Governance Retreat Planning Committee 02-27-09

Present: Culpa-Bondal, Davis-Bray, Digiovanni, Farr, Kleine, Prock, Turner

Regrets: Christenson

The group recapped the purpose for the retreat and reiterated the goal of streamlining activities as much as possible in order to meet respondents’ desire for restricting the retreat to a compressed block of time.  There was consideration of the importance of the various topics/events that have been proposed for inclusion.  Potential topics/events include 1) QEP as tone setter for retreat, 2) orienting new senators, 3) the nature of Senate meetings (Roberts Rules), 4) mentoring of emergent leaders,       5) outreach/PR for Senate, 6) alignment of Senate work with University mission, and 7) purpose of Senate.  There was strong support for items 2-6 though others may be considered as this decision was not finalized.  (For instance the topic of officer selection [Presiding Officer Elect and Secretary PRIOR to
committee slate] will need consideration.)

Two smaller groups then worked to begin shaping the schedule in light of the topics/events that they felt were most relevant to the retreat and whether they should be considered by the whole body at the retreat or some subset of the participants.  There was some discussion on a theme (Liberal Principles?) and specific delivery strategies (roundtables? triads?) to be used for the retreat but this will need greater attention at the next meeting.   The next meeting is to be held at Blackbird at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 31 March and members are asked to prepare a list in advance of the meeting of examples, issues, discussion points that we think fall under the broader topics that will help to focus the work to be done at the retreat.