • Campus Rec Advisory Board
  • Professional Development Advisory Board

General Announcements

  • Have questions/comments/concerns/topics you want to bring to SAC? Please email us: sac@wfu.edu.
  • Working towards having Dr. Wente, Incoming University President, attend a future meeting.

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