MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:21 p.m.

The group went around the table to share news with each other since the last meeting.

Present-D. Brooks, K. Coldren, C. Ferguson, T. Grove, L. Croll Howell, L. Meyerhoff, L. Morris, C. Phillips, J. Seymour, G. Stewart

Absent- T. Denesevich, P. Dongtoe, G. Osborne

Also attending - Employee Trustee Beth McKinney, A. O’Donnell, P. Beach, N. LaCelle

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

There were no additions to the existing agenda.

III. Business of the Day

T. Grove said the Executive Committee had met to go over some of the things that we have done from the retreat. She asked Leslie Meyerhoff to take over the discussion.

L. Meyerhoff said there were two goals for the conversation and they have been accomplished. One was to determine what their vision and purpose was for the year and the other was to develop goals around that. They used the information that was brainstormed at the retreat as their inspiration. EA should be an active voice for staff at Cornell and goals would be to enlarge the EA, and increase visibility.

There was many ideas discussed that could help measure this including election results, emails, Facebook friends, etc.

The Executive Committee will be meeting on alternate Tuesdays will plan to have the agenda out by the Thursday before the meeting. Would like to have agendas and minutes out earlier so time won’t be used during the meetings for reading.

T. Grove said she plans to adjust the agenda so they highlight committees that have something to report, but if a committee doesn’t report for a while, they will ask for a report.

IV. Report from the GPSA representative

No representative was present, so there was no report.

V. Report from the Chair

T. Grove said she wanted everyone to know they could not pass the Bridge Barrier resolution by email, so they will have it at the next meeting. She noted they have shared this with the President the UA, SA and GPSA. Everyone is very appreciative and the other assemblies are feeling like-minded about the bridge barriers also. T. Grove noted and thanked L. Meyerhoff for attending a Common Council meeting recently about this topic. There are new barriers now that are better looking than the previous barriers.

T. Grove thanked Gary for putting together the Staff Notes program.

VI. Approval of Minutes-

a. June 2, 2010

L. Morris made a motion to approve the minutes. C. Phillips seconded. The members voted and approved the minutes.

VII. Committee Reports

a) Communications

L. Morris is the new Chair of the committee. She said she had recently met with Donna Goss from the PawPrint and they will work to always have something in each paper about the EA. They are drafting the next edition of the EA news, so they are looking for input, suggestions, information, etc. for that. She said there will be a meeting as soon as the committee is put together, she encouraged anyone to join if they are interested.

b) Employee Education

C. Philllips reported about the SEED event last month. She said it was a very successful event and this year they added a few workshops to the event. HR is also starting a career development program, and career coaching will soon be available too. She said she would like to have a meeting soon, and encouraged members to think about joining the committee. There was a brief discussion on the committees budget and whether there was any money that could be made available for staff to attend workshops when their department could not pay.

c) Personnel Policy

L. Croll Howell said she is planning to continue on with the committee. They have one major objective this year, and that is the university’s flex policy, or the new name is “agile” work place. They would like to have a plan in place by the end of the year. This also ties in to the university’s sustainability plans.

VIII. Old Business

L. Croll Howell said that the Notice and Respond training is rolling out to HR staff and also will become a part of the New Supervisor training.

IX. New Business

T. Grove encouraged all members to attend the Assemblies Orientation session at the Schwartz Center next Tuesday. This is especially helpful for new members, but all members should attend if possible.

X. Open Forum

L. Meyerhoff asked about the status of the new membership arrangement. There have been no recent meetings to discuss.

There was a brief discussion on the budget and what each committee has and how money rolls over.

B. McKinney asked if there had been a date selected for the President’s Address this year. A. O’Donnell said they are working on it, but no date had been confirmed.

N. LaCelle reported he had been working with the UA executive committee over the summer and they have been working to re-write their Charter. The UA will bring it forward at one of their first meetings for a vote. This was done in order to better serve and coordinate between assemblies and their committees.

L. Morris suggested the group think about how they could participate in Staff Celebration day in the fall.

D. Brooks said he would like to come up with a way to increase the staff morale by giving small tokens of appreciation. T. Grove passed out an idea that had come up recently, a “Caught ya” card that could be given out to staff. There was a brief discussion on what the prizes could be, and how they could potentially be tracked.

N. LaCelle also said that he has observed many staff leaving due to all the uncertainty and stress, and the EA should be aware of this.

T. Grove reported on a change in parking lot designations. Some staff have received letters they were removed from their lots, and their spaces were given to others on waiting lists. T. Grove said she had called and talked to Helen Steh from Transportation and this has been adjusted for those staff who have asked for their original parking. C. Phillips said she has observed CU makes decisions like this sometimes that could be viewed as “mean spirited” and she suggested this be discussed in order to help change the mind set. G. Stewart said the EA needs to be on the administrations radar so when things like this arise, they bring to the EA before rolling out. D. Brooks said he would like to see a resolution that would mean any decision that affected more than 20 staff members should be brought to the EA.

G. Stewart asked if we wanted to have more guests attend meetings. How can we remind and encourage visitors to come? There was discussion on how to do this.

XI. Adjournment

L. Meyerhoff made a motion to adjourn the meeting. C. Ferguson seconded.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:12 p.m.