System News

              An overwhelmingly system-wide positive
response was received regarding the System
Office inquiry on the reactivation of the
Human Resources Directors Advisory
Committee. As we look to generate a mo-mentum
of change and overall moderniza-tion
of the State Universities Civil Service
System, we expect this group to become a
very critical collaborator and communica-tion
element in this review and upgrade
process.
Human Resource Directors from across
the state indicated a willingness to actively
participate in this collaborative process and
the committee was reactivated with our
first meeting held in December 2002. We
were pleased with the number of partici-pants
who attended the meeting from local
campuses such as Eastern Illinois Univer-sity,
Illinois State University and the Uni-versity
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to
campuses around the state such as Gover-nors
State University, Northern Illinois
University, Northeastern Illinois Univer-sity,
Southern Illinois University School of
Medicine and the University of Illinois at
Chicago. Due to budget restrictions and
the difficulty in scheduling many face-to-face
meetings, we are allowing for telecon-ferencing
and attempting to conduct as
Continued to Page 2
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
A Quarterly Publication of the State
Universities Civil Service System
HUMAN RESOURCE ADVISORY GROUP RE-ACTIVATED
In my first six months as Executive Direc-tor,
I have had the pleasure of attending
various award ceremonies and visiting
many of the university and agency employ-ment
sites. I am attempting to schedule
visits to all university and agency locations
as a matter of introduction, but more im-portantly
as an opportunity to discuss our
role in higher education and to gain some
insight on the overall perception of the
State Universities Civil Service System
function.
From this perspective, I want to take a
brief moment to talk about some of my
current observations and discussions re-garding
the State Universities Civil Service
System and Civil Service employment in
general. In these many discussions with
administrators, employee representatives,
supervisory staff, and employees in gen-eral,
and also through my overall back-ground
and experience in the higher educa-tion
community, I have come to learn that
we have developed somewhat of a culture
that has served to simply define auxiliary
and Civil Service employment through the
services specifically provided. Conse-quently,
to a large degree, Civil Service
employment in higher education is defined
in terms of the classification structure, spe-cific
job descriptions, and complex employ-ment
protocols contained in our many
rules and procedures.
While this observation is not intended to
serve as a criticism, or system-wide cri-tique,
it does serve more as a current
benchmark from which we can measure
change and conceptual redefinition of our
role in the higher education community.
In many discussions, our role has simplisti-cally
been defined through the many cum-bersome,
complex rules and procedures we
promulgate and administer. In these many
discussions, I seldom heard mention of
concepts regarding customer service, equal
opportunity, and partnership. I discovered
quickly that we needed to reemphasize
these positive concepts in our defined statu-tory
role.
Even prior to the moment I took this posi-tion,
I sensed the presence of this cultural
perception. More than ever now, my vision
and our agency mission is to significantly
change the current cultural perspectives and
reemphasize our role as a service agency
and true partner in facilitating the teaching
and research mission of each of our univer-sities
and affiliated agencies.
First and foremost, we will continue to
emphasize and prioritize the educational
component in the overall student experi-ence.
However, the many student support
services and basic business functions, per-formed
mostly by Civil Service employees,
are more than a mere extension of the aca-demic
programs at our universities. These
functions, and the resulting employee inter-actions
with our student population, are
also a valued and important element in the
overall final student educational experi-ence.
These functions are not as much
about the service that is being performed,
but more about how each and every em-ployee
interacts with the student population
Continued to Page 2
Lewis T. (Tom)
Morelock,
Executive Director,
State Universities
Civil Service
System
April 2003 Volume 1, Issue 2
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
3 EAC UPDATE
BOARD ACTIVITY
4 SENATE BILL 63
AUDIT TOPIC
5 WHAT’S NEW
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