MINUTES
Employee Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
12:15 - 1:30 p.m.
401 Physical Sciences
“Being an active Voice for Cornell Staff”

I. Call to Order

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

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

Absent: J. Boodley Buchanan

Also Present: A. Epstein, A. O’Donnell

II. Call for Late Additions to the Agenda

L. Meyerhoff asked to add an update from the last Faculty Senate meeting.

G. Osborne asked to add an update on the CARE Fund.

III. Approval of Minutes from last Meeting

L. Sayam had a few edits to the Education Committee portion. All were in favor of the edits, and the minutes were approved with the corrections.

IV. Business of the day

a. Jennifer Loeb

She said currently the Work/Life Digest goes to around 400 people. They want to be able to send it out to all faculty and staff on the four topics. C. Ferguson asked how it looked on an iphone, since that may be how some staff are viewing it, and if it doesn’t view, people won’t look at it. L. Morris said it is important to watch out for repetition among the newsletters. T. Grove asked if there was an “opt out” feature, and Jennifer said there was. G. Stewart noted we should get it hooked in to the EA e-news. Jennifer should get invited to the next Communications Committee meeting to discuss. L. Meyerhoff suggested it’s helpful to have info in the email, not just links to everything. C. Ferguson said he likes it when there are live date links to the events so he can automatically enter them on his smart phone. He noted the Chronicle doesn’t have that.

V. Report from the Chair

a. Meeting with Mary Opperman

T. Grove said she, Brigitt and Beth had met with Mary and they would like to suggest an EA resolution stating the EA displeasure with the revised academic calendar which removed the 2 staff holidays. The members were in favor. B. Esty asked what the expectations and goals of the resolution would be. T. Grove said that she hoped it would compel President Skorton to revisit the staff piece. She said HR is discussing the personal/sick time breakdowns, and it may change to a general “health and wellness” fund in the future.

T. Grove said the REST team is looking at the results from the employee survey. She noted there are four break out committees that will need employee representatives, please let her know if you are interested. When Communications Committee resumes meeting, they will need to help push out the info from the committees, as there will be lots of exciting news and changes. Mary also told them that HealthNow insurance will be phased out at the end of this year. Also, flex benefits will be on a debit card, no receipts to AON. B. Esty asked if there would be any changes to the dental plans? The consensus was that members were unhappy with them. T. Grove said there was no mention of the dental plans at the meeting.

b. Needs Assessment

T. Grove said the meeting with the HR people went well. They discussed career opportunities and ways for employees to better align their skills. They discussed training budgets be changed to a “central pool” so it is not up to each departments discretion to cut it out of their budget in tough times.

VI. Committee Reports

a. Trustee Nominating Committee - Leslie Morris

L. Morris said the committee had met recently to “debrief” on elections. They discussed lengthening the campaigning period, shortening the voting period, and the HARE system. L. Croll Howell said she would recommend leaving the voting period long, to accommodate for vacations, illness, etc. or consider running it Wednesday - Wednesday instead of Monday — Friday.

b. EA survey results - Leslie Morris

It has concluded, L. Morris said they had approximately a 50% response rate. In a nutshell, staff are interested in what the EA is doing for them. Better communication is needed — pushing out agenda items, meeting notes, actions, etc. Also, people are interested in committees, but they need more info about them. 772 people indicated they would be willing to be contacted. They will need to award the Kindle soon — how to pick a random winner from respondents? A. Capogrossi said he is happy to answer any questions the members have on the results of the survey. It was agreed the EA would discuss this at greater length at the next retreat. L. Morris said she will not be running for Communications Chair next year, so the new chair will need to take this on.

B. Cristelli said she would go with Leslie Meyerhoff to the volunteer event on Friday.

VII. New Business

a. Geneva Trip Agenda

G. Osborne said she has put together a draft agenda for the day. 8am leave, then tour, lunch/meeting and then back to campus by 3:30pm. They will need a van to transport, so please let Tanya and Amy know if you need a ride, so everyone can be accommodated.

VIII. Old Business

a. Kudos Lunch - May 30

T. Grove said the email invitation will go out today inviting everyone. It will be held at the Statler. Tanya said Mary offered the use of the tent next year if we would like to hold it somewhere near Commencement/Reunion time. The ice cream cart is also a possibility.

b. Faculty Senate

L. Meyerhoff reported the Faculty Senate had voted on the proposed Academic Calendar. The vote was 35–25–3. She said there was a lot of discussion (45 minutes worth), and in the end all but one of the student demands were met. She said the Provost also gave an update on the budget model. She said it is very different, so perhaps have Elmira Mangum come to an EA meeting in the fall to explain. She concluded by saying she will no longer be the EA liaison to the FS, so someone else will need to come forward.

c. Education Committee

L. Sayam asked if she could have certificates for the members of the Education Committee. B. Cristelli agreed to work on them. T. Grove said a letter to the supervisors would be a good idea also.

d. CARE fund

G. Osborn said the committee met today, and auction planning has started. They are looking for volunteers to gather gifts and donations. She reported it will likely be just an online auction this time, and items will be in a series—not everything will open/close at the same time. G. Stewart suggested the EA find an intern to work a few hours a week to help with things like this.

IX. Adjournment

Meeting was adjourned at 1:20 p.m.