MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
12:15 — 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:19 p.m.

Present: J. Boodley-Buchanan, B. Cristelli, L. Croll Howell, B. Esty, K. Fahey, C. Ferguson, T. Grove, L. Meyerhoff, L. Morris, G. Osborne, L. Sayam, B. Schaffner, G. Stewart

Phone In: J. Seymour

Absent: D. Brooks, M. Kitchen

Also Present: A. O’Donnell

II. Call for late Additions to the Agenda

There were no additions to the existing agenda.

III. Approval of Minutes from last meeting - September 21, 2011

L. Meyerhoff made a motion to approve the minutes with the corrections that were previously e-mailed to A. O’Donnell. B. Schaffner seconded the motion and the EA voted to approve the minutes for September 21, 2011.

IV. Business of the Day

a) Committee Staffing Report- Bridget Cristelli

B. Cristelli explained after receiving e-mails from all of the EA members she has divided all the members up onto committees. She passed out a sheet containing a list of all of the committees EA members will now be serving on. There are currently two seats on UA Committees that still need to be filled by employees. These are the Transportation Hearing and Appeals Board and the Campus Planning Committee. T. Grove encouraged the EA to e-mail at least one person who may be interested and encourage them to join one of the committees.

T. Grove stated in regards to the EA committees, all of the committees have chairs except the Personnel Committee and the Education Committee. These two committees do not have specific work so it needs to be discussed as to what work they would like to focus on. J. Boodley-Buchanan questioned how to address a concern someone in her department approached her with, and that was regarding the time an employee receives off to grieve for the death of a child. It is the same as for any family member, 3 days, which was widely felt to be too short. T. Grove said this issue could be discussed during the “New business” portion of the agenda but this would be a good issue for the Personnel Committee to focus on this year and that once a chair was appointed the committee could discuss the matter in more depth.

K. Fahey asked about the Education Committee and whether or not they should all meet and discuss different topics. She also questioned whether minutes would be taken if this meeting does occur. G. Stewart said last year the Education Committee only met once and that since no important issues were happening so no minutes were taken. L. Sayam brought up that the Education Committee should discuss the discrepancy between tuition charged for EDP candidates across summer and regular semesters and in different schools at Cornell. T. Grove agreed and stated that there are a few issues similar to this one which need to be handled by the Education Committee and therefore there is a need to staff one. C. Ferguson questioned whether the big change in moving registration to online would be discussed. L. Meyerhoff answered that with the change of Work-Day the EA has not heard about the final outcome of registration online.

B. Cristelli will be adding all of the EA members’ information to the committees that they will be serving on. The UA should be sending e-mails regarding meeting times for their committees soon. T. Grove and the EA thanked B. Cristelli for her work in putting together the committees.

b) Letter of support for Employee Engagement Survey — Tanya Grove

T. Grove stated at the September 21st meeting M. Clarksberg asked the EA to put together a letter of support for the employee survey. Instead of a letter, N. Doolittle will be creating a PawPrint edition that talks about the survey and will contain direct quotes from the EA encouraging all employees to participate in the survey.

The survey is scheduled to be released by the end of October and will close on November 18, 2011. L. Meyerhoff suggested the EA host an event for employees where they could explain the results of the survey. She also asked if the EA could receive more specific information from the survey, such as the information that the stakeholders would be receiving. C. Ferguson asked if the EA could receive the same information that M. Opperman and President Skorton will be receiving since it was the EA Resolution that initiated the creation of the survey. T. Grove will ask M. Clarksberg but said there should be nothing preventing the EA from creating a resolution requesting the more detailed information that the stakeholders will be receiving.

T. Grove asked if anyone else had any more information to add regarding the survey. K. Fahey stated the survey now contains a question regarding whether an employee identifies themselves as disabled or not. C. Ferguson asked if this information from the survey could be compared to the information gathered from the HR groups? L. Croll Howell said that the EA can ask for the numbers from HR and then do a cross comparison. She also mentioned the inclusion questions in the survey will be very helpful as well for this topic.

c) Care Fund Auction Tasks - Gemma Osborne

G. Osborne reminded everyone the auction is coming up soon. The online auction will begin Monday, October 10th and run until October 19th. There are currently over one hundred items in the online auction and forty-five items in the live auction, which will be auctioned off in a one-hour period.

Then she asked for the members of the EA to consider volunteering to help with the auction. Volunteer opportunities include item runners, set-up, clean up, and a lunch coordinator. T. Grove stated the Student Assembly is very interested and excited to help as well.

Finally, L. Croll Howell mentioned there have been currently ninety-three applications, sixty of which have been funded so the group is hoping that the auction will be very successful so that it can help even more applicants.

V. Report from the Chair — 9/28 Leadership Breakfast

At the Leadership Breakfast on September 28th, Susan Murphy came and discussed a number of different topics including gorges and means restriction, flooding in Owego, and changes to fraternities and sororities.

The next leadership breakfast will be held October 19, 2011, where the guest will be Provost Kent Fuchs, and will be focused on the New York City Tech Campus. T. Grove encouraged members of the EA who are interested in the topic to e-mail her because there is one seat available. C. Ferguson asked about staffing, assuming that the NYC Tech Campus actually happens. T. Grove stated that the NYC Tech Campus would be similar to Geneva so there would be an employee who would become a member of the EA.

G. Stewart stated that although this topic is interesting there are other issues the EA should be trying to focus on. He said he has mentioned for many years it would be ideal for Cornell to have a large outdoor pool on North Campus. He said many people believe the deaths in the gorge are alcohol related; however, a majority of them do not include any alcohol but rather students who were there for social outings with their friends. He strongly feels a pool would be a good alternative to provide a social climate that would be much safer than the gorges. This could potentially benefit faculty and employees as well.

VI. Old Business —

T. Grove explained what the topics would be for the upcoming EA meetings and events. On the October 19th meeting there will be a presentation regarding the means restriction. The November 16th meeting will focus on parking accessibility. The President’s Address to the staff is scheduled for November 28th at an undecided location as of right now and on December 21st M. Opperman and President Skorton will be attending the EA meeting.

a) Retreat

T. Grove stated since there was no fall retreat they should do their best to have a spring retreat. The members of the EA will be consulted regarding possible dates soon.

b) Charter change to add Communication Chair to Executive Board

T. Grove will discuss this issue with A. Epstein and report back to the EA at the next meeting.

VII. New Business-

There was no new business for this meeting.

VIII. Open Forum

There was no open forum for this meeting.

IX. Adjournment

C. Ferguson made a motion to adjourn the meeting and B. Cristelli seconded the motion. The EA meeting was adjourned at 1:25 p.m.