Staff are asking the University of Colorado to change its policy and include them in shared governance decision making.

University of Colorado Staff Council Chair Ja’Net Hurt spoke to the CU Board of Regents on Thursday about changing regent policy to include staff in shared governance. Shared governance are committees and boards where faculty, for example, provide input on budget decisions, work culture and issues in a department.

Existing policy does not require CU to include staff in shared governance. Hurt said some staff have been excluded by supervisors from major budget decisions, for example, because regent policy doesn’t require staff involvement.

“This is something that we often hear from staff about and why you’ve likely heard staff say that they often feel like second-class citizens and/or stepchildren,” Hurt said. “And while not always that overt, it does manifest in other ways such as the accomplishments and contributions of staff not being mentioned or rarely highlighted by leadership.”

Staff are included in shared governance in some areas of the CU campuses, but there is not a policy across the CU system that mandates it. Hurt said CU Staff Council is trying to change this and is working with the university to re-write Regent Policy 6 to include staff in shared governance. She asked the regents for support on the policy change.“We do appreciate the work of all of our folks at the University of Colorado,” Regent Frank McNulty said, adding, “From my part, and I suspect it’s shared by all of us on the Board of Regents and by the president, we are grateful for the work staff and appreciate the opportunity to close some of these gaps.”

Hurt said there are 31 schools and colleges across the CU system: 12 at CU Boulder, seven at CU Denver, six at CU Anschutz and six at UCCS. Of those 31 colleges, she found that about seven have a named staff council or staff body that serves in an advisory capacity to the dean on matters related to shared governance, culture, climate, budget and other issues. Four of those councils are authorized in bylaws, she said, and the rest are at the will of the dean.

More broadly at CU Boulder, there’s shared governance groups of staff, faculty and students that report directly to the chancellor.

“Staff governance and staff having a voice on the policies, procedures and decisions that affect them directly should not be at the discretion of the current leader,” Hurt said.

Each academic college has staff, and outside of the colleges, staff work in departments like human resources, finance, admissions, facilities, financial aid, the registrar and recruitment and outreach.

“While there’s no dispute that faculty absolutely do and should have responsibility for decisions concerning teaching, curriculum, research and scholarship, I think we all know that there is so much more that goes on in schools and colleges that staff are directly involved in,” Hurt said.

The CU regents also removed an action item from its agenda on Thursday that, if approved, would’ve changed the university’s policy on freedom of expression.

The change proposed adding a requirement that staff, faculty and students must indicate when speaking or writing that their opinion does not reflect that of the university. The board postponed a decision about the change in September after students and faculty opposed it.

The item was taken off the agenda and there was no discussion. If desired, a regent can bring the item forward in the future.