Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs Contract Extension

February 28, 2006

To All Staff,

As you know, there is a process underway to consider Father Holtschneider's proposal to extend Dr. Helmut Epp's contract to a full five-year term. To facilitate consultation on this decision, Staff Council, Faculty Council, and Student Government Association have held open forums to meet with Dr. Epp. In addition, a website was created to collect staff, faculty, and students opinions on the proposal (in the form of a vote as well as open-ended comments) and a Consultation Committee was formed to review all of the data and make a recommendation to Father Holtschneider.

In addition to the recommendation by the Consultation Committee, Father Holtschneider asked Staff Council, Faculty Council and SGA to engage their membership in discussion of the proposal and submit their independent recommendations. The Councils were provided all the data from the open forums as well as a summary of the data received through the anonymous website.

After critical review of the data and after detailed conversation, Staff Council voted in favor of extending Dr. Epp's contract. In addition to voting on the proposed contract extension, Staff Council took the opportunity to recognize staff concerns about the process used to fill the EVPAA position. Please see the attached memo sent to Father Holtschneider regarding the outcome of the special Staff Council Executive Session (membership only) held on February 28, 2006. The position taken by Staff Council was based on the feedback received from over 250 staff, faculty, and students.

Whether you participated in the open forums or submitted your input to the website, Staff Council thanks you for your participation in this process.

Sincerely,

Staff Council