Tulane University
Staff Advisory Council September 2012
ATTENDEES
OFFICERS
Loshbaugh, Alysia,Chair
Smith , Lawrence, Vice Chair
Bouyelas, Sheri, Election
Coordinator
Bourgeois, Kathy, Recording
Secretary
Conners, Linzi, Corresponding
Secretary
Chavez, Gwen, Member At Large
NORTHSHORE
Guichard, Kenny
Viana, Rick
Waguespack, Desiree
WFMO Representative
Wallace, Christina
UPTOWN CAMPUS
Bocage, Jered
Branley, Kathy
Cheramie, Christopher
Espinosa, Miriam
Houck, Katie
Keck, Jeanny
Lane, Christopher, Immediate Past
Chair
Leonard, Angelica
Lowe, Brian
Mitchell, Scott
Murphy, Louise
O’Dwyer, Lisa
Platner, Robert
Richards, Whitney
Robinson, LaShanda
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
ATTENDEES
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Davis, Patrick
Haase, Tanya
Heisser, Michael
*PRESENT
PRESENT
Huber, Jennifer
EXCUSED
EXCUSED
Kivell, Anita
PRESENT
EXCUSED
Leger, Kay
Miller, Michael, Senator at Large
Pick, Amy
Vasquez-Lockhart, Yesenia
EXCUSED
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
PROXY
Feiling, Greg (Proxy)
Guilbeau, Elizabeth (Proxy)
Hankins, Julia (Proxy)
Hayden, Nadrine (Proxy)
Hills, Tynette (Proxy)
Hyde-Augillard, Sharon (Proxy)
Kivell, Lyndsie (Proxy)
Ligget, Mark (Proxy)
Longlois, Christi (Proxy)
Lossi, Suzanne (Proxy)
Nolan, Andrea (Proxy)
Parzynski, Stacey (Proxy)
PRESENT
EXCUSED
PRESENT
PRESENT
Relayson, Barbara (Proxy)
Schafer, Liz (Proxy)
Schor, Meredith (Proxy)
Starck, Tamar (Proxy)
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
EXCUSED
Strong, Sewann (Proxy)
Tedesco, Ken (Proxy)
Wilde, Elizabeth (Proxy)
Wilson, Marilyn (Proxy)
Young, Peter (Proxy)
PRESENT
EXCUSED
PRESENT
PRESENT
INVITED GUESTS AND
VISITORS
*PRESENT Collette Creppell, Univ Architect
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2012 – 2013
PRESENT
PRESENT
PRESENT
EXCUSED
PRESENT
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
September 13, 2012
Page 2
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Alysia Loshbaugh at 3:30 pm.
I. Review and Approval of the Minutes
The August minutes were approved.
II.
Guest Speakers
Colette Creppell with the University Architect talked about the campus projects. Dinwiddie Hall and
Weatherhead Hall have LEED gold certification, Hertz & JBJ are tracking gold. Flower Hall is silver
tracking and the Zimple Dorm will be gold tracking. Richardson Memorial hopes to be LEED platinum
rated.
They are working on Newcomb Plaza, which extends Newcomb Hall to the grass area. McAlister Place
was the first phase and LBC Quad was the second phase.
Flower Hall will be a state of the art lab. Two floors are being outfitted and the remaining floors will be
outfitted later.
Downtown projects include the JBJ labs.
The Howard Tilton Library addition should be completed by the summer of 2014. They are working on
mitigation. Whatever was in the basement is being moved to the top of the building.
Zimple House (dorm) should be completed in the summer of 2014 and open in August of 2014.
The new football stadium should be completed by the fall of 2014. SMG, which services the superdome,
is the firm that is advising them and providing project management since they are very experienced. They
are looking at all aspects including parking, shuttles. Most games are played on Saturdays, so they should
not affect the workday.
More bike racks are being added.
The Sharp Quad was given a makeover with landscaping and a new walkway.
The University is in the process of doing a traffic/parking study to understand the level of service and the
real need for parking.
III.
Report of the Chair, Alysia Loshbaugh
Alysia had a meeting with Anne Banos and Jean Holtman. They will meet with her quarterly to have open
flow of communication. They reviewed our strategic goals. That coupled with the feedback from the
members influenced the current draft.
We had issues with the ALLSAC list serve, which goes to all of the staff at the University when we did
the Kenny Chesney ticket give away. There were a lot of reports of staff not receiving emails. Chris
Lane (immediate past-chair) had issues last year as well. We got approval get an update of all staff and
their email addresses once per quarter, and we can do a bulk upload so it stays as current as possible.
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September 13, 2012
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Over 1200 new staff members were added once Alysia uploaded a current list. We didn’t have any
complaints with football ticket giveaway in which 567 staff members signed up. We gave away 78 pairs
of tickets.
IV.
WFMO Liaison
No report
V.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate
The first University Senate meeting was held on Monday, September 10, 2012. President Cowen gave a
detailed update on many issues, but we didn’t have a lot of time to go over all of it. He told them that
Devon Walker is doing as well as expected. The family requested that not many details be given out.
There are opportunities for people to give donations to him. Students are selling t-shirts on his behalf.
Scott said that he is alert and responsive. Isaac closed us down for one week. The problem with the
storm was that it was unpredictable, so they had a hard time deciding the best course of action for
University. At first we were to close for two days, then it changed to three days and then we ended up
closing for the rest of week, because the storm didn’t move once it got here. We learned that our co-gen
plant doesn’t generate enough power for all students that are sheltered in place and labs. We are looking
at the feasibility of adding another generator, but they have to get approval from Entergy. It would add
additional capacity, but even then it won’t be enough to provide power to for everything. Someone asked
about solar panels, but there are cost issues and many of our roof tops are steep, so they are looking at
other options.
They talked about some of the Institutional priorities for this year. They want to complete the strategic
planning process that has been ongoing since last year. They are going to identify the priorities with the
board & have them trickle down to schools so they can develop strategic plans if they don’t already have
them. Other issues of concern are accessibility and affordability of private school education to our
students, increased globalization and digital strategy. They are working on improving our undergraduate
retention rate. It is currently at 91%, but the goal is 95% by the fiscal year 2015. Retention rate is really
important and graduation rate is impacted by the retention rate and that impacts our rankings. US News
uses a six-year graduation rate. We are still struggling with the students that left after Katrina, which is
bringing our graduation rate down. In theory, by 2014, our rankings should increase, though there are no
guarantees.
They are looking for pathways to stabilize the school of medicine’s clinical platform and a change in
healthcare is an issue of concern. We are in a silent phase of a major capital campaign. Once they finish
the strategic planning process, then we will go to a public phase.
The rest of the issues did not have an impact on staff.
A member had a comment about the hurricane time off. If an employee had vacation scheduled during
the time that we were off for Hurricane Isaac, they were charged for vacation. The member didn’t think
that was fair, since we couldn’t be on campus anyway. She felt that they shouldn’t have had to use
vacation time since the rest of the University had those days off. Christina Wallace confirmed that was
the case and that everyone received that email. The intent was to cover those people that had an extended
vacation. If they were out of the state or in the Caribbean for example or something they still had to
charge the time to vacation. Christina said that she would take it back to WFMO, though.
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B. Board of Administrators
Lawrence Smith attended the general meeting, but it covered almost everything that Alysia went over.
There was a long detailed explanation of endowments and about why we lost money. He is going to get
the handouts that they gave out and he will send copies out to members. We can’t participate, so he can
only sit and listen to what they say. Questions can be directed to Lawrence.
A member had a question about frozen funds. She asked when they would be unfrozen. She said that it is
not only endowments, but the 4C accounts. If they don’t use all of the money, it gets frozen and they
can’t use it. They also get tuition rebates, but they don’t see those rebates until April or May, and if they
get frozen in June, they can’t use them for the next fiscal year. Alysia said that funds can be unfrozen, but
it requires approval from a senior officer. If the chair wants to use some of those frozen funds, they
should send an email to the Dean with an amount and a time line as to when they would be spent. The
member said that their department received conflicting information. Alysia asked if they were going to
allow funds that were frozen to be permanently unfrozen the last time they went through budgeting, and
she was told that they wouldn’t be at this time, because there is a cash flow issue.
VI. University Senate Committee Reports
1. Benefits
Anne Banos gave a report to the senate on Monday. We are going back to United Healthcare on
January 1, 2013. Cigna wanted a 22% renewal increase on our premiums. They negotiated it down
to 17%, but still wasn’t good enough, so they went out to market. United Healthcare came in with a
6.6% increase. They took that offer back to Cigna, but the lowest offer Cigna would offer was 15%.
We also got a rate cap of 13% for the following year. They were told that the reason for the increase
was due to the number of claims increase and not the amount of the claims. It was the highest it has
ever been. We will not have to do a health assessment with United. A member asked if the new
health care laws affected the increase in rates, but there is no evidence of that. They will add an extra
week for open enrollment at the end of October or the beginning of November. If you were on the
low plan and you had the health assessment last year and you were employee only on the plan, the
increase depending on your salary was anywhere from $4 to $15 per month. If you were employee
plus spouse, the increase was from $29 to $48 per month. Employee plus children was from $22 to
$46 per month. The family plan was from $32 - $61. Medium plan was anywhere from $8 to $78
and the high plan was anywhere from $19 to $92.
2. Budget Review
No Report
3. Information Technology
No Report
4. Equal Opportunity
No Report
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5. Physical Facilities
No Report
6. Social Issues
No Report
VII. SAC Sub-Committees
1. Election Committee
No Report
2. Electronic Technology and Information
No Report
3. Staff Appreciation
No Report
4. Staff Issues
No Report
5. Health and Wellness
No Report
6. Community Service
Desi Waguespack and Elizabeth Guilbeau were working on getting raffle tickets donated by
Brennans. Elizabeth is working on a basket that she is donating, and they have two tickets to the last
Saints home game. They want to start it homecoming weekend and end it December 7, 2012. We
have to have a permit for a raffle. A suggestion was made to have CASA take care of the raffle. We
will check with Development to see if they have to record donations of prizes. None of us were
comfortable with putting our social security numbers on the form.
7. Constitution Committee
No Report
8. Student Relations
No Report
VIII.
Old Business
We are going to work on our strategic goals and we want to clean up the language of the constitution.
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If anyone has a specialty, we would like them to add their information to a list that can be put on the
website. If an employee needs help with something such as Excel, they could call on the SAC member
for help.
We also want to check into doing some professional development/training. Having a brown bag lunch
with sessions on resumes, workshops, and discuss tuition waiver challenges was discussed. Maybe we
can partner with WFMO to offer sessions. We are going to contact Jim Bradley in the ILC used to see if
they would reconsider having classes again. Financial Aid said that they would like to host a session.
They said that not many people know about loan forgiveness.
Scott Mitchell is going to look into starting up some intramural sports like we used to have.
IX.
X.
New Business
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 5:02 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Bourgeois
Recording Secretary
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