Minutes
Employee Assembly
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Day Hall Board Room

I. Call to Order and Introductions

J. DeMarco, chair, called the meeting to order at 12:15 p.m.

Attendance:

Present: Deb Billups, Christina Bucko, Joseph DeMarco, Donna Goss, Tammy Johnson, Patricia Mahoney, Dawne Martyniak, Leti McNeill, Gregory Pratt, Lisa Rose, Thomas Shelley, Mary Smallwood Churchill

Others Present: Michael Esposito, Dennis Stein, Hope Mandeville, Tammy Bishop

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

J. DeMarco would like to have the EA website added under new business.

III. Approval of Minutes

C. Bucko made a motion to approve the minutes. T. Johnson seconded it. The October 16th minutes were approved by the EA.

IV. Report from the Chair

J. DeMarco reported that on October 4th, he attended an SA luncheon where they expressed their desire to take on a public service agenda similar to America’s Promise. The President’s Address was held on October 16th. The auction was held on October 18th, and went very well, thank you notes were sent to the Grounds Department, Cornell Store and Ken Reardon for hosting. J. DeMarco and G. Pratt attended the monthly Administration meeting that focused primarily on the issue of international students, there was a brief discussion of the unionization vote that had occurred the previous day. There was an Executive meeting on the following day. November 5th was the EA’s first town meeting and had a turnout of 103 people. It went very well. There are plans to hold a meeting in Geneva in the future. J. DeMarco and G. Pratt are meeting with Mary George Opperman next month for their monthly meetings. D. Goss will be attending a Workforce Diversity, Equity and Life Quality reception on November 21st.

V. Open Forum

M. Esposito wanted to give a trustee report at next meeting. The EA wants to regularly receive reports from trustees.

D. Stein informed the EA about the next day’s town meeting. He asked when the proceedings will be on the website because ? Tammy Bishop gave the questions to Paul Streeter that were not answered at the town meeting. The website might be up and running. D. Stein mention that PawPrint will be running an article on Geneva selecting their employee of the year, whose name is Ann Cobb. The event takes place every year on the first Friday of November. The EA should try and attend that event every year.

G. Pratt welcomed Mary Smallwood Churchill as an official EA member. He would also like the EA to send a letter to Ann Cobb for being nominated Employee of the Year.

VI. Business of the Day

Committee Reports:

T. Bishop has emailed all of the EA committees’ chairs asking for membership clarification and when the committees are meeting.

Communications:

G. Pratt meet with Janice Miles to start rotating the responsibility for the GPADS awards.

H. Mandeville replied that the GPAD’S application is on the website. The nominations should be submitted to the office of the assemblies.

M. Esposito commented that the last award was sparsely attended.

Employee Education:

C. Bucko stated that this committee meets the last (4th) Tuesday of the month. They did not meet in October.

Faculty Senate:

T. Shelley said that there that was discussion on the CAPP, and foreign students.

Finance:

C. Bucko sent out a proposal to meet on the 20th. She revised the spreadsheet to reflect the events. The finance charge part of the charter 7.5.2 from the EA finance charge and renumber the other one’s.

C.Bucko made the motion to remove the finance charge 7.5.2 because the EA receives a fix budget every year.

T. Shelley seconded it.

The EA voted unanimously.

GPSA

T. Bishop said that they are working on their goals for the year. She also create a website with a discussion board and chat link for the GPSA website. The website is password protect and only members can access it.

M. Smallwood Churchill replied that she likes the idea of it and would like to have something like that for the EA. 95% of the people that attended the town meeting were notified by a list serve.

T. Shelley offered to be the GPSA liaison.

Personnel Policy:

L. Rose said that the committee meets the first Tuesday of every month. At yesterdays meeting, Julie Addy from recruitment and employment center from East Hill Plaza, brought the revisions that are being made for the interim filling vacancies policy to ensure that the university is complient with Federal Regulations. The first of the year, the Recruit System will be rolled out.

There was a discussion on that topic.

L. Rose said that no major changes were being made to the policy. The committee is concerned because they are not sure what the process is.

H. Mandeville said that there is the task force. The EA should think about putting this on the website.

Internal Operations:

T. Johnson said that the committee is planning on having a December meeting to discuss voting or e-voting.

SA:

L. McNeill said that seeing how she is talking from the university assembly, people telling the university assembly what issues they are working on, maybe we won’t need a SA liaison or GPSA Liaison.

G. Pratt has concerns with that about eliminating positions we should evaluate it first.

H. Mandeville said that there is an SA liaison to the EA, and she will follow up on that and find out who that person is.

H. Mandeville, G. Pratt, L. McNeill will meet next Wednesday before the luncheon to hash the issue out.

Transportation:

G. Pratt said that Carol Bader has been serving on the transportation committee. The committee met 2 weeks ago to discuss the new parking garage that is going to be built behind the Law School (Hughes). The Triphammer bridge will have to be widened by 18 feet, add a bike lane. He offered to replace C. Bader on the committee.

SA:

L. McNeill mentioned that the SA has been working on housing off campus, rights and responsibilities, landlord contracts. They are also working with financial aid about Health Insurance coverage because it is not discussed in the financial aid packet now. She also mentioned something about the traffic on Ho Plaza.

L. McNeill stated that the Assemblies Review Committee and the University Assembly voted and approved the changing of the JA’s term. Formally there was a term limit of two years on that position, that term was removed to match the campus code of conduct.

L. McNeill also mentioned that there has been follow up from the advance. There are 3 main committee’s set up, which are joint committee’s with the assemblies, they are the campus governance, public service and sustainability.

L. McNeill was asked to be on the multicultural committee. There are a total of 4 employee seats on the committee, and there are 2 vacancies.

H. Mandeville mentioned maybe putting an article in PawPrint to let the employees know about the vacancies.

University Benefits Committee:

J. DeMarco said that T. Shelley and D. Goss have volunteered to be on this committee. He asked for an EA member that is Statutory to be part of this group.

Employee Grant Fund:

D. Billups said that the committee has not met yet. She thanked everybody who made donations for the auction.

Campus Planning Committee:

D. Stein said that this committee is choosing another date to meet. They will be meeting on the 2nd Thursdays.

VII. Old Business

Peer Apprections Event

L. Rose will be taking charge of this event. She asked the EA members who they would like to invite, where would they like it held, etc.

J. DeMarco gave a brief description of this event.

H. Mandeville asked L. Rose to work with T. Bishop on the location.

L. Rose will email a couple of dates in January to the EA members, they can chose one of them and email her 2 names of someone that they would like to bring with them

VIII. New Business

Town Meeting

M. Esposito- gave a recap of the town meeting. He thanked T. Johnson and D. Goss for all of their hard work on putting the event together. He feels that there should be a meeting to discuss any flaws that may have happened.

G. Pratt asked if the EA members had any agenda items for the Opperman/Dullea luncheon.

J. DeMarco suggested maybe the other shoe drop for state, updates on what is coming.

M. Esposito get updates from Hank and Mary about what is coming down the road that we are not aware of yet.

H. Mandeville said that Hank Dullea and Mary George Opperman want an agenda at least a couple of days before the luncheon.

Charter or Handbook Revisions

D. Goss mentioned that since she has joined, there have been 2 resignations of EA members. There are a lot of officer responsibilities but no member responsibilities listed in the handbook. She would like the members to start thinking about possibly having some dialogue about this, possibly by email or something else.

Elections

L. McNeill mentioned that the procedure of the elections is extremely expensive.

J. DeMarco replied that the EA IOC would need to work with the Office of the Assemblies to discuss the elections process.

D. Stein asked for a list of where there are vacancies with the statutory exempt, or endowed, etc. so as recruitment for new people, the seats can be filled with the proper categories to match with what the charter says or change the categories. There are fewer statutory positions throughout campus compared to what there was about 20 years ago.

H. Mandeville asked if two of the EA members could meet with the office of the assemblies to work on this concern.

L. McNeill said that we are also the only assembly that doesn’t pay for their own elections.

G. Pratt replied that we are also the only assembly that receives a standard budget every year. Our funding is not flexible at all.

L. McNeill was thinking that the EA could share the cost of the election.

H. Mandeville replied that the office of the assemblies pays for the EA elections right now. There is going to be a meeting on the election.

D. Martyniak said that she would like to be involved with the election process.

M. Smallwood Churchill feels upgrading staff in a way as we go through a transition, with the changes coming, to get people involved with things.

J. DeMarco said that he would like someone on the EA to work with T. Bishop in the Office of The assemblies to make sure that the EA website is kept updated.

H. Mandeville feels that the EA committee reports took about 3/4 of the meeting. If the committee reports were set up on the website, and everybody sent their reports, this would save a lot of meeting time.

T. Bishop replied that with a discussion board, you can post just about anything on the website. It will take the responsibility of the committee members.

IX. Adjournment

Respectfully submitted,
Amy Huizinga