Forum focus turns to UW, U-District

Staff Conversation is lively

About 165 staff members gathered in Kane Hall last week for a forum on community building. The forum - during which staff were encouraged to come to microphones and raise their concerns - was the last of a series sponsored by the President’s Staff Forum as part of the Conversation About the Future.

Both the community outside the University and the one inside were on the minds of staff who spoke. One woman said she had noticed a deterioration in the commercial area on University Way, with a lot of disruptive behavior by the youths who hang out there. She said she thought the atmosphere affected the UW’s recruitment efforts and should be of concern to University officials.

Campus Plan Coordinator Theresa Doherty, who moderated the forum, said that two years ago the neighborhood had created an urban center plan with a goal to change the climate on University Avenue, known commonly as “The Ave.” But she said the University is limited in what it can do because of a lease lid that limits the amount of space it can lease in the University District. Historically, she said, some of the University’s neighbors have seen it as an encroacher, but the University is working hard to change that attitude and show the neighborhood the mutual benefits of University involvement in revitalization of the area.

Aaron Hoard, Special Projects for the Office of Regional Affairs, who served as a resource person at the forum, said the University has been working with the Seattle Police Department and with area merchants to address the problem.

Talk of problems in the area led several staffers to bring up volunteerism. One man mentioned that he has served on the board of the University District Food Bank and found it an eye-opening experience. He suggested that the University should promote volunteerism among its employees.

Following up on his comments, another staffer pointed out that companies that encourage volunteerism among their employees have been rewarded with greater productivity from those employees. She therefore suggested that the University consider granting days off for volunteering. Later, another speaker suggested that employees be given the right to use a certain number of sick days for volunteering.

Jennifer Hay, an assistant in the Office of Regional Affairs who was also a resource person at the forum, said she had been working on a project in which the University would collaborate with United Way to make University employees more aware of volunteer opportunities.

With regard to the internal community, staff comments included complaints, comments about existing activities and ideas for new ones. One of the first speakers of the day encapsulated the complaints when she said the University had a “hierarchical structure” that disrupts her work flow. She said she visualized a pyramid with undergraduate students on the bottom, graduate students and staff in the middle and faculty on the top.

In the same vein, other staff members spoke of not being considered “important” enough to receive information and not being respected by faculty for what they do. “What I’d like to see,” one of these staffers said, “is more inclusion, more encouragement for employees to have a voice.”

A number of existing University activities and programs were mentioned as a way employees might build or tap into community: