The first Employee Council meeting of 2001, held Jan. 17 in the Jones Room of Woodruff Library, opened with a presentation by two guest speakers from the Ethics Center—Melissa Snarr and Mary Sue Brookshire.

Snarr and Brookshire are director and assistant director, respectively, of ethics and servant leadership at the center. Servant leadership, the two explained, is more community based and much less hierarchical than traditional leadership models. Its focus is on the common good—it aims to build community and shows a commitment to the growth of people, rather than a top-down approach.

To illustrate their point, Snarr and Brookshire showed a film that explained the concepts behind servant leadership and delved deeper into its history.

Following the film and a brief question-and-answer period, the council turned to internal business.

Special issues chair Bill McBride gave an update on two ongoing concerns: designated smoking areas at each campus building and health care.

He said the smoking issue can be worked out, mentioning that White Hall, for instance, has a designated smoking room inside the building. McBride also said he had wanted to approach HumanResources Vice President Alice Miller about addressing the council concerning servant leadership—he said he may ask her to speak about the ongoing health care issues as well.
Membership committee chair Don Newsome said members whose three-year terms are ending will be honored at the March meeting. He also asked for help to ensure those vacated positions would be filled.

“Please do everything you can to replace yourself,” Newsome said. “I’ll send out letters to officially notify members who are rotating off as well as hiring managers.” The hiring managers are responsible for naming new members to the council.

Laquanda Jackson, membership co-chair, introduced candidates for officers and distributed their biographies. Officer elections for the 2002–03 year will be held at the February meeting.
Council President Susan Cook-Prince stressed the importance of attending February’s meeting because of the elections. She also announced that the council’s last event of the academic year will be an information fair in the Dobbs Center, Feb. 14, from 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

The upcoming fair will act as a companion to the widely successful fair that took place last September during the council’s 30th anniversary celebration.
Jackson said she hopes to have at least 10 tables set up, and priority will be given to campus organizations who were interested in participating in September but could not because of a lack of space.

In closing, Cook-Prince asked committee chairs for brief writeups on their 2000-01 activities so she could include them in her annual report, which is submitted to Miller, President Bill Chace and Bob Ethridge, associate vice president for Equal Opportunity Programs. She requested input from council representatives on University Senate subcommittees and groups such as the Lullwater Task Force, and she also asked Meredith Honeycutt, chair of the communications committee, and SecretaryCheryl Bowie for a report on the council’s anniversary activities.

The next Employee Council meeting will be Feb. 21 from 2–4 p.m., at Oxford. For council members who do not want to use their personal cars, a limited number of vans have been reserved and will leave from the Administration Building at 1 p.m. If time permits, council members will be able to tour the Oxford campus following the meeting.

If you have a question or comment about Employee council, send e-mail to Cook-Prince at scook01@emory.edu.