Creating a Staff Council for the Libraries

This lightning talk was presented at the RIT & UR Library Staff Conference: Refresh, Reconnect, Renew on June 17, 2024 during the Session #1 lightning talks from 10:30 am - 11:15 am.

Session Description: Both RIT and UR have staff councils that help facilitate communication and advocate for staff needs to administration at the university level, but at UR we will soon have a similar body dedicated solely to the River Campus Libraries (RCL) acting in a similar capacity. The River Campus Libraries Staff Council (RSC) seeks to advocate on behalf of the libraries’ staff body, communicate to library leadership, and address staff needs to make the culture at RCL ‘ever better.’ This session will discuss how the RSC came to be conceptualized, the path by which it was presented to leadership for approval, and how the group will be governed. By the time of the RIT-UR conference, the first slate of elected RSC representatives should be in place. I think this could be formulated as either a lightning talk, for a quick overview of the above, or as a panel session for a discussion about what the RSC hopes to accomplish. This could include members of the group that launched the proposal at UR, the dean of libraries at UR (who has expressed willingness to participate), and university staff councils’ representatives at UR and RIT.