Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
12:15 — 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order (D. Goss)

The meeting was called to order at 12:20 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda (D. Goss)

A. O’Donnell added 11/01/07 minutes to be approved under Old Business.

III. Report from the Chair (D. Goss)

D. Goss reported that President Skorton and Mary Opperman will be coming to our 2/7 meeting instead of today. Today’s meeting will instead be a business meeting.

Also, Donna reported that Jim Sheridan will be coming to meet with us on Wednesday, 1/31 if this will work well with the group. The group agreed, so they will plan to schedule this extra meeting to revisit the retreat goals. L. Lawrence responded that he will be out of town that day, and won’t be able to attend..

In addition, Donna reported on the Ezra Cornell Birthday celebration that occurred last week. Some EA members attended and she asked the group to report. Dennis Stein and Michael Esposito reported that all went well at the library event, and that it was very well attended despite classes not being in session. There will be a story in PawPrint and the Chronicle this week and there will be more birthday events happening in March. P. Beach reported that the chimes concert from 1/11 will be up as a webcast, and the banners have gone up this week at traffic booths.

IV. Trustee’s Report (M. Esposito)

M. Esposito reported that the Trustees will be here on campus next week, and he will have a report for the group at our next EA meeting.

V. Committee Reports

D. Goss announced that we will now have committee reports at each meeting so all are aware of what is happening with the committees.

a. SRAC
J. DeMarco reported that there will be a meeting of the group on Friday. Also, they gave the George Peter Dedicated Service Award to two employees last month. The next award winner will likely be announced in March.

b. Communications
B. Vangasbeck reported the committee met two weeks ago, and will meet again tomorrow. As you will recall, we are going with the original plan to follow the same format as the Chili Chats, with the same questions only with small adjustments to be appropriate for supervisors. The group is working on format, presentation, handouts, etc. now as the events are coming up quick — the first one is only a month away.

A. O’Donnell suggested listing these on the Cornell Events Calendar. P. Beach agreed, and will follow up with this and ask someone in her office to take care of the posting.

There was some discussion on how to word the invitations so as not to leave anyone out who may not consider themselves a “leader”, but who do supervise staff and approve vacation leave as part of their duties. This would include faculty, we want them to feel welcome also.

c. Finance
P. Mahoney was not able to attend today, but D. Goss reported that chairs of all EA committees should have the budget handouts from last meeting, and they need to review them closely and reduce the amount that has been submitted, and the total budget is too much to move forward with. Please be prepared to hand revised committee budgets very soon.

d. Emergency Grant Fund
D. Stein said there have been no meetings lately, and no new applications have been received.

e. Employee Education
D. Goss reported that there is not much going on right now. In May there will be the Employee Graduation Reception, and the SEED event will happen again in the Fall.

f. IOC
A. Goncarovs reported there have been no applications turned in for the vacant seat on the EA created by Christine Brown’s departure. Kerry Howell is not an exact fit, as we are looking for an Endowed Non-Exempt person, and Kerry is Endowed Exempt. She will be appointed soon if there are no other candidates to consider.

g. Executive Committee
D. Goss reported that the Assemblies office has suggested that the EA start to use resolutions to communicate their actions with the greater CU community. This will carry information out of this room to senior staff and others who need to know what the EA is doing. The consensus of the membership was to use resolutions for big things that affect others beyond this group, but they wish to communicate in a non-formal way the majority of the time. P. Beach added that this is a practice/procedure to adopt where it is appropriate, and our office will help the EA write resolutions whenever help is needed.

VI. Old Business

J. DeMarco reported the Employee Celebration will be Sat. 2/10. All senior staff has been notified and asked to help serve food. Many volunteers are needed for other things to help make the event a success, Joe asked that the EA members consider helping out.

L. Lawrence asked about an update on the CU fundraising campaign, A. Goncarovs suggested that those interested could go to the AA & D website for more info. D. Stein said the last number he heard was $1.3 billion. P. Beach said that the Chronicle and PawPrint should be giving regular updates to keep CU community informed, and interest high. D. Stein said that staff will be asked to contribute to the fundraising campaign at some point.

D. Stein asked if there was a calendar or a timeline for EA elections. He would like to start reported on this in PawPrint. A. O’Donnell will work with A. Epstein to get this to the IOC committee soon.

D. Goss asked what topics the EA wished to speak with the President and Mary Opperman about when they come to our meeting on 2/7. Several issues were raised; campaign update, having a town hall meeting in the spring, conducting a climate survey in the fall, and getting a summary of his recent trip to India.

B. Vangasbeck made a motion to approve the minutes from November 1, 2006. L. Lawrence seconded the motion. All were in favor and the minutes were approved.

VII. Business of the Day

J. DeMarco asked about the new buildings that are in process. What is the plan to staff them? What is the plan to get staff to their offices? D. Goss said that TGEIS is looking at this issue now. B. Bryant added that there seemed to be a lack of communication with Campus Life on the new childcare center. D. Goss said that there is already discussion on a second childcare center.

D. Stein asked if there were any plans that will consider how the new office buildings will be incorporated into the campus layout. The EA should be involved and get behind this, as they will need to communicate what is happening as things progress. This new building, the GOB, will house approximately 400 people. This plan has grown substantially and has doubled in size from the original plan. There is an idea to have the second childcare center near there. There is another idea to have CIT consolidate and centralize out there also.

L. Lawrence brought up the issue of children of employees going to college, and how much CU pays to employees as a benefit for this. If these children of staff are not admitted to CU, is the amount that CU pays for reimbursement to other institutions (30%) realistic? D. Goss said it is low for children, but that it is even less for the employees themselves. Leon said he would like to have the Education Committee look into this. D. Goss said she would like to see the EA come forward with a charge to the university on this issue.

VIII. Open Forum — Once Around for all Members

Due to time constraints, there was no time for an open forum.

IX. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned by D. Goss at 1:32 p.m.