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Community Engagement Leave Policy

This policy was posted for public comment from April 21 – May 7, 2025

Responses

General Comments

This is generally a well-written and clear policy. It was good to include a link to the Thayne Center webpage.

Thank you for your comment.

There is concern that the Thayne Center was not involved in this policy review. Suggestion that this policy should be returned to the policy writing stage and the Thayne Center and other college stakeholders should be involved, including Jen Seltzer-Stitt.

Thank you for your comment. Further policy discussions, including those with the Thayne Center and Community Relations, were held following the 15-day review. The comment responses and additional post-15-day review policy edits reflect these discussions.

The procedures for evaluating and approving community engagement leave need to be formalized to provide “guardrails” that prevent supervisors from arbitrarily denying requests and employees from abusing the process.

The police review group, with the Thayne Center and Community Relations, discussed the need to allow flexibility and avoid bias in this process. Section 4.C.1 has been revised to support this, requiring employees to only provide the type of activity (e.g., cleaning up trash in a park, serving food, reading to students) to their supervisor for approval.

There appears to be a trend of upgrading staff or position classifications in student affairs, which has also impacted PWC in recent months. Allowing these upgrades at a time when faculty and academic staff are at risk of being laid off seems to convey a mixed message and undermines employee morale.

Thank you for the comment. All upgrade requests are reviewed and approved through our standardized process, considering business needs.

Consideration should be given to using etrieve for community engagement leave requests. Besides providing a standardized process, this will provide a database or repository for the college to measure and record the valuable community service provided by SLCC employees.

Thank you for your comment. A form has been used in the past for CEL collecting this information, but it was found to be cumbersome and problematic. Instead of an official form, we’ve included in the policy that employees taking CEL are encouraged to list the organization they worked with in the notes field on their timesheet. They are not mandated to do so by the policy.

This policy, as drafted, does not address whether employees can use community engagement leave to voluntarily moderate non-affiliated SLCC student clubs. Currently, many SLCC student clubs lack a moderator. By allowing SLCC employees to use community engagement leave as an incentive to moderate those clubs, it would likely increase the number of clubs with an employee moderator.

Based on Executive Cabinet discussions, Community Engagement Leave is allowable for employees to moderate unaffiliated student clubs that are also categorized as unrecognized. The FAQ will be updated to reflect and clarify this situation. The Thayne Center will create documentation regarding the categorization of existing student clubs, beginning in the Fall of 2025.

3. Definitions

Please define the term “social events” (used in 4.A.3.g).

No changes made. An example would be if a community organization held a barbecue for its volunteers as a token of appreciation. As this event would focus on socialization and camaraderie instead of service to the external community, it would not qualify for Community Engagement Leave.

4.A. Community Engagement Activities

4.A.1 – does “full-time employees” include faculty? If so, consider changing the language to read “full-time faculty and staff.”

“Full-time employees” is defined in the Personnel Definitions. It does include faculty and staff.

4.A.1 – this section states employees may engage in activities that "enhance our community," but this is vague. Clearer criteria or examples would help supervisors and employees understand what qualifies.

Please refer to the Thayne Center Website in Section 4.A.2 for examples.

4.A.3 – Prohibits community engagement leave for service which is part of one’s employment. In addition, Section 4.E.5. prohibits the use of community engagement leave for a college day of service. The prohibition of using this type of leave for SLCC events may be too broad. The revision of these sections should be re-evaluated to be an incentive for SLCC employees to mentor or tutor students.

The intention is that a college day of service would not require you to use Community Engagement Leave (CEL) to participate. CEL would be available in addition to those hours. If service is part of an employee’s employment, that is a discussion that needs to occur with the employee, supervisor, and their department.

4.A.3.c – I think student clubs is okay if they are unaffiliated with the college (updated institutional policy).

Based on Executive Cabinet discussions, Community Engagement Leave is allowable for employees to moderate unaffiliated student clubs that are also categorized as unrecognized. The FAQ will be updated to reflect and clarify this situation. The Thayne Center will create documentation regarding the categorization of student clubs, beginning in the Fall of 2025.

4.A.3.g – Social events, rallies, and fundraisers should not necessarily be banned. Philanthropy is a legitimate form of service. Does this suggest I could not participate or volunteer in a Breast Cancer Walk if it is a fundraiser for cancer research? If the goal is to determine whether an activity qualifies, clearer parameters or examples of things that do/do not qualify would suffice rather than eliminating these opportunities.

We’ll take this under consideration as we must be mindful of federal, state, and local law compliance. 4.A.3.d clearly excludes any political or partisan rallies or fundraisers. When the FAQ is revised, we will explore expanding examples.

4.B. Availability of Leave

4.B.1 – the dates seem unclear to me.

Thank you for your comment. No changes made.

4.C. Approval of Leave

4.C.1 & 4.C.3 – how far in advance? Is this based on other PWC policies for time-away?

Supervisors set expectations regarding the timing of leave requests.

4.C.1 – I think what you mean here is to say “describing the organization” in that it is an eligible organization and event, as with this policy.

The police review group, with the Thayne Center and Community Relations, discussed the need to allow flexibility and avoid bias in this process. The type of volunteer activity for a specific institution may affect eligibility for CEL. Section 4.C.1 has been revised to support this; employees are only required to provide the type of activity (e.g., cleaning up trash in a park, serving food, reading to students) to their supervisor for approval. They are no longer required to describe or name the organization.

4.C.1 – adds a requirement to describe the organization to one's supervisor.
  1. I would encourage us not to require that the staff member report the name of the organization until after they volunteer/report on their time sheet. While I am grateful that we will collect that information -- and selfishly urge HR to make that available to the Thayne Center and Community Relations without staff names attached -- I am concerned that supervisors who do not agree with an organization's mission will not allow their staff member to volunteer there.
  2. Does a supervisor really need to know what the organization is about, and, if an organization meets other leave requirements, should they be able to reject the leave based on an organizational description? Could this lead to discrimination if a supervisor has biases against an organization's values, service population, or service offerings and rejects the leave?
  3. If the intention is to provide clarity on whether or not the organization qualifies, maybe clearer parameters or examples of what does/does not qualify would allow employees to determine this with confidence.

The police review group, with the Thayne Center and Community Relations, discussed the need to allow flexibility and avoid bias in this process. The type of volunteer activity for a specific institution may affect eligibility for CEL. Section 4.C.1 has been revised to support this; employees are only required to provide the type of activity (e.g., cleaning up trash in a park, serving food, reading to students) to their supervisor for approval. They are no longer required to describe or name the organization. Employees taking CEL are encouraged to list the organization they worked with in the notes field on their timesheet. They are not mandated to do so by policy. If the organization is listed, the organization name can be shared with Community Relations.

4.C.2 – I would clarify what these denials can be based on, especially for a bias check. The committee was concerned about the arbitrariness of decisions to deny requests. For example, what if a conservative supervisor denies a leave request for an employee to volunteer with an LGBTQ+ organization? Clarification so that a supervisor can’t deny someone CEL with Big Brother’s Big Sisters because they don’t like the organization personally.

The type of volunteer activity for a specific institution may affect eligibility for CEL. Section 4.C.1 has been revised to support this, requiring employees to provide only the type of activity (e.g., cleaning up trash in a park, serving food, reading to students) to their supervisor for approval. They are no longer required to describe or name the organization to avoid bias concerns. Additionally, 4.C.5 now states, “Supervisors should strive to approve employee requests, but may deny the request if it interferes with department operations.”

4.C.3 – allows appeal to the second-level supervisor, but does not provide a timeline or process (e.g., written appeal, response time). What is the appeal process? This should be clarified.

4.C.3 has been revised to specify, “An employee may appeal denied leave requests to the employee’s second level supervisor in writing within 10 business days.”

4.C.4 – in the Faculty Handbook, appendix 1, faculty expectations are to “serve community partners as content experts as appropriate”. Given this expectation, when faculty need to provide community service and it interferes with teaching a class, the college should provide an adjunct instructor to teach the class during the faculty member’s absence.

Thank you for your comment. This is outside the purview of this policy review and should be discussed with your administration.

4.C.5 – consider revising the word “should.” Alternatively, consider rewording to state, “Supervisors should strive to approve employee requests but may deny the request if it interferes with department operations.”

4.C.5 has been revised to match the suggested reworded sentence.

4.D. Reporting Leave Time

4.D.1 – Traditionally, we have allowed staff to volunteer at a time consistent with the needs of the organization, whether or not it falls within traditional working hours. For example, if I were to serve dinner at the shelter for two hours on a Friday but wanted to represent SLCC, it could be considered flex time with supervisor approval. (See FAQ- Any time over the 40-hour work week can be used to adjust the work week .) This enables us to better meet community needs, rather than bending the community to our interests. Similarly, if we equate Community Engagement Leave to vacation leave and if vacation leave can be used for the two days of unpaid leave during the holidays, Community Engagement Leave should be an option for employees during those days. CEL has traditionally worked as flex hours (used within a pay period or within the two pay periods of December).

Thank you for your comments. They will be considered when the FAQ is revised. The college supports “meet[ing] community needs instead of bending the community to our interests” if that can be done in compliance with college, local, state, and federal policies and laws. Some of the concerns that need to be addressed in this process relate to: FLSA (overtime concerns); college policies, such as our Hours of Work and Scheduling Policy; departmental impacts; and payroll department functions. This discussion will be elevated to the Executive Cabinet to obtain their feedback and guidance.

4.D.2 – requires naming the organization in the timesheet comments. This could raise privacy concerns or discourage participation. Please clarify what’s being done with this information. It should be clear this isn’t for bias approval/disapproval.

4.D.2 states that employees “should enter the name of the organization…” on their time sheet. While the college would appreciate this, it is not an absolute requirement. This information, if entered by the employee, is utilized for reporting purposes in Community Relations communications and work. 4.C.5 now states, “Supervisors should strive to approve employee requests, but may deny the request if it interferes with department operations.” Denials should be based on department operations needs, not the organization someone volunteers with.

4.E. Other

4.E.4 – states that college property cannot be used for community engagement leave. Why not? What about a SLCC employee using their college-issued laptop to teach illiterate persons how to read, or some beneficial type of activity like this? This section may need to be tailored to allow these beneficial activities.

The Employee Conduct Policy, section 4.B.12.b, specifies that “College facilities and equipment are to be used for conducting college activities.” Although incidental personal use is discussed, 4.B.12.c also states that “Under all circumstances, the college prohibits employees from using college purchased supplies, including photocopies and other consumables, for personal or private purposes.” Other college policies, such as the Motor Vehicle Policy and the Acceptable Use of College Computing Resources Policy, also limit the use of state and college-owned property and supplies in compliance with local, state, and federal laws and other regulations. 4.E.4 has been moved to section 4.A.5 of the policy.

4.E.5 – I like this update. Thank you!

Thank you for your comment.

4.E.6 – what does “encouraged to support” mean in this context?

Supervisors are encouraged to arrange for part-time employee duties to be covered during college-wide days of service or to adjust schedules to allow part-time employees to participate. As part-time employees cannot utilize CEL, supervisors should seek opportunities for part-time employees to participate in college-wide days of service.

Technical Suggestions

4.A.2 – Thayne Center title is now “Thayne Center for Student Life, Leadership, and Community Engagement”

This has been revised.

4.E.7 – suggestion to update the FAQ as it is outdated, and there are answers in the FAQ that are no longer accurate.

The FAQ will be updated with input from PWC and other relevant entities.

Consider changing “4.E. Other” to a different heading title.

This has been revised.

Comments

The Thayne Center is now known as the Thayne Center for Student Life, Leadership, and Community Engagement. Additionally, why are social events, rallies, or fundraisers listed as excluded activities? In particular, social events are too broad of an activity. For example, I may want to volunteer at a National Ability Center (NAC) social event for people with cognitive disabilities. The event supports socialization for a population that is typically isolated, and they rely on volunteers to help with all programs, as they are essential to meeting their mission. I would also argue that fundraisers are also O.K., but both examples should be connected only to work with non-profits.I also liked the fact that employees could flex their time if approved (i.e., using CEL over the December break). Thanks for seeking comments on this policy.

Point C.1 adds a requirement to describe the organization to one's supervisor. Does a supervisor really need to know what the organization is about and, if an organization meets other leave requirements, should they be able to reject the leave based on an organizational description? Could this lead to discrimination if a supervisor has biases against an organization's values, service population, or service offerings and rejects the leave?

I like the opportunity for employees to flex their time to use this leave with approval. Only allowing employees to use CEL during work hours is not always beneficial for employees who may not have accumulated enough vacation time to cover winter break college closure. Taking away the flex time impacts these new employees who may have to take leave without pay which impacts their financial situation. I believe social events and fundraisers should be approved as they are still providing an indirect service to the community. It may not be the direct service as tutoring, but it is still supporting the community the organization is serving. I like the inputting of the name of the organization when the employee enters time as it is an opportunity to collect data and see what partners our staff are creating relationships with, which in turn be potential partners for our programs and students.

Section 4.A.1 states employees may engage in activities that "enhance our community," but this is vague. Clearer criteria or examples would help supervisors and employees understand what qualifies.

Section 4.C.3 allows appeal to the second-level supervisor, but does not provide a timeline or process (e.g., written appeal, response time).

Section 4.D.2 requires naming the organization in the timesheet comments. This could raise privacy concerns or discourage participation.

4.C.1. indicates employees must describe the organization, but I feel this will encourage discrimination (as [a previous commenter] said) and discourage participation (as [another commenter] said). If the intention is to provide clarity on whether or not the organization qualifies, maybe clearer parameters or examples of what does/does not qualify would allow employees to determine this with confidence.

4.A.3.g. I agree with [previous commenters] that social events, rallies, and fundraisers should not necessarily be banned as a whole. Again, if the goal is to determine whether or not an activity qualifies, I feel clearer parameters or examples of things that do/do not qualify would suffice rather than completely eliminating these opportunities

4.A.2. Full name: Thayne Center for Student Life, Leadership & Community Engagement
4.A.3.g. Please define the term "social events".
4.C.1. I would encourage us not to require that the staff member report the name of the organization until after they volunteer/report on their time sheet. While I am grateful that we will collect that information -- and selfishly urge HR to make that available to the Thayne Center and Community Relations without staff names attached -- I am concerned that supervisors who do not agree with an organization's mission will not allow their staff member to volunteer there.
4.D.1. Traditionally we have allowed staff to volunteer at a time consistent with the needs of the organization whether or not it falls within traditional working hours. For example, if I was to serve dinner at the shelter for two hours on a Friday but wanted to represent SLCC, it could be considered flex time with supervisor approval. (See FAQ- Any time over the 40 hours work week can be used to adjust the work week .) This better allows us to meet community needs instead of bend community to our interests.
Similarly, if we equate Community Engagement Leave to vacation leave and if vacation leave can be used for the two days of unpaid leave during the holidays, Community Engagement Leave should be an option for employees during those days. CEL has traditionally worked as flex hours (used within a pay period or within the two pay periods of December).
Recommendation for FAQ: Employees using community engagement leave should note to the organization they volunteer with that their participation with the organization is part of SLCC's community engagement leave. Initially, community engagement leave was developed as part of our effort to articulate in a tangible way to staff and the communities we serve the college-wide value “community”, increase SLCC visibility in our community, and build the types of relationships that breakdown barriers to access and support efforts to help students feel a sense of connection while at SLCC, support completion, and help students thrive. By identifying that a person is volunteering as part of SLCC's community engagement leave, we are better able to meet the true intent of the policy.

It would have been appropriate to consult with partner offices across divisions like the Thayne Center, CEL, CR on this policy update, but I appreciate the leadership from PWC on fixing the employment attributes of this.
4A2 – Please update office name as mentioned in other comments. This title was changed in 2020.
4A3c – I think student clubs is okay if they are unaffiliated with the college (updated institutional policy).
4A3G – why not fundraisers for community organizations? Philanthropy is a legitimate form of service. Does this suggest I could not participate or volunteer in a Breast Cancer walk if it is a fundraiser for cancer research?
4B1 – the dates seem unclear to me. “for the fiscal year?” maybe it’s meant “forthcoming fiscal year?” I’m sure there’s convention on other PWC policies though.
4C – how far in advance? Is this based on other PWC policies for time-away? Same for 4C3.
4C1 – I think what you mean here is to say “describing the organization” in that it is an eligible organization and event as with this policy (specifically 4a3a-g.
4c2 – I would clarify what these denials can be based on, especially for bias check. Like, I can’t deny someone CEL with Big Brother’s Big Sisters because I don’t like the organization personally.
4C5 – “should...” that’s a pretty ineffective language. What happens if I don’t?
4D2 – This is new and could be cool for reporting. However, please clarify what’s being done with this information. Again, it should be clear this isn’t for bias approval/disapproval.
4E5. I like this update. Thank you!
4E6. What does this even mean? “Encouraged to support.”
4E7. How often is this reviewed (last update 2020?) By whom? There are answers in here that are no longer accurate too.

https://slccbruins-my.sharepoint.com/personal/cnewma40_slcc_edu/Documents/facilities%20divisions%20presentation.pptx

1. Policy Statement- General Comments
A. The committee believes that this was generally a well written and clear policy. In particular, the committee believes it was good to include a link to the Thayne Center webpage.
B. The committee is concerned that the Thayne Center was not involved in the review of this policy. This was based on [a previous] comment. Last year the committee reviewed the Employee Organizations policy and neither Faculty Association nor Staff Association were involved. Consequently, the policy was returned to the policy writing stage with the involvement of both associations. In this case the Community Engagement policy, it should be returned to the policy writing stage and the Thayne Center and other college stakeholders should be involved. This effort should also involve Jen Seltzer-Stitt.
C. The committee believes that the procedures to evaluate and approve community engagement leave need to be formalized to provide “guard-rails” to prevent supervisors from arbitrarily denying requests and employees abusing the process.
D. Consideration should be given to using etrieve for community engagement leave requests. Besides providing a standardized process, this will provide a database or repository for the college to measure and record the valuable community service provided by SLCC employees. By doing this, the college will gather and report metrics to further the SLCC value of Community. While the committee unanimously believed this was a good idea, significant discussion occurred that the legislature may use this data against the college. For example, if community engagement leave was used to assist LGBTQ+ organizations, will such service be subjected to legislative scrutiny? Likewise, what if community engagement leave was being used for assisting undocumented persons?
E. This policy, as drafted, does not address whether employees can use community engagement leave to voluntarily moderate non-affiliated SLCC student clubs. Currently, there are a large number of SLCC student clubs that do not have a moderator. By allowing SLCC employees to use community engagement leave as an incentive to moderate those clubs would likely increase the number of clubs with an employee moderator.

2. References
A. No comments

3. Definitions
A. No comments

4. Procedures
A. Section 4.A. - Community Engagement Activities
1) Section 4.A.1. Does “full-time employees” include faculty? If so consider changing the language to read “full-time faculty and staff”
2) Section 4.A.3. Prohibits community engagement leave for service which is part of one’s employment. In addition, Section 4.E.5. prohibits use of community engagement leave for a college day of service. The prohibition of using this type of leave for SLCC events may be too broad. For example: what if an employee mentors or tutors a student even though that has nothing to do with his/her job duties? The revision of these sections should be reevaluated to be an incentive for SLCC employees to mentor or tutor students.
B. Section 4.C. – Approval of Leave
1) Section 4.C.2. – There are no standards as to approval or denial of the request. The committee was concerned about the arbitrariness of decisions to deny requests. For example, what if a conservative supervisor denies a leave request for an employee to volunteer with an LGBTQ+ organization?
2) Section 4.C.3. – This section states that “an employee may appeal denied leave requests to the employee’s second level supervisor”. What is the appeal process? This should be clarified.
3) Section 4.C.4 – in the Faculty Handbook, at appendix 1, faculty expectations are to “serve community partners as content experts as appropriate”. Given this expectation, when faculty need to provide community service and it interferes with teaching a class, the college should provide an adjunct instructor to teach the class during the faculty member’s absence.
4) Section 4.C.5. “Supervisors should attempt to approve leave at the time requested by an employee but have the discretion to deny the leave if it impacts department operations”. The wording of this section is not clear. Consider rewording to read: “Supervisors should strive to approve employee requests but may deny the request if it interferes with department operations.”
C. Section 4.E. - Other
1) Section 4.E.4. - In this section it states that college property cannot be used for community engagement leave. Why not? What about a SLCC employee using their college issued laptop to teach illiterate persons how to read, or some beneficial type of activity like this? This section may need to be tailored to allow these beneficial activities.
2) Section 4.E.7. – The community engagement leave FAQ is dated 2020. Consider reviewing this document as this document may be outdated and in need of revision.
3) Consider changing the heading to this section to something other than “Other”.