Minutes
University Assembly
January 29, 2003
International Lounge, WSH
4:30 — 6:00 pm

I. Greetings and Call to Order

K. Reardon, Chair, called the meeting to order at 4:35 p.m.

Attendance:

Present: Stephanie Adams, J.S. Butler, Pat Haugen, Melissa Hines, Tammy Johnson, Carl Jones, Jr., Josh Katcher, Umair Khan, Alan Mathios, Michael Matly, Timothy McConnochie, Leti McNeill, Bryan Preston, Ken Reardon, Dena Ruebusch

Excused: David Schmale III

Absent: Shelley Feldman, Ellis Loew, Peggy McKee, Jane Mt. Pleasant, Gregory Pratt

Also Present: Hope Mandeville, Katrina Nobles, Bridget Tracy

II. Introductions

K. Reardon, Chair began the meeting by running through the agenda and starting introductions. He thanked the representatives from the four programs.

III. Reports

Due to the focus of the meeting being on the four programs, the reports were omitted this evening.

IV. Approval of Minutes

A motion was made and seconded to approve the minutes of December 4, 2002. The minutes were approved as amended.

V. Old Business

K. Reardon asked for someone to report on the meeting held with the President-elect Jeffrey Lehman.

U. Khan reported that the new President was focused on public service, improving employee relations, and seemed optimistic.

K. Reardon described the three taskforce issues that the UA developed previously and that he presented to Lehman at the recent meeting, adding that Lehman was most interested in the public service taskforce.

VI. New Business

K. Reardon again thanked the Program Directors for attending. He described the situation of the meetings in the spring of last year with the Program directors. The UA received the Program’s annual reports at that time with frustration at not being able to review the reports at an early enough time in the year to have meaningful input and discussion. The UA decided to attempt a mid-year meeting with the groups in place of the spring meeting to raise questions and discussion that would allow the Programs to address them in their program documents. He added that there may be opportunities to discuss Program’s issues at monthly Leadership meetings. He suggested each group report briefly for 8–10 minutes, with 5 minutes for the UA members to raise questions, and invited each Program Director for input on this process on the future.

Health Services

J. Corson-Rikert from Health Services gave a report on the services offered by Gannett and the issues they are dealing with. They are working on reaccreditation for their voluntary services at the end of March. The issue of alcohol and drugs is challenging; they have worked with developing medical and psychological programs to intervene early with alcohol and drug problems. The promotional team developed a medical amnesty program for students to decrease barriers to seeking appropriate medical help for alcohol and drug related incidents. The program waives judicial consequences for students if responsible medical action is taken and has seemed to be very successful so far. Health Services is also working on eating disorder treatment with an interdisciplinary team of physicians, counselors, and nutritionists. Gannett has given approximately 5400 flu shots this season, twice that of Tompkins county. The staff has undergone emergency preparedness training for office and campus procedures. Counseling and psychological services remains a challenge; there is a high demand and they are trying to reconfigure the system. They have implemented a same-day phone screening to establish contact and assess the services needed by the patient. A University advising and counseling network developed three years ago with alumni support has been very successful. Topics such as occupational health and the health of the Asian American population at Cornell have been recent concerns for Health Services and need to be examined more thoroughly. Jane expressed an interest in a council on mental health and wanted to seek representation for it by late spring. Another project is a health newsletter for families of freshman students to make them aware of the services provided by Gannett. The Health Center has requested several surveys including the National College Health Assessment, and 12 focus groups this year. They are looking at equalizing access to care for students without insurance. Gannett is experiencing some space constraints as it is growing and will take on a 2 summer project to update heating and ventilation systems in the building.

K. Reardon opened the floor for questions.

J. Katcher inquired about the success of the medical amnesty program for students, and if students understand the liabilities associated with the medical amnesty program.

J. Corson-Rikert responded by saying that it was early in the program to determine the success, although it has received positive feedback so far from students. They are open to ideas and suggestions about the program.

M. Matly asked if Health Services had any plans to increase staff to meet new demands on their mental health services.

J. Corson-Rikert acknowledged that Health Services has discussed it and that they are aware that they may not be seeing the full demand of the community. They are focusing on reorganizing their systems to work more efficiently and then assessing where resources are needed. It is a difficult time, and collaboration with the community outside of Cornell is crucial.

J.S. Butler asked whether Health Services has prepared for the event of a reduced budget?

J. Corson-Rikert said that they are trying to develop resources in the community and have a list of areas that may need to be scaled back in order to focus on priority issues such as mental health. Health Services has already made cutbacks for this reason.

K. Reardon interjected that if anyone had comments or questions that could not be answered, due to time constraints, to contact him or Trina with them.

B. Preston asked what the drivers of the increase in mental health demands are?

J. Corson-Rikert responded that it is a combination of multiple things: better medications, students with existing problems, less stigma attached to mental health issues, and general increase of stress in the world.

U. Khan thanked Janet for the medical amnesty program and asked what Health Services has done to prepare for world events and possible backlashes on campus against the possibly eminent war with Iraq?

J. Corson-Rikert restated that the staff recently went through emergency preparedness training and that the staff has discussed and organized for changing job descriptions in the event of an emergency. They are working with the campus police, residents of the town, and the county hospital to establish connections. She ended by saying that she supported a more productive interaction with the UA and suggested meeting at the beginning of the academic year and make use of the liaisons to the UA more.

K. Reardon thanked her and asked Reverend Ken Clark to speak on CURW.

K. Clark wanted to highlight CURW’s initiatives for this year. CURW has recently included 13 of their chaplains in the Faculty Fellows Program. This program has allowed the chaplains to make a connection with the Cornell student community and establish a greater presence of CURW in the community. The program consists of weekly student-faculty dinners where discussion can occur. Rev. Clark felt that it has been a very successful program and that issues with imposition of faith have not developed. The next initiative CURW is working on is an expansion project for Anabel Taylor Hall. A space study was done in 2001 to assess space issues in Anabel Taylor Hall. After celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, they have realized that the religious climate has changed and grown considerably. There were 12 religious groups housed in Anabel Taylor in 1952 and approximately 25 groups today. A new space study was done in 2002 and focused on worship space. The building is used by the Cornell community as well and needs more storage, meeting, and most importantly worship space. They plan to build an addition that will include a non-denominational worship space to hold 500 people. It must serve a neutral religious purpose without being a multipurpose room. The second space study should conclude by this summer and plans will begin then to appropriate funds and contract architects for this project. The third project that CURW is working on is reevaluate the interactions and meetings amongst the chaplains of CURW. It is central to CURW’s vision of a cooperative, multi-faith operation. The goal is to promote religious pluralism and contribute to the educational mission of CURW. He then addressed the decline in attendance of Sage Chapel’s weekly service. This has been a recent development and CURW would like to find the root of this through focus groups and possibly gather feedback on the weekly programs. They are looking at bringing in speakers but he asked the UA how CURW should go about building an audience at Sage and promoting a non-sectarian religious atmosphere at Cornell.

U. Khan thanked the Rev. Clark for his comments and suggested that the venue of Sage may be a deterrent. As a practicing Muslim student, he has only been to Sage during a post-September 11th speaker. He proposed that some people may feel alienated in a chapel setting; that perhaps having more general speakers with less liturgical emphasis might be beneficial.

K. Clark agreed that the architecture and design while attempting to be non-sectarian is that of a chapel. He thought that CURW needs to evaluate how Sage is promoted to the Cornell community.

S. Adams thought that more non-sectarian promotion was needed, that she as a student was unaware of the weekly speakers at Sage. She emphasized that she’d like to see more publicity, sponsored discussions in academic topics, e.g. should the United States go to war? She would also like to see more advertising of the dinners with chaplains and to have the chaplains more accessible in general.

J. Katcher asked if it is possible to have buses from North campus to Sage Chapel and if it were possible to house religious services in other venues across campus.

K. Clark responded that there was not a bus service from North, but that they would like to promote Sage more extensively.

M. Matly suggested that Sage be used for different religious services or with weekly concerts in order to increase students’ experiences of Sage.

K. Reardon reminded that any suggestions or questions for Reverend Clark could be emailed and thanked Reverend Clark for his time. He introduced Tom Romantic as the next to present.

T. Romantic introduced himself as a representative of the Cornell Store. They have seen an increase in overheads over the past two years and a 25% increase in overheads this year. They have been evaluating the efficiency of their “backdoor” operations which include finance, accounting, warehouse buying, etc. They have seen an increase in competition from local large bookstores opening recently in the area such as Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and Best Buy along with the presence of Amazon.com. The store’s first priority is to provide textbooks. They are attempting to get orders for course materials from professors prior to the students’ buyback period in order to give as much money as possible back to students. Additionally, they would like to order used books from warehouses as early as possible as it is a competitive market. They have been working on this and increased their buyback titles from students this past semester. In addition to textbooks, the Store is looking to evaluate the general book titles offered to, again, compete with larger stores in the area. The Cornell Store has added an online note-taking company, Learningrefined.com, to its list of services. The Store wants to incorporate a caf�, and more importantly install public restrooms with ADA compliance in the store. Recently, CFCU has moved across from the Tompkins County Trust in the entrance of the Store.

K. Reardon opened the floor for discussion and questions.

U. Khan motioned to extend the meeting an additional 25 minutes, B. Preston seconded and the motion passed 11 to 5.

P. Savolskis from the transportation committee spoke briefly about the challenges and agenda for this year. TAC has been working with CIT to create a more interactive website including online permit renewal. They have also been working on their rideshare program and ridematching with faculty and staff, the GPSA has voiced interest in graduate students participating in these types of programs available for faculty and staff. A new pedestrian safety law put into effect January 19th gives pedestrians more right of way and TAC is working on getting this message out to motorists. Additionally, they are trying to encourage motorists to avoid campus, or to at least expect delays during the day due to the hourly traffic increase at the change of classes. TAC is facing some budget pressures in the near future. New York state is going through a budget crisis as well as the town of Ithaca, Tompkins County. TCAT may have to reduce services or increase fares to respond to this. Also, the University contributes $2.7 million to TAC and has warned them of a possible 10–20% decrease in funding along with workforce planning reviews.

J.S. Butler thought that more should be charged for parking to cope with budget pressures and in order to prevent more money from being taken from academic programs.

K. Reardon asked what the average cost of a parking space is?

P. Savolskis responded that it cost between $918/yr and $2000/yr for garage spaces and upkeep.

K. Reardon asked why it cost so much for parking spots?

P. Savolskis upkeep; original cost of space, snow removal, etc

B. Preston asked what the possible budget shortfalls were and what services might be reduced?

P. Savolskis will not know impact yet

M. Matly asked what is the possibility of having more 10 minute loading zones?

P. Savolskis Just recently increased number of these; would take suggestions for areas for these.

K. Reardon inquired after the University’s environmental responsibility regarding transportation?

P. Savolskis city in rural area and many people need to drive in, it is difficult.

U. Khan asked why not advertise carpooling more? He also asked about the reason for armored cars in Ho Plaza?

P. Savolskis it’s come up in committee it’s not an approved behavior

The representatives from TAC believed that the best interaction and communication with UA should occur through the liaisons. If a more constant and complete communication was setup there wouldn’t be surprises or a misinterpretation of goals with UA and TAC.

VII. Adjournment

K. Reardon, Chair, adjourned the meeting at 6:27pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Bridget Tracy