MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
316 Day Hall

I. Call to Order

T. Grove called the meeting to order at 12:18 p.m.

T. Grove asked for introductions around the room of the current EA members and the potential new members.

Present: D. Brooks, B. Cristelli, L. Croll Howell, K. Fahey, C. Ferguson, T. Grove, L. Meyerhoff, G. Osborne, L. Sayam. B. Schaffner, J. Seymour, G. Stewart

Absent: J. Boodley Buchanan, B. Esty, M. Kitchen, L. Morris

Also Present: J. Ambrosetti, A. Epstein, A. Lombardo, B. McKinney, A. O’Donnell, W. Smith, The Daily Sun reporter and photographer

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

B. Schaffner added a report on the last UA meeting and a current UA resolution to the agenda.

III. Approval of Minutes from last meeting

B. Cristelli made an amendment to the members’ attendance on the February 15th minutes. L. Meyerhoff made a motion to approve the amended minutes. The EA unanimously approved the amended minutes for February 15, 2012.

IV. Report from the Chair

a. Meeting with Mary

T. Grove brought the Personnel Policy Committee’s ideas about enhancing the existing funeral leave policy to M. Opperman. M. Opperman believes the proposed changes are good and encouraged the EA to move forward to do an official change in the existing policy. T. Grove said she also discussed the academic calendar with M. Opperman, specifically the addition of two staff holidays. M. Opperman said she supported the proposed changes and encouraged the EA to talk to other assemblies about creating resolutions in support of the proposed academic calendar.

T. Grove said she discussed the engagement survey with M. Opperman. M. Opperman wanted to see if the EA would be interested in hosting open forums regarding the different areas addressed in the survey. T. Grove explained the forums would be open to the public and would discuss the four points previously outlined by M. Opperman as needing specific action moving forward. C. Ferguson asked how the four points were chosen and whether the EA might want to address other issues. T. Grove explained Marin Clarkberg worked with the data in a variety of different ways and identified the four points as the most significant according to the comments and data. T. Grove suggested M. Opperman could attend an EA meeting to provide more information. C. Ferguson suggested the possibility of having the researchers come in and give more information. B. Schaffner suggested if the EA does have any open forums on the survey, a member of the survey data team should attend to provide more information.

V. Committee Reports

a. Education Committee — L. Sayam

L. Sayam updated the EA about the progress of the survey for employees who have graduated. She is planning to send the survey out on Monday, March 12, 2012 and requested the approval of the EA.

The EA unanimously approved the launch of the survey and thanked L. Sayam and the committee for putting the survey together.

b. Codes and Judicial Committee — C. Ferguson

C. Ferguson said the committee passed a resolution two weeks ago which addressed the changes on how sexual assault cases are handled. C. Ferguson explained last April Cornell received a Dear Colleague letter stating the university was not in incompliance with federal Title IX guidelines, specifically in regards to how they handle sexual assault cases. C. Ferguson said the main item to be changed was the burden of evidence. The other recommendations made in the resolution include transferring all sexual assault cases from Judicial Action to University 6.4 Policy. This recommendation brings students into the same process as staff and faculty.

T. Grove said the CJC has forwarded the information to the UA and the resolution will be discussed, and possibly voted on at the UA meeting on Tuesday, March 13, 2012.

c. Staff Recognition and Award Committee — T. Grove

T. Grove said the committee had selected four winners at their last meeting. Since there were not enough submissions in the winter, all the winners are being selected in the spring. (This section of the meeting is confidential so no minutes or recordings were taken.)

VI. New Business

a. Board Breakfast Prep

T. Grove reminded the members about the breakfast with the Trustees on March 8, 2012 at 7:30 a.m. She suggested the EA come up with topics so each table could discuss a different issue. Some of the suggestions made were: sustainability, diversity, workloads and pressure, transportation, and the letter from the president regarding the survey. B. McKinney explained the trustees regard Cornell with the perspective of the years to come and are less concerned with day-to-day issues. She suggested the topics be broad and pertain to ideas that will important over the years. T. Grove asked the members to have one member at each table record some of the ideas and issues discussed. L. Croll Howell suggested a follow up article discussing the breakfast appear in The PawPrint.

b. Set date for Geneva meeting

T. Grove said every EA meeting is open to go to Geneva except the meeting with President Skorton and M. Opperman on 4/4. G. Osborne suggested setting the date for May or late April when the weather is nicer. B. Cristelli will send a doodle poll with two possible dates for the meeting to Geneva.

c. Update on the UA meeting - B. Schaffner

B. Schaffner said the main issue covered at the UA meeting was the Title IX issue and the resolution, which was discussed earlier by C. Ferguson. The other topics discussed at the meeting were the survey and the NYC Tech Campus. Finally, B. Schaffner said JA reports for the past two years are out. They will not be available online but they will be made available to the chairs of the assemblies.

d. Resolution on Academic Calendar - T. Grove

L. Meyerhoff asked for any comments or suggestions on the proposed changes to the academic calendar. B. Schaffner mentioned a concern regarding the change for the date of asking students to move out of their rooms. She explained the change only gives the housing staff approximately forty-eight hours to clean and prepare the rooms for the families coming in for commencement weekend.

T. Grove asked for any additional amendments to the resolution. L. Meyerhoff made a motion to approve the resolution and B. Cristelli seconded the motion. The resolution passed with a vote of 12–0.

VII. Open Forum

• B. McKinney asked what publicity the EA could do for the EA elections and the Employee Elected Trustee election, since they are being held at the same time. A. O’Donnell said L. Morris and the Communications committee have a communications plan for the elections, and it is already in the works.
• L. Meyerhoff asked if another member would be able to attend the PSA Committee in her place this month. B. Schaffner volunteered to attend.
• T. Grove asked the potential EA candidates to provide the EA with some information about themselves. All three introduced themselves and explained to the EA why they are interested in applying for a seat on the EA. W. Smith asked how an employee could apply. T. Grove explained the application progress and said there will be Information sessions for people who have are interested in running that have questions.
• D. Brooks said he attended the last Soup and Hope with Provost Kent Fuchs and thought it was very good. He said K. Fuchs did not talk about budgets but more about his personal experience, which was nice to hear.

L. Meyerhoff said the next Soup and Hope will be Thursday, March 15, 2012 and the guest is Dewitt Carroll, who will be providing a musical performance in lieu of a spoken presentation.

VII. Adjournment

G. Stewart made a motion to adjourn the meeting. C. Ferguson seconded the motion and the meeting was adjourned at 1:14 p.m.