Minutes
Employee Assembly
September 17, 1997
Day Hall Board Room
12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.

I. Call to Order and Introductions

The meeting was called to order by Meg Overstrom at 12:15 p.m.

II. Open Forum

a. Adult Education

C.J. Lance-Duboscq announced she is exploring the creation of a new program to be offered by Cornell University in adult education. This program, which is modeled after one at NYU, would offer certificates instead of degrees. These certificates would be given to a person after that person completed a certain number of classes in a specific field. Classes would be held over a short period of time and there held on weekends and evenings. This idea has already been presented to several people and there will be another meeting on October 20 on this topic with Mary Opperman, Associate Vice President of HRS, Diane Sheridan, Continuing Education and Summer Session Finance Director, Chet Warzynski, Director of Organization Development and Education Services, and Joann Shepherd, Human Resources Consultant. This program will be opened to the community and will not be free for employees. The current degree program will not be replaced by this one; it will be merely supplemented. According in C.J. Lance-Duboscq, many details still need to be worked out because this idea is still relatively new.

b. “Frontline Feedback”

Dennis Stein explained that “Frontline Feedback” designed to be an outreach program to office professionals, that was created by Mary Opperman. She selected office professionals as a group needing special attention since they are the largest group of employees and also since their job environment is changing rapidly. She would like to be able to better communicate with them so that she knows what they need and so then can pass along information to them.Mary Opperman wants to know how the EA would like to be involved with this program. M.Overstrom agreed that the EA should support this and, more importantly, there should be a group of office professionals supporting this. M.Overstrom agreed that Mary should be in direct contact with a group of office professionals, and suggested there be a subcommittee formed to work specifically on this program. C.Gardner suggested that breakfasts could be held where office professionals would be able to meet and speak with Mary. These breakfasts could be announced publicly and, in addition, there should also be an attempt to get people to come who normally would not. M.Purvis brought up the subject of supervisors, since they are a key element in giving office professionals more opportunities. D. Stein said that there is an idea to develop a team of enlightened supervisors who would help develop ways to encourage supervisors to work towards enhancing the skills of office professionals. A subcommittee was formed with C.Gardner, M.Purvis, M.Overstrom, and C.J. Lance-Duboscq. Office professionals will be invited to serve on this subcommittee along with them.

c. DSA

M.Purvis announced that the next Dedicated Service Award presentation will be on October 3, from 12:00–1:00. at the ILR Faculty Lounge in Ives Halls.

III. Approval of Minutes

The minutes were amended as follows: Michelle Purvis was changed to Melissa Purvis in the call to order. J. DeMarco was changed to D. Poland in the Education Committee Resolution.

IV. Announcements and Reports

a. Opperman/Rogers Luncheon

The next luncheon will be held on October 13, not October 20, and questions are due on October 1.

b.Employee Week

Employee Week is currently going on, and will culminate on Saturday, which is Employee Day. Next year, the EA should give more support to this and a subcommittee probably will be formed around January to deal with this event.

c. Cornell Community Waste Management-

Members decided to hear a short presentation by Jeff Tuttle that would deal with the Vet School incinerator.

V. Business of the Day

a. “Frontline Feedback” - This topic was covered during Open Forum.

b. Project 2000 -

Kathy Barbieri and Cecilia Cowles made a presentation on how P2K is organized. K.Barbeiri is the Coordinator for Training and Integration and she works with several different groups that form the backbone of P2K. Team2 consists of Agelia Dumas whose job is to find out the needs of different people and groups. C.Cowles is responsible for P2K Communications. She puts up the web page and also does the newsletter. HR Change Management Team is headed by Chet Warzynski and the goal of this component is to work with the individual college and units to help them with all the coming changes. There are also five functional areas in P2K and each has its own Team Training Leader. Sarah Sullivan is the leader for the HR Team. The Student Team is headed by David Yeh, the Alumni Team is led by Abigail Saxon, and Randy Green heads the Finance Team. The Sponsor Team does not yet have a leader. The HR team will start its program in April and the Student Team plans to start in the fall. The P2K Reengineering Team is headed by Cathy Dove. This team is responsible for going to the five functional teams and making their processes more efficient. The P2K TDI & Arch Team is led by Rick Jones and their job is to make sure that everyone knows what they need to run PeopleSoft. The ATS team, which is Carrie Regenstein’s team, is currently identifying a informational technology contact person within each college and unit so that information about the system may be conveyed to these people. The ATS team is also responsible for providing additional support to people who have completed the training program. The Implementation Teams have just started to form and will actually come from the colleges and units. These teams will translate P2K into what it means for their college or unit and identify people who need to be trained. There will be about thirty colleges and units. The IT Council was formed by Dave Lambert, Vice President for Information Technologies, and will represent the campus as a whole. K.Barbieri asked for comments and questions. L.Clougherty stressed that everyone should have the same training that is consistent throughout all the departments. K.Barbieri said that the HR will actually have a two part implementation. The first one will only involve sixty people, but the second one will involve around 500 people. There is also a slight problem with PeopleSoft, since new versions are coming out as P2K implements it changes. There will be a version of PeopleSoft to accompany the HR roll out and another in the fall to accompany the students. M.Overstrom inquired as to what changes should the employees expect. K.Barbieri said that employees should be comfortable with current employee essentials so that they will be prepared for P2K. Also, there will be different levels of training. PeopleSoft will initially be able to run both on Macs and PCs, but eventually, Macs will be unable to run PeopleSoft. As several members noted, this constitutes a problem. People were informed that if new machines were being purchased, that IBMs would be the machine of choice. It was pointed out that it would be troublesome to have an office with a mix of PCs and Macs. C.J. Lance-Duboscq noted that there is also a financial impediment in switching to PCs since there is a limited amount of funds allocated to purchase of new computers. P2K does not provide assistance in buying new computers. However, the assembly was told the IT Council was formed to address problems such as these.

VI. New Business

a. Fall ‘97 P2K Open Forum -

This forum will be held in November after the President’s State of the University Address has been presented to the Board of Trustees. Also, it would be helpful to have a segment where people would be able to ask questions of various speakers. On a side note, For Your Benefits will now be handling P2K Q&A. M.Overstrom suggested that a couple people work on this event and C.Gardner offered the assistance of the Office of the Assemblies. M.Overstrom, M. Purvis, and L.Clougherty volunteered to take charge of this.

b. EA Resolutions -

These resolutions will be discussed at the next meeting.

VII. Committee Reports

These will be tabled until the next meeting. M.Overstrom asked members to e-mail reports on their respective committees about one week before the next EA meeting.

VIII. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 1:30 p.m.