Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
12:15 — 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall
MINUTES

I. Call to Order

B. Cornell called the meeting to order at 12:20 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

B. Cornell asked if there were any late additions to the agenda. D. Goss asked to add a report on the United Way to the agenda. K. Howell asked to add a staff leave proposal to the agenda.

III. Report from the Chair

B. Cornell reported that the EA retreat last week went well. George Peter came briefly which was nice. He acknowledged all the work that went into the planning, and noted that he appreciated everyone’s participation. D. Goss has requested to send a thank you gift to Kellie Page for allowing us to use her home. Everyone agreed it was a good idea to get a $50 gift certificate. We will discuss this in more depth later on. We also have some suggestions for goals and priorities for the coming year.

B. Cornell told the group that Torrey resigned as of today by email, which some members have seen. We will need to begin right away working toward getting our membership back up to the full 13.

IV. Report from Employee Trustee (M. Esposito)

M. Esposito reported that there will be some committee meetings the first week of September. There will be a Master Plan session then as well. He had a preliminary meeting with Jim Mingle, Kristin McHenry and Kathy Rasmussen about trustee elections. There will be an employee election and a grad student election in the spring. The idea of an employee “sabbatic leave” has also come up. Otherwise, it has been a quiet summer. He said he would be willing to answer any questions.

D. Goss reported progress on the luncheon with the Trustees. The idea of having the leadership of the assemblies attend lunch with the Trustees when they are here in October to share and discuss goals has been an ongoing discussion for a while now. If this works out for October, it can possibly be discussed at a leadership breakfast in order to formulate an official plan.

V. Report from UA Representatives

L. Lawrence was absent from today’s meeting, so there was no UA report.

VI. Approval of Minutes

B. Cornell asked that everyone always take time before the meeting to read the minutes so they can be approved without delay at the meetings.

i. April 18, 2007 Minutes

M. Esposito asked for one change to page 1, K. Howell made a motion to accept the minutes as amended, B. Liddick seconded. The minutes were accepted with the noted change.

ii. June 20, 2007 Minutes

P. Korolov asked for one change to page 2 and one change to page 3. D. Goss made the motion to accept the minutes as written. P. Korolov seconded. The minutes were accepted with the noted change.

VII. Committee Reports

a. Executive Committee

B. Cornell reported that the Executive committee has been hard at work. Goals were even more refined at the retreat. He acknowledged everyone’s hard work.

b. SRAC

B. Cornell asked who was on this committee. He said that he had joined it at the retreat, and mentioned that he has many ideas of ways to acknowledge outgoing members of the EA and ideas about the George Peter award. J. DeMarco should be alerted to convene this committee to discuss.

c. Communications

K. Howell said they have been meeting regularly and have been making progress on many things. S. DeGiorgio has been working on an EA brochure and they are hoping to send it on to Tommy Bruce soon for review. P. Korolov has been working on combining the information from the Chili Chats and the Leadership Lunches into a good report. B. Liddick is working on a campus map to show where employees are located. He is also interested in finding out how many people are reached by which list-serves, what the overlap is, and what is the most efficient way to reach the most employees, etc. In the end, it may work out that we have more than one list serve; level A for high priority messages, level B for mid-level, level C for low-level, and so on . D. Goss suggested using REACH as a play on words in that there is —EA- in the center of the word. K. Howell also said that she is working with the person in charge of the “Welcome to Cornell” program and they would like to have some brochures soon to hand out with the other materials.

d. Finance Committee

B. Liddick reported that he and Pat Mahoney had not had a chance to meet yet. There are a few items on the table now, but there is nothing major going on. We will soon have budget discussions.

e. Emergency Grant Fund

D. Stein reported that the committee had not met recently, but Linda Starr had been in touch with him about several recent cases that did not exactly fit the description as it is currently written. She is concerned that interpretation of the rules is keeping the committee from giving out money to individuals who need it when there is plenty of it there. Linda could come to an EA meeting to speak about the history of the award and discuss some possible modifications to the rules.

f. Personnel Policy

D. Goss said that she had received an email from Lauren Jacoby recently and Lauren would like to make a presentation to the EA also. This committee has not been active, so they will need to recruit members-possibly from the expanded group. The Personnel Policy committee reviews OHR and university policies. I. Mahler said she would join. K. Howell will send an email appeal looking for volunteers for other committees and she will include this.

g. IOC

P. Korolov reported that he is planning to call a meeting soon to discuss issues and develop a game plan to fill the current EA vacancies, review the charter, and review the attendance policy among other things.

h. University Benefits

D. Goss said that the committee did not meet over the summer since faculty members were away. There should be a meeting soon after the fall semester begins. The main topic of discussion will be the prescription drug plan for retirees.

i. Employee Education

D. Goss reported that this is another inactive committee, but there is interest in reviving it and broadening the membership. Once the committee is put together, she will call a meeting. The tuition reimbursement issue is important, and the EA’s support will help as we move forward.

VIII. Old Business

a. Appointing UA Representatives

P. Korolov said that the Office of the Assemblies had emailed the current representatives to find out whether they wished to remain on the UA. T. Bishop and R. Orme said yes, and no reply has come from B. Vangasbeck, who is the third person. B. Liddick and H. Hall have volunteered to serve. B. Cornell wants to open this up beyond the EA members. L. Lawrence and H. Granison both have one year remaining on their terms, but Donna has an idea that Henry wishes to resign. A decision will need to be made if there are four candidates for three seats, but EA members do receive preference. B. Cornell asked that he receive something from Rodney and Tammy as he does not know them and feels uncomfortable making a decision on their continuing on the UA without sufficient information. It was decided that to be fair, the OA would send all the candidates questions and the EA would hold an email vote in order to determine the top three.

b. Filling EA committees

P. Korolov will send out a list with all the revised list of committee members. There are still some openings that will need to be filled. D. Stein offered to run this information in PawPrint to solicit more interest.

IX. New Business

a. United Way

D. Goss said that the United Way is working on a way to increase involvement and participation among CU staff. They are currently working on a “pennies a day-dollar a pay” program to show how $24 or $26 can make a difference. She offered to email the membership the website with the information. There will also be prizes this year as an incentive to help with this.

b. EA has new list serves

B. Cornell reiterated the EA has a new list-serve, and everyone should be using it.

c. Volunteer sought for Presidential Climate Neutrality Committee

D. Stein will take this on.

d. Retreat Recap

B. Cornell turned this over to B. Liddick. Bill gave everyone a handout of suggested priorities. He stated how important it was to get input from the 5 members who were unable to attend. Bill asked that the membership revise or edit to their liking and send back to him by email so that he can update this and hand out at the next EA meeting on 9/5. Bill will be tracking the goals as we move forward, and B. Cornell said this document will be considered our “report card” at the end of the year when he makes his report to the Board of Trustees.

e. Attendance Policy

P. Korolov said this will be addressed at the IOC committee meeting. B. Cornell asked that this topic stay at the top of the list.

X. Open Forum

D. Stein said he talked with Catherine Holmes in the Student Activities Office. She is very interested to have the EA participate in the “Welcome Picnic on the Quad” next week. Lunch costs $8 per person. The EA will plan to have some members attend and act as host/hostesses to mingle with attendees. B. Cornell asked that people commit to do this even if it is for a short amount of time.

D. Stein reported that Staff Celebration Week is coming up the first week of October. He encouraged the EA to host a mixer so that the public could mix and mingle with the EA with the purpose of raising awareness and interest. This could be an event for the week in addition to the Presidents Address, the Emergency Grant Fund Auction, and the Employee Day on Saturday.

I. Mahler requested that notifications on any EA committee meetings go out to the entire list serve.

XI. Adjournment

K. Howell made a motion to adjourn the meeting. P. Korolov seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 1:47 p.m.