ATTENDEES
OFFICERS
Tulane University
Staff Advisory Council April 2013
ATTENDEES
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Loshbaugh, Alysia,Chair
Smith , Lawrence, Vice Chair
Bouyelas, Sheri, Election Coordinator
Bourgeois, Kathy, Recording
Secretary
Conners, Linzi, Corresponding
Secretary
Chavez, Gwen, Member At Large
Present
Present
Present
Present
Davis, Patrick
Hayden, Nadrine
Heisser, Michael
Huber, Jennifer
Present
Present
Kivell, Anita
Present
Present
Leger, Kay
Ligget, Mark
Miller, Michael, Senator at
Large
Parzynski, Stacey
Pick, Amy
Excused
NORTHSHORE
Guichard, Kenny
MacLean, Avery
Viana, Rick
WFMO Representative
Wallace, Christina
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Present
PROXY
Present
Present
UPTOWN CAMPUS
Bocage, Jered
Present
Branley, Kathy
Cheramie, Christopher
Christovich, Louise
Espinosa, Miriam
Houck, Katie
Keck, Jeanny
Leonard, Angelica
Lowe, Brian
Mitchell, Scott
Platner, Robert
Richards, Whitney
Robinson, LaShanda
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Catt, Jason (Primate)
Charles, Anna (Uptown)
Fabacher, Lisette (Primate)
Feiling, Greg (Uptown)
Golden, Nadia (Primate)
Guilbeau, Elizabeth (Uptown)
Hankins, Julia (Uptown)
Hills, Tynette (Downtown)
Hyde-Augillard, Sharon
(Uptown)
Kivell, Lyndsie (Uptown)
Lossi, Suzanne (Uptown)
Nolan, Andrea (Uptown)
Relayson, Barbara (Uptown)
Schafer, Liz (Uptown)
Schor, Meredith (Uptown)
Starck, Tamar (Uptown)
Strong, Sewann (Downtown)
Tedesco, Ken (Uptown)
Wilde, Elizabeth (Uptown)
Wilson, Marilyn (Uptown)
Wright, Amber (Primate)
Young, Peter (Uptown)
INVITED GUESTS AND
VISITORS
Aaron Miller, Emergency
Management
President Scott Cowen
Present
Present
Present
Present
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 2
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2012 – 2013
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 3:32 by the Chair, Alysia Loshbaugh
I.
Review and Approval of the Minutes
April minutes were approved.
II.
Guest Speakers
Aaron Miller with Emergency Management spoke to us. He is the person that receives and
reviews the departmental hurricane plans. They sent a request for updated hurricane plans to
all deans, directors and department heads around April 1, 2013. They are due on May 1, 2013.
Out of 160 plans, they have only received 8 so far. He would like for us to remind our deans,
directors and department heads to turn their updated plans in to them. They can contact Aaron
if they have any questions. His phone number is (862) X8447 and his email address is
amiller3@tulane.edu. The format is the same as last year. He will be hosting some seminars
and
the
dates
and
times
are
posted
on
their
website
http://tulane.edu/emergency/preparedness/index.cfm.
President Cowen spoke to us about what is going on in the higher education community. He
has been in the academy for forty years, but he has never seen the public, federal government
and state governments more hostile toward higher education than they are right now. It doesn’t
seem to be a temporary phase that they will grow out of, but it seems to be permanent. Part of
the reason is that we have become so large and visible. We are getting judged by some of the
same standards that large companies are. Politicians seem to point out what they see as the
irresponsibility of higher education. There seem to be issues around accountability, accessibility
and affordability. Everyone is saying that college is no longer affordable, not accessible to the
middle class and that we are not willing to be accountable for what we do, how we spend their
money and how we run our universities. If you look at net tuition, which is gross minus aid, it
has grown at a much faster pace than income has for middle class people in the United States.
Over the last six years, the median income for middle class has actually declined, but net tuition
has gone up. This gap is getting larger. They are feeling the most pressure from middle class
income people who are saying that they cannot afford to send their children to college. This is
related to the accessibility. The lower socio economic class is finding it nearly impossible to
attend college. LSU has even gotten that much more expensive, because the state is no longer
investing in LSU the way that they used to. The only way LSU can manage their situation is to
increase their tuition, which is having an impact on lower and middle class people. They are
also seeing that student debt is continuing to rise. We are doing so exceptionally well at the
undergraduate level, so it is hard to see that there is a problem. If things keep going the way
that they are, we will be comprised of all white rich people at Tulane. That is not the kind of
university that we are. We have to modulate tuition and be able to provide aid. The second set
of issues we are dealing with is that all other sources of revenue have either been stable for the
last five years or have been in decline. Because of sequestration, research dollars have
decreased significantly putting in jeopardy a lot of people that rely on research funding.
Research dollars are not growing and indirect cost recovery is not growing the way that it used
to. The third issue is patient care due to the affordability act and what is happening with
insurance. In the last three years alone we paid eight million dollars more per year as a
university for health care insurance and there is no end to it. There is hope in philanthropy. We
made a big investment in the development function. None of the revenue lines are growing
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 3
other than the increases in tuition, but it needs to be modulated. Expenses are far outweighing
the revenue. President Cowen has three children that work for public institutions. One is at the
University of Virginia. She hasn’t had a raise in four years. The other works for the University
of California Berkley and hasn’t had a raise in three years. They don’t even suspect that there
will be a raise in the near future, because the public institutions are having so much trouble.
The largest expense that we have is our people, but they are also our largest asset. The nonpersonnel cost turns out to be benefits such as health care. Every single year before we ever
do a budget, we always allocate close to three quarters of a million dollars for the library. We
have a terrific library as well as the dean of the library. These are the kinds of issues we are all
facing in higher education. We have been somewhat insulated from it for a number of years,
because we made such hard decisions after Katrina. We don’t have a massive crisis, but we
will constantly think about what we do, how we do it and how we allocate dollars as we go
forward. They continually need our thoughts about these issues. We are going through
strategic planning and budgeting right now. We will find our way through it, but is challenging.
We are fortunate to be here at Tulane. Vanderbilt University froze wages across the board, but
they have an endowment that is five times the size of Tulane’s. Their Health Sciences
represents about 70% of the university. We are hearing that more and more as we go forward.
We will continue to do our strategic planning and focus our resources on the high priorities of
the institution such as our faculty and staff and students and the programs that support them.
We may be able to tighten our belts, and we need to generate new revenue sources. Many of
the schools are starting new masters programs. We are looking at the possibility of how we can
handle parking on all of our campuses. Maybe we can consolidate it or outsource it. They are
not thinking about layoffs at this time. We want to become more productive with what we have.
Rob asked if we are still at a record pace of undergraduate applicants. We should receive
about thirty one thousand applications this year. We accepted six hundred less students this fall
than we did last year. Last year we accepted one thousand less than the year before. The
University is now at full capacity. Hopefully we will end up with less than sixteen hundred
students this year. It puts a strain on the infrastructure. Some of our professional schools are
having challenges.
Law School applications in America are plummeting, so Law Schools
around the country are downsizing. Pre-Katrina they had an entering class of three hundred
twenty five to three hundred fifty. They have since downsized to two hundred fifty. They are
downsizing again to one hundred eighty two. They have to look at how to weather that
financially. The Medical School receives a lot of applications. They are facing health care
reform, which is adding to the challenges that we have. Medicaid costs at the state level are
being reduced as well as research dollars, which they depend on. We are already over bedded
by 30% and when the two new hospitals open, we will be over bedded by 45%. The Law
School Dean has put together a superb plan. The University of Miami laid off one thousand
people six months ago in the medical complex alone.
Lawrence asked how we as a staff advisory council can help. President Cowen encourages us
to join the live chats that he has set up. Ann will give Alysia the dates for the upcoming chats. If
we have thoughts, we should give them to our supervisors so that they can pass them on. The
Academic units are going through their planning process now. They should be talking to
everyone in their schools about their plans. Some of the best ideas have come from the staff
members.
Lawrence asked what modulate tuition means. It just means to change the rates of tuition. We
have always had a policy of the same tuition across all of the schools, except for the School of
Continuing Studies. We may think about differential tuition rates in the future. We probably
wouldn’t do that at the undergraduate level, though. Other universities do that especially with
the professional schools.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 4
Someone asked if businesses provide grants as a source of funding projects. The School of
Science and Engineering has relied heavily on federally funded grants, but the dean is looking
at whether there is an opportunity to partner with industry. Some of that has already happened
with BP since the oil spill. They have had to put a lot of money in foundations to support
research. Our Science and Engineering School has been aggressive in competing for those
grants. We are disadvantaged a little bit, because we are in New Orleans versus being in
California or New York. He has a lot of confidence in the leaders of our schools.
Another member asked if he sees a light at the end of the tunnel. He doesn’t see the overall
environment turning around anytime soon. It is going to continue to be challenging. We have
things that we are doing that continue to keep us strong financially. We will never be a rich
institution. We will continue to be fiscally sound, though. The capital campaign has the
opportunity to create some opportunities that we otherwise wouldn’t have. We are in the early
stages of a billion dollar plus campaign. That will support the annual fund and bricks and
mortar. He feels that there will some real opportunities there. The key is to make sure that we
are raising money for the right thing. We still remain remarkably strong at the graduate level
and Tulane has a fantastic reputation around the country. Another thing we have to look at is
what we are going to do digitally. Technology needs to be used more creatively. The School of
Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the School of Continuing Studies use technology
extensively.
Kathy asked if there is a combined effort to improve the attitude of higher education. The
President will be leaving for four days to go to the AAU meetings in DC, which he is chair of.
Sixty of the largest and most powerful universities in the country try to convince legislators at the
federal level about the value of a college education. They are having some positive impact.
There is also a group called APLU (Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities) which is
doing the same thing. The general public is also talking about the value of a college degree.
They are saying that the purpose of getting a degree is to get a job right away, so we all should
be focused on getting everybody jobs. As an undergrad you really don’t come to Tulane
University just to get a job. It is the totality of the experience that helps you to grow and mature,
get wisdom, learn about the humanities, social sciences, the arts, etc... There is a movement to
commoditize higher education, which means to give them the fastest degree at the lowest price
possible so they can go out and get a job, but he doesn’t think that is necessarily where Tulane
should be. He met with the Washington Post in the fall and he told them about the value of a
degree. If you go over the last fifty years in America and you look at the average return on
investment financially of a college degree, the return is 18% per year for fifty years. There is no
investment in the United States that gives a better return than that in dollars alone. The reason
that the student debt is so high is because of the for profit schools. President Obama put up a
score card in the last state of the union address to measure universities, but it is misleading.
Eric Cantor will be a speaker at the meeting.
Jeanny Keck told Scott that she is so thankful for her tuition waiver and is proud of graduating
this May. She also told Scott that she appreciated him paying us our salaries during Katrina
even though we were not on campus. She also thanked him for bringing Tulane back before
the city recovered. President Cowen is proud of the faculty, staff and students here at Tulane
University. His proudest moment as President was how we all came together after Katrina.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
III.
Report
of
Loshbaugh
the
April 11, 2013
Chair,
Page 5
Alysia
A staff hiring freeze will be in effect on May 1, 2013. There will be guidelines to get an
exception to the policy and which positions apply on the WFMO website. There are also some
Q&A’s on the site as well.
IV.
WFMO Liaison Lawrence Smith
The student loan forgiveness only applies if you have made 120 separate monthly payments to
your loans after October 1, 2007. Any payments that you made prior to that date, don’t count.
Employment has to be verified by WFMO. Here is the link to the information:
https://studentaid.ed.gov/sites/default/files/public-service-loan-forgiveness.pdf.
In May 2013 monthly non-exempt employees will move to bi-weekly. There is concern that they
will get shorted. The Primate Center needs a WFMO representative to come to talk to them.
They are concerned about the short notice that was given. They are upset, because they will
only get one pay check in May and then they won’t receive another check until June 7, 2013.
They don’t catch up with it until sometime in August. Those that are living pay check to pay
check it is difficult. They are doing it now, due to the implementation of the new time keeping
system. We are requesting that WFMO either push back the start date and to increase
publicizing the information. Gwen asked if WFMO could have some sort of meeting. We are
also asking that they send a representative to the Primate Center, downtown campus and
uptown campus so that people can ask questions.
Deductions will be split between the pay checks.
Alysia will stay in contact with Christina. Christina will escalate this since there is so much
concern about it, but we won’t have another meeting to discuss it. If necessary, it can be done
on a conference call.
V.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate
(Alysia Loshbaugh)
They met on Monday. The tobacco policy passed the senate without much debate. The
proposal was revised. The consequences were somewhat addressed in the revision. Both
faculty and staff who are in violation and email will be sent to either the dean or the supervisor
with a list of actions that can be taken. We don’t know what those are yet, though. They are
generally educational such as giving them the dangers of smoking. Someone asked if they
would designate what is campus and what is not. At the Primate Center you would have to walk
very far to get off campus. Right now the rule is that they can’t smoke within ten feet of any
door, so they see there being an issue with it there. The sidewalk is public property, so you
could smoke there.
Lawrence was at the Coalition meeting and he suggested sending Scott Tims an email with
concerns and questions, because he is collecting data.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 6
There was discussion from the Equal Opportunity committee about the report that Chris
provided about changing the language in handbooks to be more sensitive to gender identity and
expression (he/she would become they). There is also going to be a revision of our equal
opportunity statement.
There was Student Affairs Committee report that relates to the Office of Student Conduct. One
thing that they want to change is that sexual misconduct cases will not be allowed to be
deferred even if there are criminal charges pending. Right now they can defer the student
conduct hearing if are criminal charges pending, but now it will not be allowed in sexual
misconduct cases.
B. Board of Administrators
(Lawrence Smith)
They had a board meeting. Dr. Cowen touched on most of it in his address.
VI. University Senate Committee Reports
1. Benefits
(Miriam Espinosa, Jered Bocage, Kathy Branley, Kay Leger, Alysia Loshbaugh)
No Report
2. Budget Review
(Jennifer Huber, Sheri Bouyelas)
No Report
3. Information Technology
(Brian Lowe)
No Report
4. Equal Opportunity
(Katie Houck, Christopher Cheramie, Kathy Bourgeois, Michael Heisser, Linzi
Connors, Louise Christovich)
No Report
5. Physical Facilities
(Kathy Bourgeois)
No Report
6. Social Issues
(Amy Pick)
No Report
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 7
VII. SAC Sub-Committees
1. Election Committee
(Sheri Bouyelas-Chair, Miriam Espinosa, Rob Platner, Tanya Haase)
Sheri reported that we have all of our nominations in. She has forty nine for uptown, four for
Primate and thirty eight for downtown. We need two for the Primate Center. Someone
mentioned that Rick is coming back, but he resigned from SAC. We need seven from
downtown and eight from uptown. Elections will open up later this month. Sheri is hoping for
May 22nd. They will remain open for about a week. We should know who our new members are
before our May meeting. If you are a current representative and you are running for re-election,
for a second three year term, you will know if you were re-elected before the May meeting. We
will then vote on officers at our May meeting.
2. Electronic Technology and Information
Linzi Conners-chair, Louise Christovich)
3. Staff Appreciation
(Gwen Chavez-chair, Alysia Loshbaugh, Elizabeth Guilbeau, Jeanny Keck,
Jennifer Huber, Ken Tedesco, Kenny Guichard, Sharon Hyde-Augillard)
The total number of people that signed up was 345. Fifty employees were from uptown, forty
three were from downtown and nobody from the Primate Center signed up. Someone
mentioned that it would be hard to get the Primate Center staff members to come across the
lake unless there was bus service. They used to have a bus for the luncheon. They really can’t
afford to come to the south shore, but they would love to be involved. Maybe we can have
something at the Primate Center during the year that we don’t have our family fun day on the
south shore since we can only afford to do a family fun day every other year. A lot of people at
the Primate Center don’t know what SAC does, but Avery will try to get the word out to them.
Gwen sent a poll to those that gave their email addresses. She received thirty eight responses.
All but two said that they would attend again. The majority would or already have
recommended this event to others. Word of mouth seems to be the best way to get the word
out. Someone said that it was advertised towards families, so if they were single, they wouldn’t
have come. It interfered with Church for some, because it was Palm Sunday. They would like
to have more food and healthier or vegetarian options, more things for the older kids to do,
drinks were too far away, change the time from noon to four. We couldn’t have changed the
time, because we would have had to pay Facilities over time. They would have liked to have it
on a Saturday, but Lusher had their crawfish boil that day. Some asked for more New Orleans
music. One asked for crawfish, but that wasn’t possible, because of the expense. They would
like to have more signs on the booths, more inflatables, chairs, adult team games such as
volleyball or horseshoes, hire the tumble bus or petting zoo, sack races, group project such as
an art project for a cause, labyrinth or things that aren’t common. The Primate Center has a
dunking booth for events. Some favorite parts were: feeling of appreciation, music, door prizes,
the stations for the kids, snow balls, trail mix, handimals and Home Depot. The least favorite
parts were: not enough food, music, not enough buns, fire truck didn’t come. They would like
more line dances and music that appeals to all genders. Someone didn’t read the email and
went to the Turchin Stadium. Someone said that they almost left, because the inflatables and
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 8
tents weren’t set up. Additional comments were: teens were bored, it was nice to show off the
campus and have a free family day together, a nice way to meet co-workers and families,
volunteers were kind and pleasant, location was lovely and time of the year is great. The food
was donated except for the veggie burgers, Sherriff’s office donated three tents and Facilities
donated everything except the sound system for $200. The total amount was $3,029. Gwen
worked really hard on this event to make it a success. We have plenty of bags left over for next
time.
Avery asked if she could have about fifty bags for their fair at the Primate Center. She is going
to have a SAC table. It will be on May 17th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm if anyone wants to come
over there to help her with it. That is the day before graduation, so it may be hard for some
people to leave work.
4. Staff Issues
(Katie Houck-chair, Jennifer Huber, Jeanny Keck, LaShanda Robinson, Lawrence
Smith, Lyndsie Kivell)
They are still working on the site that would link staff to other staff members that have expertise
in our procedures. We can try to get it launched in May. The Greater New Orleans Community
Data Center put out a publication in January called ‘Strengthening Our Workforce from
Within: Adult Education’s Role in Furthering Economic Growth in Greater New Orleans’.
The link to the article is http://www.gnocdc.org/StrengtheningOurWorkforce/index.html .
Katie is going to look at the article to see if she can get some ideas from it.
5. Health and Wellness
Louise Christovich-chair, Sharon Hyde-Augillard, Jeanny Keck, Scott Mitchell,
Lawrence Smith, Tamar Starck)
The tuHealth and Wellness is trying to reach out to every one of the employees and their
dependents to get some input as to how we can become healthier. Louise said that they are
doing free Yoga on Thursdays at lunch for free in the Art Department. Jeanny said that yoga
helped her with her back pain. Some people said that they didn’t get the notice that they were
offering yoga.
6. Community Service
(Kathy Bourgeois, Kathy Branley, Lyndsie Kivell, Meredith Schor, Sharon HydeAugillard)
We did collect 2 boxes of food for Second Harvesters at the Family Fun Day.
7. Ad Hoc Student Relations Committee
Jeanny Keck-chair, Chris Cheramie, Elizabeth Guilbeau, Katie Houck, Lyndsie
Kivell, Whitney Richards)
Jeanny will get with Miriam on this.
8. Ad Hoc Constitution Committee
(Jered Bocage-chair, Alysia Loshbaugh, Jennifer Huber, Meredith Schor)
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 11, 2013
Page 9
Jared added a section to say that if a SAC rep is on FMLA, those absences don’t count against
them in terms of their attendance requirement. If a rep fails to attend two meetings unexcused
or three meetings total, they become eligible to be removed. Fewer meetings per year mean
you can have fewer absences. They defined proxies a little better. It elevates them to a nonvoting member. They changed the officer positions so that we combine the corresponding
secretary with the recording secretary and redistribute some of the duties. We added a
parliamentarian as an officer position, because we need someone to deal with our constitution
issues. Someone asked if someone misses more than two meetings and they are removed, will
we wait until the next election to fill the spot. We haven’t had to remove anyone this year. They
just voluntarily left if they had problems with attending meetings. Generally what we do is go to
the proxy pool and asked the person with most votes if they want to serve that person’s term
out. We approved the new language.
VIII.
Old Business
IX.
New Business
X.
Adjournment
We adjourned at 5:03 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Bourgeois
Recording Secretary