1:30p.m. – 2:30p.m.

Attended: Kitty Saylor, Kim Obbink, Stephanie Gray, Julian Collins, Julie Kipfer, Michael Fox, Christa Merzdorf, Jamie Cornish, Rachel Schmidt, Coryn Johnson, Jennifer Raymond

Call to order

Kim Obbink

New members welcomed & introduced

  1. Julian Collins – Representing the Office of the VP for Student Success
  2. Stephanie Gray, Dean of Gallatin College, representing Academic Council
  3. Jamie Cornish – Representing ATO
  4. Rachel Schmidt – Representing ASMSU
  5. Coryn Johnson – Boardroom Bobcat
  6. Jenn Raymond – Administrative support

It was noted that we still have a few open representative positions (VP of Research Office, VP from Finance and Administration) open but that they will be filled soon. (Obbink )

Brief history of Outreach and Engagement given for new members benefit – (Obbink)

Professional Council and Staff Senate have merged and are now known as the All Staff Council. The representative to attend Outreach & Excellence Council meetings from All Staff Council has not been decided yet as they have just finished the members of their new council. – (Obbink)

Overview of Fall Semester activity

  1. The reapplication process for Carnegie Classification has been completed and is awaiting final decision. The application was worked on by council members last year and submitted in April and must be resubmitted every 10 years. The decision should be reached and known by the Outreach & Engagement council in December of 2019. (Obbink)
  2. Excellence in Outreach Award for Spring Convocation is posted on https://www.montana.edu/provost/ There is a nomination portal that takes you to the nomination application). The requirements for applying for the award were reviewed in detail. – (Obbink)
    1. All applications from faculty and staff should be received from the Provost office by 10/31/2019. Council will have a 3 week turn around to recommend one from faculty and one from staff and return those recommendations to Provost.
    2. Jamie Cornish asked if a recommendation by this council ever not been accepted? Kim Obbink answered no, but if the same person is recommended for multiple awards, they can only receive one award.
    3. Julian Collins asked what’s the differentiation between the narrative and the abstract? The narrative is the 2-page description of why you’re nominating the person. The abstract is a little short paragraph that could be pulled from your narrative.
    4. Stephanie Gray received the award 3 years ago.
    5. Kim Obbink encouraged all in attendance to tell colleagues and friends doing outreach work about the awards.
    6. Stephanie Gray asked if you can get the same award twice. Kim Obbink answered no, it is not possible to receive the same award twice. The pool for the award is averaging 20 nominees.
    7. Julie Kipfer will update the web site to include a reminder to nominate someone for the Excellence in Outreach Award.
    8. Kim Obbink reminded everyone that students may also make nominations for the awards.
    9. Kim suggested that smaller groups be used to review a smaller amount of applications to make the process easier on everyone reviewing the applications.

Seed Grants

  1. It was encouraged that we help faculty learn a little about grant money to help move them to a new level in Outreach projects. – ( Obbink)
  2. A couple of council members have been recipients of seed grants. – Seed grant application has an October 11th, 2019 submission deadline. It must be reviewed by November 1st, 2019 and the monies received must be spent by June 30th, 2020. – ( Obbink)
  3. Discussed consider putting the proposal out in Spring. Stephanie Gray agreed and added there be a deadline of July 1st.
  4. The seed grants started with a budget of awarding $20,000 and there was expressed hope by several members to see it grow from Its now budget of $35,000. That can be awarded to 7 recipients at a maximum of $5,000 each or possibly add more recipients if they request a lower grant amount as was noted has been done in years past. Examples of those are online on the website.
  5. Kim Obbink stated the scoring grid to read proposals has been very helpful and that student input has been helpful.
  6. Kitty Saylor brought up how after reviewing the first 10 applications that the applications start to run together, it’s hard to separate them. Kim stated we should try using smaller groups to combat that from happening. And that the first year there were 60 applications and subsequently there have been about 35 on average.
  7. Admin (Jen) will put applications into box folder for the council to review.
  8. On the request for proposals page, the word may should be changed to should. Change to ‘should include one or more of the following’. -Kitty Saylor & Kim Obbink. It was unanimously agreed by all in attendance.
  9. Jamie Cornish asked if you can still be nominated if you’re on the council. Kim Obbink answered yes, you just can’t be a part of the review process with your own application.
  10. It was discussed how Outreach is being integrated into community colleges and Tribal schools.
  11. Christa Merzdorf explained the process of her seed grant awarded.
  12. Stephanie Gray explained how they used their grant in work force programs and built bike racks for affordable housing. She also informed everyone that you cannot submit the same project idea twice, so the idea is to make it as detailed as possible. You can use the same template, but not the same idea.
  13. Michael Fox explained how his grant impacted the community through educational paleontology work packets that benefited K-12 schools and presented at the annual event Dino Days in Carter County (Ekalaka). They worked closely with Carter County Museum. Most of the money went to the packets themselves. Michael is looking at using the template they used for this project to advance to other museums and working with more communities.
  14. Bison reintroduction project at Fort Peck. A memorative space created for the tribe to use for bison. It’s ongoing to this day. Another success story. – Michael Fox
  15. Kim Obbink stated that student involvement gives the approval process a higher priority, more points.
  16. Emphasis on ties to new strategic plan to include Native American engagement.
  17. During a discussion it was suggested to drop Communication Plan 5pts instead of Sustainability 5pts to make up for the 5pts added to student engagement. It was agreed by all in attendance that is the better option.
  18. Rachel Schmidt brought up the new Crash Pad program coordinator has a new outreach program in the works and more information will be available soon (re: housing).

Spring Semester

  1. We had a brief discussion about spring semester activity. The Council hopes to hold an Engagement celebration following the Carnegie Engagement classification announcement.  Previously students have helped to plan the celebration.
  2. Everyone is tasked with getting the word out about the grants and awards.
  3. Kim had a meeting with new graduate dean about creating a course on how to produce good results with engagement and outreach for grads, faculty, etc. Possible future Brightspace course.
  4. Council of Council meeting at the end of the year. The student members are usually the representatives for Outreach & Engagement at this meeting. Details to be determined later

Monthly meeting day/times

Next Meeting: October 11, 2019   1:30-2:30pm

Meetings will be on the 2nd Friday of each month at 1:30pm. All in attendance agreed this was the best day and time of the month for each to attend.

Jen will be sending out meeting requests to the group prior to each meeting.

Meeting adjourned

2:32p.m.