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

I. Call to Order

B. Cornell called the meeting to order at 12:18 p.m.

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

B. McKinney asked to give an update on the “Smoke Free Campus” project.

V. Report from Employee Elected Trustee

B. McKinney said a $35 million gift was received from the Tisch family. After the meetings in October she will have more to report.

She also reported she sent about ten emails asking for help with the “Smoke Free Campus” report, but no responses have come back. She said she is still willing to work on a report for the Assemblies for feedback. G. Stewart suggested sending out a second email as a reminder. B. McKinney said she would do that and report back.

III. New Business

a) President’s Address Format-Questions Review
B. Cornell said he sent an email to the members for feedback on talking points for President Skorton. He said some have responded, but if members have any others please get them in quickly so they can be discussed at the Executive Committee meeting next week. P. Mahoney suggested one talking point should be the economy within the University, specifically in the statutory colleges. B. Cornell said he would add this, and that he would share the final talking points at the next Employee Assembly meeting.

IV. Report from Chair (Faculty Senate Appointment, UA Appointment, Committee Staffing)

B. Cornell said the planning for the President’s Address is coming along nicely, and he sent his appreciation to all. He then added he thinks this will be a great event and will be very beneficial for the Cornell Community.

He then made the following announcements; 1) A. Mittman has been appointed to the Faculty Senate as an EA representative 2) Kelly Speiser has asked to be a staff representative to the University Assembly (UA). P. Korolov made the motion to appoint Kelly to the UA. B. Liddick seconded. A brief discussion followed. The members voted 6-yes, 0-no, and 0-abstained. A. O’Donnell said their office would send Kelly an appointment letter. A. Epstein said there will be more committee appointments coming soon with letters to follow shortly.

B. Cornell said Mary Opperman is working on an email now to send to the Deans, Directors and Department heads to encourage staff to attend the President’s Address and Energy Fair. G. Stewart asked to see the draft. P. Mahoney said the President’s Address should be emphasized first and the Energy Fair second. B. Cornell agreed.

B. Cornell then said he emailed last week asking for nominations for the Employee Assembly Appreciation Award to be given out at the Presidents Address. Most of the EA nominated the same person, so that person will receive it. (Recorder was paused for private discussion)

VI. Report From the UA Representative

B. Liddick said he did not attend the last meeting, so he had no report.

VII. Approval of Minutes — September 17, 2008

B. Cornell asked the members to review minutes from the EA meeting on September 17th. P. Mahoney said on page 4, it should be noted she is the chair and H. Hall is the vice-chair of the Emergency Grant Fund committee. P. Mahoney then motioned to approve the minutes with that correction. B. Liddick second. The members voted and approved the corrected minutes.

VIII. Committee Reports

a) Executive committee
B. Cornell said he had nothing further to report.
b) Staff Recognition & Award committee
B. Cornell said the latest recipient of the George Peter award has been selected and the planning for the award ceremony will start.
c) Communications committee
J. Seymour said there is a new list-serve to send tasks to Office of Assemblies, and asked everyone to please use this from now on. He said the committee had met last week to discuss publicity for the Energy Fair.
Some ideas were;
1) Vinyl banners on campus
2) Slides in Campus Store and other kiosks on campus
3) Send a post card to all employees and he is looking into this cost (about $300)
4) He has a draft of a poster from Steve P., he is working on a quote for production
5) He is working on refining the budget. B. Liddick asked about splitting some costs between the Employee Assembly budget and the President’s Address budget.
A. Mittman asked for the final poster to come in a .pdf format, so we can forward to others. He also volunteered his office to take the requests for disability accommodations. He asked if this was the Presidents Address to Staff or a general President’s Address. B. Cornell said this would be an address targeted to staff.

J. Seymour said the address will be recorded but not streamed live. P. Mahoney suggested this information be on the poster, and B. Cornell wanted the “Cell Phone for Soldiers” project on the poster also. G. Stewart said the email needs to have a good subject line, and asked if it could be co-signed by the VP Opperman and B. Cornell. B. Cornell said he would ask. A. Mittman asked if there would be sign language interpreters there. B. Cornell said they are looking into this.

d) Finance
A. Mittman said he will review the budget, but knows it is around $7,000. He is awaiting the final numbers.
e) Emergency Grant Fund
P. Mahoney she had a discussion with K. Speiser on this. K. Speiser is interested in getting staff to participate in the current “Far Above” fundraising campaign. She has said it is possible to have payroll deductions go to the Emergency Grant Fund.
f) Personnel Policy
P. Mahoney hopes meet and to have a report for the next Employee Assembly meeting.
g) IOC
P. Korolov said they are working on finalizing all the appointments now with A. Epstein.
h) University Benefits
Nothing to report.
i) Employee Education
J. Seymour said there have been no meetings yet. There will probably be meetings after the President’s Address and Energy Fair.
j) “Ad Hoc” Charter Review
P. Mahoney said they have met regularly, there is good progress being made, and they are working on finalizing their review soon.
k) “Ad Hoc” EA Membership Review
P. Korolov said Dennis will advertise for us in the events section and possibly some larger pieces. B. McKinney asked if Dennis would hold space in the paper for the Employee Assembly Appreciation Award winner. P. Korolov said he would bring it up with him.

IX. Old Business

a) Employee Assembly Vacancies (Who applied? What’s next)
A. O’Donnell said that one person had emailed asking for more information. J. Seymour suggested the deadline be extended to October 30, 2008. He also suggested the positions should be mentioned at the President’s Address, and wants to work with Dennis to advertise in PawPrint. P. Mahoney said she knows two people who said they were interested, but neither has submitted an application to apply. B. Cornell agreed to extend the deadline. B. Liddick suggested it be open ended until filled, L. Lawrence agreed. J. Seymour suggested at the first meeting in November the applications be reviewed. B. Cornell said the contract colleges are very underrepresented, and we need to get people to apply soon. G. Stewart asked if M.G. Opperman could help more? B. Cornell asked everyone to talk to at least one contract college person if not more. A. Epstein will draft an email for B. Cornell to send to Deans and Associate Deans. A. Epstein suggested they set the deadline for the end of the month and there can always be a vote to extend the deadline again if need be. B. Cornell suggested the deadline be November 4, 2008 and if we have no applications by that time, we can look outside the contract colleges. B. Cornell asked for this to be on the agenda for November 5th, 2008. Applications should be sent to P. Korolov if they come in. P. Mahoney asked if EA members could use the email that is going out from Mary Opperman, and B. Cornell said yes. A. Epstein will get this done this week. L. Lawrence asked if there will be an EA table at Employee Day? He said could volunteer. A. Mittman said people may see the Presidents Address and then go to Employee Day.
b) President’s Address and Energy Fair Tasks
** Disability Liaison for the event
A. Mittman offered to field requests and details with the interpreter. He has set up a meeting in Barton next week to review facilities, entrances, bathrooms, etc. B. McKinney is working with vendors for parking permits. B. Liddick asked if there would be a map? J. Seymour said he hoped so, and added there are 5–7 vendors confirmed now. The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce is sending out a note to its members to ask them to connect with him if they are interested in participating. G. Stewart volunteered to work with the insurance/risk management people.

P. Mahoney motioned to extend the meeting for ten minutes. L. Lawrence second.

c) Cell Phones for Soldiers
B. Cornell said that A. Mittman checked the legitimacy of this group and found out it is legitimate. B. Liddick is working with Colonel Page to have a table available to accept them.
d) Chili Chat Follow-up
J. Seymour has emailed everyone with a link to the Chili Chat report. H. Hall’s concern was that this was sent to M.G. Opperman and administration but the EA never heard back. P. Korolov said this is what got the Employee Assembly out there and the document showed what information came in. He added that M. G. Opperman had seen this and given feedback. P. Mahoney asked to do a resolution. P. Korolov responded that a resolution would ask M.G. Opperman to read this document, and she already has. P. Mahoney said that we need to ask her to respond. A. Epstein said a resolution was discussed last year but never written and when it was never given to her, she was not asked to respond. P. Korolov asked if they could talk with M.G. Opperman about this at the November meeting. P. Mahoney suggested an email be sent to her so that M.G. Opperman could review it ahead of time.

X. Open Forum

B. Liddick said the Climate Survey Committee is quite large and will meet once a month for now. They are trying to set up focus groups and to create survey questions. He is concerned that with the amount of committees, they are starting from scratch and not using information other committees already have.

B. Cornell said to speak to him if they are interested in running next week’s meeting.

P. Mahoney said the programs for the President’s Address need a minimum of one weeks turnaround time for printing. She also asked if she should put together gift baskets for the President and VP Opperman. B. Cornell confirmed they would need gift baskets.

XI. Adjournment

B. Cornell adjourned the meeting at 1:40 p.m.