Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
12:15 — 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall
Minutes

I. Call to Order
D. Goss called the meeting to order at 12:23 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda
H. Hall announced that Pat Mahoney would not be able to attend the meeting, so she will have the budget report ready for the next meeting. The budget will be circulated prior to the meeting.

D. Goss said she wanted to make sure they made a note of the promised budget, because it has been promised a few times before, yet they still haven’t received it.

A. Goncarovs asked if the assembly would move the meetings in November, December, and January to different times as part of an IOC employee outreach effort.

III. Report from the Chair
D. Goss reminded the members that inauguration will be held tomorrow, September 7th. She asked if everyone had the information they needed.

B. Vangasbeck said she hadn’t received any correspondence about the event. She asked where she needed to go and when.

D. Goss said all that information was on a letter that was circulated last week. They need to meet on Ho Plaza at 2:30 p.m. in their regalia.

A. Goncarovs asked if they had any updates on the dinner. He had requested a ticket for a guest and wondered if the tickets were supposed to be delivered in a separate mailing.

P. Beach said as long as he had RSVP’d, he would have the spaces reserved. In terms of the people who had RSVP’d late, they were able to accommodate the assembly members, but not their guests. However, anyone who had replied by August 21st will be accommodated.

A. Goncarovs asked if the members should meet beforehand and go to the dinner together.

P. Beach said that there is no need for that because they will all be seated at the dinner and grouped by assemblies.

D. Goss reminded everyone about the meeting Friday afternoon (September 8th) with the Master Planning Committee. It will be at 2:00 or 2:30 p.m. and everyone should watch for it on the Employee Assembly calendar. It will be held in the ILR Conference Center.

A. Goncarovs said that the meeting will not be just a question and answer session.

D. Goss said she’d also received an email from the President’s office. He would like to attend 14 EA meetings throughout the year starting September 20th from 12:15 to 1:00 p.m.

IV. Committee Reports
A. Goncarovs introduced Scott Doyle from Campus Life who was visiting for the meeting. He has worked at Cornell for a few years and is interested in the Master Plan.

D. Stein introduced Steve Perina who is the temporary production person for PawPrint.

A. O’Donnell introduced Lisa Gilbertson, the new student clerk from the Office of Assemblies. She has a lot of experience working with assemblies and taking minutes.

A. Goncarovs said that all the members should think about inviting people to their meetings every now and then as a form of active outreach to constituents.

IOC - Master Plan Update / Proposal for Master Plan
A. Goncarovs said he had talked with Mina Amundsen to see what the planners really hope to get from this meeting. What he found out was that the consultants would like to present different options later this fall in order to test reactions to them. What they need from the EA is help understanding Cornell better. EA members should think of some questions aimed at giving the consultants this understanding. It is also the EA’s chance to tell the consultants what employees want them to know about Cornell. The meeting on Friday is very important because the EA is really the voice of the staff right now.

L. Lawrence asked what the reluctance is to just going out and asking the staff their opinions.

A. Goncarovs said that the planner’s office wants to keep some amount of control over the feedback they receive. They are also trying to avoid getting a lot of input from people who then expect what they want to see to show up in the final plans and then being disappointed when it doesn’t.

L. Lawrence said that they could still go out to staff and ask for opinions, as long as they included a disclaimer saying that there were no promises about what would be included in the final draft.

A. Goncarovs said that the EA is currently in a very high profile position, which is not something they want to lose. They are in a good position to have input in the process.

L. Lawrence said he just wants to make sure they won’t be blessing something the staff hasn’t signed on to.

A. Goncarovs said no, that is not the expectation. The EA is just one interest group being considered in the process.

P. Beach confirmed that the planners are not looking for approval, just ideas. It is hard to contact 30,000 people so they have to go to the representatives to get opinions. Maybe, as part of their responsibilities, the members should be soliciting ideas so they have an idea of how the staff feels.

L. Lawrence said they were told not to go to their constituents.

A. Goncarovs said that they don’t want to formally solicit any opinions, but informal discussions with colleagues would be helpful. The reason they are using the website as the main source of feedback is just to retain some element of control.

D. Stein said he agrees that the planners aren’t looking for approval at this stage. Mina does have plans to reach out to employees. There will be an interview with her published in the next PawPrint with more information for staff. Early on, nobody had a full understanding of this project and so it was necessary to maintain control. He guessed that there would be forums held to father formal opinions. However, he stressed the importance of including an educational component for staff about the plan, in part to avoid disappointing people.

A. Goncarovs said the EA has wanted to be involved with an educational component from the beginning, but the planning office was hesitant. The assembly can work with Mina to move forward, but it is also ok to have members weigh in or to solicit comments in the meantime. He made a motion to form an Ad Hoc Master Plan Committee. This committee will help make the EA fully engaged and will work with Mina on how the EA can be involved in the process.

I. Mahler asked what the committee would entail.

A. Goncrovs replied that it would be comprised of EA members and staff, and the main purpose of the committee would be to keep information and ideas flowing to and from the planners. He said that Scott Doyle has already expressed interest and recommended that the members reach out and engage staff to recruit anyone else who is interested.

D. Stein asked if the committee would last as long as the planning process continues.

A. Goncarovs said there will likely be needs in the future that they cannot predict. They could allow the committee to run for the session and then re-address its necessity at the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

L. Lawrence asked if the Education Committee would come into play for the educational component of the process and getting information to staff.

A. Goncarovs said the Education Committee will likely not be involved because they are really focused on the Empire State College Program currently.

D. Goss said that there are many committees that could play a role, such as the Education Committee and the Communications Committee.

L. Lawrence asked if this new committee will overlap some of the already existing committees.

D. Goss said yes, it likely will overlap to some degree.

A. Epstein asked if there was a place for the EA to coordinate with the UA Campus Planning Committee.

There was some confusion about how the Campus Planning Committee is tied to the UA.

P. Beach said that the linkage of the Campus Planning Committee to the UA is very loose, but it is a standing committee of that assembly.

D. Goss said she couldn’t really see the Campus Planning Committee holding forums or participating in outreach efforts.

D. Stein agreed. He said those tasks would likely fall on the assemblies.

D. Goss asked if Ari was suggesting creating some sort of joint committee.

A. Epstein said he was suggesting that they funnel their projects and information through the Campus Planning Committee.

A. Goncarovs asked if the UA committee had met with the planners.

P. Beach answered yes, the Campus Planning Committee has met with the planners.

A. Goncarovs said the Campus Planning Committee has probably been identified as one of the stakeholders in this process. As far as undertaking a co-sponsored event of some sort, he feels that would be ok. However, the EA really needs to make sure they keep themselves in a prime position in the process and retain their autonomy.

C. Brown seconded the motion. A vote was taken via hands and the motion was approved by a vote of 7–2 to create an Ad Hoc Master Plan Committee.

IOC - Email Proxy Vote Presentation
A. Goncarovs said the reason they are talking about email proxy voting is to address how the EA should deal with issues outside of their meetings. The EA charged the IOC and Parliamentarian to develop procedures for voting outside of meetings. Today, they want to read through the draft they have developed, take questions, and then make changes in order to re-present the proposal at the next meeting.

C. Brown read through paragraph 1 of the proposed procedures.

B. Vangasbeck asked what they would do if certain methods, such as text messaging, were not available to some people.

C. Brown said that they included as many types as possible just so that they would be able to use them, not that they have to use them.

L. Lawrence suggested that they add a clause about other types of electronic communication because they have no way of predicting what will be developed. By adding such a clause, they would be able to use other methods without having to amend the rules.

T. Jacobs said that issue was covered by the language that says “shall include but not be limited to.”

D. Goss expressed concern about the language “up to one alternative method of the EA member’s choosing.” She said it was too vague and they need to specify who will choose the alternate methods.

C. Brown said the reason that was included was that some people don’t get email and would need to be notified some other way about that a vote was taking place.

D. Goss said the wording needs to be more formalized because they don’t want to have five different methods of communication going on all at one meeting.

I. Mahler said this part of the proposal relates just to notification, not to voting.

D. Goss asked if that would mean the chair contacts everyone individually by their preferred method. Practically, contacting everyone individually would take too much time and will not work.

I. Mahler said the Chair could send out an email first, and then just use the second method of contact for those who don’t respond to the email.

C. Brown said they just need a way to make sure everyone is aware of the issue and the vote.

B. Vangasbeck suggested that emails contain a “respond by” date. Anyone who hasn’t responded by that date would then be contacted by a different method.

T. Jacobs said the problem with the wording in that section is that it says “and up to one alternative method.”

A. Goncarovs suggested changing the wording to say “or.”

D. Stein suggested also changing the wording to read “each individual member’s choosing” to clear up the confusion Donna was talking about earlier.

D. Goss said that it might be possible to use a “respond by” deadline, but if they reached quorum that’s all that should really matter.

L. Lawrence suggested using a buddy calling system.

B. Vangasbeck said she didn’t think a buddy system would work; it takes too much time for people who are already busy.

A. Goncarovs suggested using language that says something about using alternative methods of contact for the purposes of electronic voting to address Donna’s concern about these procedures being realistic.

I. Mahler said she knows she is the exception and most people use email regularly. She thanked Christine and the assembly for thinking of her.

D. Goss said that Christine should fine tune the wording of this section or come up with a few different options for the procedure and let the assembly choose one.

C. Brown read paragraph 2 of the proposed procedures.

T. Jacobs asked if the time limits, given in hours, would be only business days or all week days.

C. Brown said it should be business days. She will add that for the next draft.

C. Brown read paragraph 3 of the proposed procedures.

D. Goss said determining when quorum is met should be the responsibility of the Parliamentarian, not of the chair.

C. Brown read paragraph 4 of the proposed procedures.

L. Lawrence said the procedures should include protocol for handling extenuating circumstances during voting, such as if the system were to go down for some reason. In that case they might have to extend the voting time or reschedule the vote.

T. Jacobs expressed concern with the fact that the chair chooses the “stated electronic method” for voting. She said that it would be possible for a Chair to choose a method he or she knew wasn’t available to certain members of the group, which could impact the way a vote turned out (based on who could and couldn’t vote).

D. Goss said she thinks the Parliamentarian should also be in charge of the responsibilities outlined in this paragraph.

P. Beach said one safeguard against Torrey’s concern is that if the Chair chooses a method that only a few people have access to, they will not be able to reach quorum.

D. Goss said maybe it should be changed to the approved method.

D. Stein suggested that it be agreed on by the consensus of the group.

A. Goncarovs expressed a concern that if they put in too many bottlenecks, these procedures will be unusable. He said that the current proposal may be too broad; maybe they should limit it to one or two methods of voting.

C. Brown read the final paragraph of the proposed procedures.

L. Lawrence said he felt it was unfair to be able to defer the issue to the next regular EA meeting. There are some things that need an answer or closure on.

D. Goss said that also opens up to the possibility of someone purposefully stalling the vote.

C. Brown said it was written in order to prevent cutting off discussion.

A. Goncarovs said maybe they should just pick a time limit and stick to it.

D. Stein said that, in the past, there have been factions within the EA and disconnects between the Chair and the assembly. Though they’ve had good luck with a cooperative assembly recently, they need to think about a future time when there might be conflicts.

A. Goncarovs said he was happy the EA was taking the lead on the issue of electronic voting; it’s a large undertaking that many other groups haven’t dealt with.

IOC — Charter Review Committee
A. Goncarovs said that during the retreat, the IOC was charged with reviewing their charter. He suggested creating an Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee.

L. Lawrence asked how long this committee would exist.

A. Goncarovs said it would exist until the end of the session.

H. Hall made a motion to create an Ad Hoc Charter Review Committee. B. Vangasbeck seconded the motion. A vote was taken via hands and passed by a vote of 7–2 in favor.

ComCom — Chili Chat Timeline - Report and Recommendations
P. Korolov said they hope to have the report and recommendations from the Chili Chats ready for Mary Opperman by September 13.

D. Goss said Mary won’t be able to make the meeting scheduled for September 13.

P. Korolov said they would plan to have the report done very soon anyway. They are also planning to have a Chili Chat in the spring for supervisors. They will talk about implementing some of the recommendations from the last set of Chili Chats, spreading awareness for some of the issues identified. The Chili Chats will last an hour and a half and be broken into three sections: Mary Opperman talking about employer relations, recommendations for employers from past Chili Chats, and a Q&A session. The goal of these Chili Chats is to acknowledge the opinions of the employers and address their concerns and difficulties with implementing some of the recommendations.

L. Lawrence asked if they were targeting any supervisory level.

P. Korolov said no, it will be open to all supervisors. They are hoping to get a good representation from all levels and disciplines.

L. Lawrence commented that many lower-level supervisors are under a lot of pressure from their own supervisors. This might make it even harder for them to implement certain recommendations.

P. Korolov said those are the kinds of concerns they are hoping to hear about.

I. Mahler said maybe they should require pairs of supervisors to come — a supervisor and his or her supervisor.

P. Korolov said after their report goes to Mary, they will get her feedback and prepare a complete report for staff by early October.

D. Goss asked if they could see a draft of the report before it is sent to Mary.

P. Korolov said he would circulate it via email.

A. Goncarovs offered some history behind the Chili Chats. They were modeled after Frontline Feedback sessions Mary held beginning in 1998 to address staff concerns. The results came out four years later, and the number one recommendation out of those sessions was to improve information about employee benefits.

D. Stein said the reason it took four years to complete the report was the Mary met with over 850 individuals to gather information. Of the top ten list of concerns generated from that report, about half of them have caused some actions to be taken.

Due to the time, all other business was tabled until the next meeting.

V. Old Business

VI. New Business

VII. Open Forum

VIII. Adjournment
A. Goncarovs made a motion to adjourn. L. Lawrence seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Lisa Gilbertson, EA Clerk
Office of the Assemblies