Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
12:15—1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall
Minutes

I. Call to Order

B. Cornell called the meeting to order at 12:23 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

B. Cornell called for any late additions to the agenda. There were none.

III. Business of the Day � Guests - President David Skorton, VP Mary George Opperman

� Changing the EA’s existing structure

B. Cornell said they had discussed the idea of reviewing and possibly restructuring the EA’s existing structure at their winter retreat in January. He asked President Skorton if he had any input about the new structure based on his experiences with other school’s assemblies.

President Skorton said it was great they were considering this and added they should base the new structure on what they think will be most effective. He shared some principles he felt were important to consider. First, every part of the institution should be represented; he felt they should look into cross-governance opportunities with the Medical College to ensure their staff are represented. Second, there should be well-defined rules outlining the length of terms, so that members had adequate time to make contributions, without depriving other employees the chance to be on the assembly. Third, they need to ensure employees, not the administration, set the agenda. Finally, they should ensure they are participating in shared governance with the other campus constituencies since there are issues that have relevance to several groups on campus; Cornell’s University Assembly provides an effective way for them to do this.

In response to B. Liddick’s question asking if the employee governance groups with which he had dealt at other schools were larger groups, President Skorton said they were larger.

In response to P. Korolov’s question asking which structures he felt were most effective, the President said he was adaptable to most structures. He felt it was important that they always have a counterpart to M. Opperman’s position, who spent every day thinking about the well-being of the staff, and that they always provided opportunities for them to interact with rank-and-file employees, as well as employee assembly members. He said he felt the EA had been doing a great job, but the important thing was whether they felt they were doing an effective job.

� Cornell University’s plan to reduce tuition loans for students from middle-income homes.

B. Liddick said the EA wanted more information about Cornell’s plan to reduce tuition loans for students from middle-income homes and how this program would be supported.

President Skorton said the new program followed some of the programs other schools had already implemented. Their goal was to allow people to consider pursuing a higher-level education without being discouraged by the thought of debt, and to give financial assistance to those people who needed it the most. They understand that the national issue of affordability of higher education is not going to be solved by Cornell’s actions, but it’s a contribution they can make. In order to support the initiative, they’re first going to draw more money from the university’s long-term investment pool and use that extra money to pay for more grants for students so they don’t have to take out loans. Secondly, they’re going to vigorously reallocate more money toward helping students with lower incomes. Additionally, they’re trying to get more people to donate money towards scholarships.

K. Speiser said it was important to note the college deans understand the importance of this initiative, and in response they are giving up to 80% of their unrestricted college annual fund toward financial aid at the college level.

In response to A. O’Donnell’s question asking if this new tuition loan policy would apply to children of Cornell employees who fall within the income guidelines even if they already get 30% off of tuition, M. Opperman said it should still apply to them.

� Progress on Cornell’s $20 million pledge to the community.

P. Korolov asked about the progress of CU’s $20 million pledge to the community. M. Opperman said they are hoping to get recommendations on this issue to the President by summer. The initiative supports the community but focuses on Cornell staff and faculty by improving issues such as housing and transportation. They’ve already made some headway on transportation issues because of the excellent recommendations provided by the t-GEIS.

B. Cornell thanked President Skorton and VP Mary Opperman for speaking with them today.

Kellyann Speiser, Patricia Meenan, a potential candidate for the employee assembly, and John Miner, from the Physics department, were introduced to the assembly members.

IV. Report from Chair

B. Cornell said the Executive committee met with M. Opperman and discussed restructuring the employee assembly model. One idea they had was putting together a committee to address this.

V. Report from Employee Trustee

B. Cornell said M. Esposito was unable to attend today’s meeting so there was no report.

VI. Report from UA representatives

B. Liddick said there was no report because the last UA meeting had been cancelled.

VII. Approval of Minutes

B. Cornell said there were no minutes to approve.

VIII. Committee Reports

� a. Executive Committee

B. Cornell said the Executive Committee met with the Office of Assemblies last week. There was some lingering confusion about whether H. Hall, P. Mahoney and L. Lawrence were being asked to review the EA’s structure or the EA’s charter, but they would discuss this in greater depth during “new business.”

� b. Staff Award Recognition

D. Stein said the committee hasn’t met but hopes to meet in the next two weeks. The next recipient of the George Peter Award for Dedicate Service has been ill and out of work for a lengthy period of time, but plans to return to work in April or May. They are working with the department on a date to hold the award luncheon for her.

� c. Communication

P. Korolov said they haven’t met in a while, but they’re still working on the outreach initiative.

B. Liddick said K. Howell asked him to mention they did use every method on their list of ways to communicate to the employee population to publicize the EA elections.

There was discussion about some areas in which the communications committee and the EA could improve. Some of these areas included more effectively communicating the function of the assembly and increasing the mediums through which the employees communicate with representatives, especially those on second and third shift. They discussed using the “Deans, Directors and Department Heads” network to encourage employees to run for seats on the assembly, or for seats on committees. There was some discussion on what would attract contract/statutory employees.

� d. Finance

B. Liddick said the finance committee had no new updates.

� e. Emergency Grant Fund

D. Stein said the EGF committee had been notified of two employees who had recently suffered a disaster. They’re in the process of helping them apply for assistance.

� f. Personnel Policy

P. Korolov said that Personnel Policy’s last meeting was cancelled so they had nothing to report.

� g. IOC

The Internal Operations committee had nothing to report.

� h. University Benefits

P. Korolov said that he hadn’t had a chance to attend any meetings for the University Benefits committee and is actually looking for someone to replace him on the committee.

� i. Employee Education

B. Cornell said no representatives from the committee were in attendance, but that he knew of an individual who was interested in joining the Employee Education committee.

In response to P. Mahoney’s statement that she also knew two people who were interested in being on the committee and she had tried to put them in contact with D. Goss, A. Epstein said that anyone interested in joining a committee was supposed to contact the Office of Assemblies, not the committee chair. The office would then assist them in the application process.

IX. Old Business

� a. Chili Chat resolution discussion

P. Korolov said there were no updates but he would email the EA when a resolution was drafted.

There was a brief discussion about whether the Chili Chat document had already been rewritten in resolution form, and whether it needed to be in resolution form. A. Epstein from the Office of Assemblies offered to help draft a resolution.

� b. “Welcome to Cornell” booth volunteers

P. Korolov said K. Howell would be sending an email for volunteers to help staff the next “Welcome to Cornell” booth on April 8th.

X. New Business

� a. Charter information and resolution discussion

P. Mahoney said that B. Cornell initiated an ad-hoc committee to review the charter to remove some outdated information, and make long overdue updates. Recently, she, L. Lawrence, H. Hall, P. Beach, A. Epstein and A. O’Donnell got together and started reviewing the charter.

B. Cornell said the charter review was necessary, but his intention had been to form an ad-hoc committee to define the process needed to review the EA’s structure, not review the entire charter. There was a discussion on why this confusion had occurred, clarification of what the committee’s charge actually was, and discussion about what its charge should actually be.

P. Korolov suggested they table the discussion, since they no longer had quorum. The attending members discussed the issue for a little longer before tabling it.

XI. Adjournment

P. Mahoney made a motion to adjourn. L. Lawrence seconded the motion. B. Cornell adjourned the meeting at 1:40 p.m.