Communicating with Constituents

Firstly, determine if your constituents know you and have a means to reach you. This could be accomplished by providing your contact information while sending out staff senate emails to the constituents. When contacted by a constituent with a question or issue, you may know the answer based on current Senate activities or discussions during meetings. If you are not sure of the response, forward the question/issue via email to the Vice-Chair.

Dissemination of information from the staff senate to constituents is also a senator’s responsibility. As Staff Senators and Alternates, it is our duty to share information with the University staff in a quick and efficient manner. Some of this is included in the monthly newsletter which goes out to all ~6500 staff constituents—the content deadline for this is close of business on the date of each general body Senate meeting.

Some communications are of an urgent nature, or may contain a personal opinion, greeting, or request of the chair. If this is the case, the Staff Senate Chair may disseminate this type of communication via Emma mailing list directly to constituents or via email directly to Senators for distribution to constituents in their district. This determination of communication mode is based on the timeliness of the information. If you receive information and you are not sure whether to communicate it to constituents, contact the Secretary or Chair to clarify before sending it out.

If you will be away from work, arrange with another Staff Senator or Alternate in your District to cover for you and send out communication.

Each District has either a Google Group that is automatically updated daily with their constituent contacts, or they have a separate explicit protocol within their unit. If latter, please ensure that the contact lists are regularly updated.

Mailing Lists

District 1: Chancellor	staffsenate-district1@lists.ncsu.edu
District 2: Provost	group-staffsenatedistrict2@ncsu.edu
District 6: Research and Graduate Studies	staffsenate-district6@lists.ncsu.edu
District 8: University Advancement	staffsenate-district8@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences	staffsenate-district11cals@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: West District (NC Cooperative Extension)	staffsenate-district11w@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: North Central District (NC Cooperative Extension)	staffsenate-district11nc@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: Northeast District (NC Cooperative Extension)	staffsenate-district11ne@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: South Central District (NC Cooperative Extension)	staffsenate-district11sc@lists.ncsu.edu
District 11: Southeast District (NC Cooperative Extension)	staffsenate-district11se@lists.ncsu.edu
District 12: College of Design	staffsenate-district12@lists.ncsu.edu
District 13: College of Education	staffsenate-district13@lists.ncsu.edu
District 14: College of Engineering	staffsenate-district14@lists.ncsu.edu
District 15: College of Natural Resources	staffsenate-district15@lists.ncsu.edu
District 16: College of Humanities and Social Sciences	staffsenate-district16@lists.ncsu.edu
District 17: College of Sciences	staffsenate-district17@lists.ncsu.edu
District 18: Wilson College of Textiles*	group-tex-staff@ncsu.edu
District 19: College of Veterinary Medicine*	cvmstaff@lists.ncsu.edu
District 20: Poole College of Management	staffsenate-district20@lists.ncsu.edu
District 24: Division of Academic and Student Affairs (DASA)	staffsenate-district24@lists.ncsu.edu
District 41: Finance and Administration	staffsenate-district41@lists.ncsu.edu
District 44: Facilities*	group-facilitiesdivision@ncsu.edu
District 47: Campus Enterprises*	Mailchimp
District 51: Office of Information Technology (OIT)	staffsenate-district51@lists.ncsu.edu

Managing Lists

With the exception of the Districts marked with an asterisk (*) on the above table, sending privileges for the groups are controlled by the senators in those districts, with support from the Communications Committee and the Secretary.

Lists can be managed using ListMinder—while all constituents will be automatically added, permission to send is restricted to only those who are Google Group managers. This should be set annually by the senators from each district.

Emailing Your District

• Avoid forwarding emails to constituents. If you do forward a message, be sure to delete the FWD: from the subject line of the email.
• When creating a new email message, copy relevant text from the message received (usually from the Secretary). Review the message in its entirety for errors. Notify the Secretary if any errors are present.
• Attach any document to be distributed with your message.
• If applicable, check web links to be certain they are active and were copied correctly.
• At the beginning of the message, add any comments you think may be needed for your group of constituents.
• At the end of your message, insert your name as a Staff Senator of your specific District, along with how to contact you. Email signatures work especially well for this purpose.

Print – Post – Distribute

• Not all employees in all Districts have immediate access to computers or email. In this case, we need to make other arrangements to ensure they also receive Staff Senate communications. You will still communicate to constituents according to the department or unit indicated by your District.
• Print email messages and post on bulletin boards for employees to see.
• Print attachment/flyer (on color printer if possible).
• Determine the locations on campus where constituents in your District will likely see posted communications.
• Make arrangements to post information in these areas.
• You may also determine an alternate method of distribution to ensure that everyone receives all communications.