Guidelines for Preparing Standing Senate Committee Meeting Minutes and Agendas

Committee Minutes, including attendance listed within the document, are to be submitted within one week of the next meeting date. Senators should also log their committee meeting attendance via the Senate Attendance Portal. Resource members do not need to log attendance.

Please submit as a Microsoft Word document within your committee’s Teams group, in the “Files” tab.

Agenda Template

Committee Chairs and Vice Chairs can use this template to plan their upcoming meeting.

Name of Committee

Date, Time

Location (include Zoom link if via Zoom)

Agenda

REMINDER: All Senators should log attendance during your committee meeting: https://apps.powerapps.com/play/73574a32-2a2e-4b22-9e67-9ff35660cad3

  1. Call to Order
  2. Welcome and or Updates
  3. Announcement from the Chair.
  4. Approval of minutes
  5. Old Business
  6. New Business
  7. Adjourn

Next meeting: Date and Location.

Minutes Template

A template for committee minutes has been created in order to become compliant with requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Features of this template that are vital for ADA compliance are the formatting of text using Styles within Microsoft Word. Using Styles instead of simply formatting text using the Bold, Size, and Font configuring tools is necessary for screen readers to recognize the formatted text as headings.

SENATE COMMITTEE ON __________

Minutes for Meeting #__, Month Day, Year

Members Present:

Type members present here.

Members Absent:  

Type members absent here.

Guests:

Type guests’ names here.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Type minutes approval information here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Type announcements here.

OLD BUSINESS

Type old business here.

NEW BUSINESS

Type new business here.

The meeting was adjourned at <time>. 

Type preparer’s name here.

Accessibility Tips

Upon opening the Minutes template, as you place your cursor in the template text, you will notice that the headings “Senate Committee on ____” and “Minutes for Meeting # __, Month Day, Year” are formatted with Heading 1 in the Styles group on the Home tab (see illustration below). This is done by highlighting the text and simply clicking on Heading 1.

The following headings are formatted with Heading 3 in the Styles group on the Home tab:

  • Members Present:
  • Members Absent:
  • Guests:
  • APPROVAL OF MINUTES
  • ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • OLD BUSINESS
  • NEW BUSINESS

For all instances where text content will be added by the preparer, the Normal Style is used.

When creating meeting minutes, please be sure to include attendance, and make them simple.

Please AVOID using more than 2 list levels (example of 4 list levels below).

I. Announcements

A. Announcement #1
B. Announcement #2

a. Information about Announcement #2

i. more detailed information about Announcement #2

II. Discussion of Reports

Instead, create your minutes more simply, as follows.

Announcements

  1. Announcement #1
  2. Announcement #2
    • Information about Announcement #2
      More detailed information about Announcement #2

Discussion of Reports

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