Meet the P&S Council president

Jennifer Schroeder is serving as president of the Professional and Scientific (P&S) Council, which has its first meeting of the academic year Sept. 11. She recently spoke to Inside Iowa State.

What's top-of-list for the council this year?

During summer planning sessions, the council's executive committee set three very broad goals for this year. Each includes action items (PDF) we'll work on to meet those goals and that will help us report back to constituents during the year.

• Advocate for university communications that are consistent and equitable while highlighting the work of P&S employees.
• Collaborate with university human resources to enhance council's programming for new P&S employees (launched in 2024).
• Focus on council's engage and advocate roles by continuing the 3-3-3 constituent feedback campaign (launched in spring 2025: councilors ask three workplace-related, open-ended questions of three constituents, and spend three minutes summarizing each conversation). The first round resulted in six items (PDF) identified frequently by P&S staff that shaped this year's goals and action items.

What's important to you as council president?

It's important to me to focus on the wins and highlight the diverse work that P&S staff do on this campus every day. That means getting more P&S nominations for university-level awards, gathering a robust set of nominations for our council awards, looking at adding some new awards. But the focus would be on getting people to take the time to write good nominations to reward really great work.

P&S staff are Iowa State's largest employee group. What's the most important thing council can do on their behalf?

The university, including its staff, is so decentralized. I'd like us to find more ways to share information and resources with staff about their employer: make better use of our newsletter, our website redesign was done with this in mind. The information all exists somewhere, but finding it can be difficult: where to look, what search words to use. Council has a role to play in empowering them. We're (council) not the experts, but let's help them see who the experts are and connect them.

What challenges face the council this year?

I see two things:

• How do we engage with our constituents so they see there's a value to council and they know what we're doing on their behalf? That's where this 3-3-3 feedback campaign will continue to be a North Star to shape our goals. The reason we're here is to advocate for 3,700 people.
• Turnover on the council when employees leave the university. That presents a challenge if it continues.

The timing of Iowa State's presidential search puts you on that committee. Your early impressions of that responsibility?

It's very daunting but really a privilege to be in that room. I'm the one P&S staff member, and people keep telling me, "Get us a good one." But what an opportunity to kind of 'see behind the curtain' how the university functions. 

It's been my responsibility to consistently represent the staff perspective on the committee and advocate for that perspective -- knowing things like fundraising and the student experience are really important priorities in a presidential search.