Tulane University
Staff Advisory Council
ATTENDEES
ATTENDEES
OFFICERS
UPTOWN CAMPUS
Lane, Christopher,Chair
Orgeron, Laurie, Vice Chair
Bouyelas, Sheri, Election Coordinator
Bourgeois, Kathy,Recording Secretary
Ardeneaux, Carol, Corresp.Secretary
Lossi, Suzanne, Member At Large
Excused
Present
Present
Present
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Conners, Linzi
Davis, Patrick
Haase, Tanya
Heisser, Michael
Kivell, Anita
Leger, Kay
Miller, Michael
Pasternak, Merisa
Pick, Amy
Slatkin, Allan
Stewart, Patsy
Vasquez-Lockhart Yesenia
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Graham, Tiffany (proxy)
Hyde-Augillard, Sharon (proxy)
NORTHSHORE
Guichard, Kenny
Waguespack, Desiree
West, Corrie
Cantero, Linda
Chavez, Gwen, Immediate Past Chair
Eugene, Zina
Griffith, Mike
Keck, Jeanny
Leonard, Angelica
Loshbaugh, Alysia
Mitchell, Scott
Murphy, Louise
O’Dwyer, Lisa
Platner, Rob
Richards, Whitney
Robinson, LaShanda
Smith, Lawrence
Vega, Kimberly
Weingart, Kady
Present
Present
Mann, Forbes (proxy)
Page, Karissa (proxy)
Pierlus, David (proxy)
Schneider, Louie (proxy)
Schor, Meredith (proxy)
Souquet, Jon (proxy)
Sugarman, Meredith (proxy)
Ussin, Nikita (proxy)
Woodard, Cathy (proxy)
INVITED GUESTS AND VISITORS
Kelly Venable Carroll – University
Services
Rob Haley – University Services
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2011 – 2012
Present
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 2
Call to Order: Christopher Lane, SAC Chair, called the December 8, 2011 meeting of the Staff
Advisory Council to order at 3:30 p.m. The meeting was held in the boardroom on the 24th floor
of the Tidewater Building.
I.
Review and Approval of the Minutes
November 2011 minutes were approved
II. Guest Speakers
Kelly Venable Carroll and Rob Haley from University Services were our guest speakers.
They handed out note pads in the shape of IPads with lists of their services on them.
University Services is not on all campus, which is dictated by the populations on the
various campuses. They mainly handle the uptown campus travel, transportation &
shuttles, PJ’s Café’s, hotel contracts, Paris Parker, In Exchange, Bank, Barber Shop.
The Bookstore & dining services fall under Lisa Norris. Mike Britt handles mail & part of
fed ex. Stephen Gordon handles the Tech Initiatives. The staff members are entitled to
hotel discounts, which can be used for personal use. If you go to their website
http://tulane.edu/studentaffairs/tom/ & click on hotels and travel you will find a list of all of
the hotels that offer discounts. Enterprise car rental offers discounts for personal and
business use. We also have the We car agreement, which allows students, faculty &
staff to rent a car to grocery shop, etc.. This is a good service for the international
students, because the state of Louisiana will not recognize their driver’s license, but
Enterprise will. The cost is $10 per hour & it includes fuel & there is a $50 per year
membership. If you set the membership up under a business, they waive the $50 fee,
but if it is for personal use, the $50 membership fee goes towards your first rental. We
have 2 spots designated on the Tulane campus, but we are still waiting for the Prius
cars. People have this option if they can’t get a cab or if the shuttle is not running, they
will have this option. It is only offered for personal use & not for business use. They
were approached about setting up a shuttle between the north and south shores, but it
was too much to of an expense to pay for a driver and a bus. It is cheaper to go to
Enterprise to rent a car if you want it for the day, because the daily rate for the WE car is
$60. They have a rate for students between the ages of 18-20, which was first
implemented during Hurricane Gustav. It worked well, because students were able to
get out of town if they weren’t able to get a flight out. Lisa O’Dwyer asked if any changes
will be made or if new restaurants will be added as a result of the survey that was sent
out. Rob said that Lisa Norris is handling that, but he didn’t know what the results were.
There is some talk about adding another type of restaurant that would serve something
such as a hamburgers or Indian food. They try to make some type of change at least
once a year. They did the Baja fresh about 2 years ago & it is the one that most people
don’t care for. They are trying to do a food truck. The problem is that you have to have
a permit from the city & the city has a moratorium on permits right now. The only way to
get a permit is for someone to pass away & you are willed their permit. They think it
would be a good option to do some different things in various locations, but they will
keep trying to pull something off with that. He was asked if they got rid of Taco Bell
because they wanted a change. All of the restaurants are franchised through Sodexo,
and all of them have dates in their agreement where they go through a refresh. They
were hearing from students that they wanted something different there. It was the only
Taco Bell in Orleans parish. They try to figure out what the community wants & some
people are happy with the choices & others aren’t. They just renovated the Drawing
Board in the School of Architecture. Lisa also said that we used to have a green market
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 3
that would come to the campus once a month. Rob said that we had something from
Hollygrove Marketplace. Rob is going to check to see why they haven’t come back. A
member asked if there were any plans to do something on the downtown campus.
Members commented on how expensive the food is there. At this time they do not have
any plans to do anything downtown, because it is a difficult model. The parents of the
3,200 students have expensive meal plans, which subsidizes the hours and options.
The downtown campus doesn’t have that option. They did talk with the people in the
Murphy Building about having a Fresh Café, but they couldn’t figure out how to provide it
to the population downtown. They had a 3rd party come in, but they could barely make
ends meet, because the cost to provide a meal was around $9 - $10 a meal. Rob just
went through a cost of goods increase in order to figure out the cost of the meal plan for
next year & he had to fight to get a moderate cost of goods increase. He will ask Lisa
Norris to keep trying to get something for the downtown campus. It is difficult to give
everyone what they want with an insufficient budget. If Einstein’s is too expensive,
maybe they can look at some different packaging that would bring it to a level that
people can afford. Someone asked if they can look into using some of the funds from
the grants downtown to provide more eating options, but another member said that you
can’t use grants for that. The uptown food service is a net contributor. A percentage of
the $2,500 per semester meal plan that the students pay goes to the overhead for the
University. They want to make it better & will keep trying. They planned to bring snacks
into the Tidewater building for finals & will continue to try to do special things as well.
They are learning that the food service has to be focused on faculty and staff as well as
the students. I asked if there was any talk about opening Wow up earlier in the day. At
one time they had opened it at 11:00 about a year ago & they didn’t have any business.
They had a guy running around in a chicken costume to let people know it was open.
Rob said that if the dining room is full, he will go down to the Rat to sit & eat. Location
makes all the difference when it comes to retail. If they can do a food truck, they will
park it on the edge of McAlister or Drill Road or behind Architecture or downtown. They
hope to have it rotate between locations. Someone asked if we will get retail back in the
Post Office. They had to have someone on call at our post office the Friday and
Saturday after Thanksgiving, but they didn’t get any deliveries, because US Post Office
had a temporary driver & they forgot to give him key to open up and deliver mail. They
sustained significant cuts post Katrina & about 2 ½ years ago & at the same time the
cost to ship packages has gone up. Most people buy things on line now. Orin Fosberg
is very knowledgeable about the USPS, and he does a lot of work with them. Rob
suggested going to stamps.com to buy stamps, but we have to go to Loyola’s Post
Office to mail a package. Rob isn’t sure how long Loyola’s Post office will be there with
the reduction of stations by the USPS. They are going to try to start working with
Christina in WFMO to get the information about faculty & staff discounts out to the
people. The annual discounts that are offered before the Christmas break uptown are
because the vendors offer the discounts. They offered them twice this year. Jokingly,
Rob suggested that if you have a problem or something that you are upset about to call
Kelly. They have a great network of people that are willing to help with any questions or
problems. Rob raved about his staff members in University Services. They are all about
getting the job done. Because of that, they are able to do some fun & cool things. Desi
mentioned that Kelly was a big help with family fun day. Someone asked if their office
was in charge of the discounts that we get through wireless providers. Jerry Wilson’s
group in the downtown Telecommunications Office is in charge of that. The Bookstore is
going to do a trunk show on the north shore. They have already done one on the gulf
coast. They are going to check with Larry in the Bookstore to see if we can go online to
make purchases using the discount. A member had a question about the Bookstore’s
policy on returning text books. Rob said that there is a 7 day return policy on books.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 4
Students reserve their books through them & they box them up. If they reserve them
early enough, they can get used books. The students pick the books up & they figure
out if they really need the book or if they can share a book with someone & they return
about 2/3 of the books back, so that is why they have a 7 day return policy. If they have
a faculty member makes a mistake or there is an unusual circumstance, they will make
exceptions. A member said that there has been a concern that the students can drop a
class on line, but they don’t get any documentation that they dropped the class. The
Bookstore gives them a hard time, because they don’t have anything to show that they
dropped the course, so the students have been going to the Advising Center to get a
print out from banner. There has been a little disconnect & Collette from the Registrar’s
Office got involved in this with one of the students. The student has to know that they
can print the screen when they drop a class. The Bookstore is going to require them to
prove when they dropped a class. Rob is going to check to see if they can arrange for
the students to be able to print their verification that they dropped the class in the
Bookstore at a kiosk. A member had dropped a class & took the book back to the
bookstore & they asked her if she brought her print out. She didn’t have it with her &
they wouldn’t allow her to pull it up on their computer. She went to the center in
customer service where she ordered the books & pulled up Gibson online & printed the
screen that said that she was not registered for the class & printed that out.
III. Report of the Chair, Christopher Lane
No report
IV. WFMO Liaison
No report
V.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate
There was a motion to correct the staff handbook to bring it up to the same
specifications as the faculty handbook in regards to the benefits for the partners of the
same sex couples so they would have the same access to the benefits & so forth. It was
moved to be discussed by the counsel & the Provost Office. A member said that any
request to change the wording on the affidavit should be sent to the General Counsel’s
office. The language in the staff handbook had been changed & there is going to be a
massive re-write of the faculty handbook.
B. Board of Administrators
No report
VI. University Senate Committee Reports
1. Benefits
There will be a meeting on January 26th.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 5
2. Budget Review
No Meeting
3. Information Technology
No Report
4. Equal Opportunity
No Report
5. Physical Facilities
No Meeting
6. Social Issues
No Meeting
.
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
Members should have received a letter letting them know if they qualify for reduced
health insurance rates. Some members received a vision card in the mail, which was
confusing.
6. Community Service
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 6
Casa Toy Drive Update: So far we had about 200 toys & $3,780, of which $2,600 was from
paypal & the rest was in cash, check or gift cards. Three gift cards were stolen from one of
our donation locations. There is a little girl that was having a birthday party & wanted to
donate all of her toys that she received to CASA. Channel six was supposed to cover that
story, which will give us exposure. We just about doubled the donations from last year.
They didn’t hear anything back from Jimmy Graham, but it was Desi’s understanding that
Jefferson Parish was still trying to get through to him. Zina Eugene said that she brought a
lot of toys and gift cards & she still had more to pick up. Paypal charges a $100 fee for the
transactions, so Desi was hoping to get some help with that. Chris asked her to send him
the information & he would see if our budget could cover it. SAC members brought toys,
money & gift cards to the meeting for Desi.
VIII.
Old Business
No report
IX.
New Business
Chris had a report from the Northshore, which is important enough for us to try to take
aggressive action to try to help out. Cory gave the report. The Facilities Services attendance
policy for hourly employees has been a problem for some time. It is actually a pilot program, but
WFMO is refusing to give them a copy of it. The administration on their campus said that they
posted an FAQ, which they do not consider a policy. WFMO was asked several times for help &
they indicated that there is nothing wrong with this procedure. Any unexcused absence is
considered unacceptable. Their definition of excused is you have to schedule a day off two
weeks in advance – even if you are sick. The Primate Center is unique in that they have their
own occupational nurse. They have a policy that says if you are out sick or you go home or you
go to the dr. you have to come back with a doctor’s note. Even if you come back with a doctor’s
note, it is still considered unexcused even if the employee has sick time or not. They are a
Primate Center & any illnesses that humans have can be transferred to primates. Therefore,
they have a policy in their Occupational Health department that states if you have a fever over
99 degrees, you have to report to Occupational Health & if you have a contagious illness, you
have to go home & cannot stay on campus, because you can spread it to primates. Even with
that in writing & people get sent home because they are sick, it is not excused. There is a
formula that they created so their percentage is 6.44%, which is the number of hours that you
work divided by the number of hours that you are scheduled. If that number turns out to be
greater than 6.44%, that requires a disciplinary action. If in 2 months (they go by 2 month
increments) you are absent over 6.44%, the first step is to give them a verbal warning, then they
are written up, then you are suspended & then terminated. This means that if you miss 1.5 days
the first month & 1.5 days the second month, you get written up. Every campus & every
department is allowed to make their own policies up. They first found out about this when
employees began coming to Occupational Health & told them that they didn’t want to get fired
for being sick. The supervisors were told about the policy & were told to go back & tell their
employees. They never had a departmental meeting & never sent anything out, so they raised
a fuss & told Occupational Health that this is not fair & the people need to be notified in writing,
but that never happened. They only created the FAQ’s & are saying that this is their policy.
They don’t understand why they can’t get a copy of the policy when they request it. WFMO said
that they don’t have a copy of the policy & that they have to ask the supervisor for it, but the
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 7
supervisor won’t provide a copy. They wrote their complaints down, but they were told that
supervisors are allowed to discipline their employees as they see fit. On page 25 of the staff
handbook it says that departmental supervisors can reprimand their employees as they see fit
for excessive absenteeism & they can decide what they feel is excessive absenteeism. They
have a new assistant director & she is pushing it & people are actually getting fired. It is
currently now only in veterinary medicine, but it is being pushed in Facilities on January 1, 2012.
If this is a campus policy, they want to know why it doesn’t apply to every hourly individual.
They can push certain people around & if they apply this to anyone else, it would never be
tolerated. They tried going to Institutional Equity & the General Counsel with no luck. They
asked the SAC members from that campus for the names of the people that are complaining
possibly to retaliate against them, but the SAC members would not give names out. WFMO
said the pilot program has been around since 2006 & that pilot programs can go on as long as
they want them to. WFMO said they do not have copies of the pilot program, and they can
reprimand their employees as they see fit. Last year they wrote something formal up for WFMO
& they responded saying that this was a grossly inappropriate topic to be discussing at a staff
meeting. They feel that there are certainly employees that abuse their sick days & use them as
they get them, but if someone comes in with a doctor’s note, they should be excused. Some of
them can’t afford to run to the doctor & pay $25 just because they are sick for a couple of days.
The note doesn’t count anyway, so there is no reason to even go to the doctor. Since they have
an Occupational nurse on campus, they feel that they should be able to rely on his/her
judgment. People are now coming to work sick, because they don’t want to lose their jobs.
They tried to explain to General Counsel that this is a liability for the University if something
happens to the colony. They would like to address pilot programs as a whole. If they want
copies of the policies or pilot programs, they have to beg for them. They want to know the
procedure for a pilot & who signs off on the programs. It seems as though General Counsel and
WFMO has to sign off on them. If a supervisor doesn’t want to give the employee the
information or if the employee doesn’t feel comfortable going to the supervisor to ask for the
policy, they want to know who they can call or where they can go to obtain the copy. The
employee should sign a declaration acknowledging that they have read it, understand it, had a
chance to ask questions & have received a copy. Also, the timeline needs to be addressed. It
seems unusual that a pilot program can go on for five years. Some of these programs have
been going on downtown since before Katrina. The Tulane Legal Assistance Program was not
helpful, either. Ruth told Cory that one Facilities Department is allowed 13 unexcused absences
per year. WFMO said that all of the statements that Cory gave to her are third party, but the
people are afraid to come forward to complain. Some employees come to work in pain,
because they don’t want to lose their jobs. If you go on FMLA, they can’t do anything to you.
So, employees are going on FMLA for any little sickness. Since they started to use FMLA, they
are trying to find loop holes so they can write them up for that. The new assistant director is an
ex WFMO employee, so it is difficult to call WFMO to complain about someone that was in that
department. Ten people were fired during the week of our meeting & a few the week before
that. It is going to become hard for the departments to function without these people. Cory
would like to write a proposal with some help to take it to someone higher up. A member said
that she has heard that for something to be called a policy, it has to be approved by the board.
Aaron Martin previously told us that it could possibly be brought before the faculty senate
committee. These people that are being targeted make low wages & may not have access to a
computer. Also, they don’t have the knowledge or the resources to get someone to help them.
OIE said it was not discrimination, because not everyone in the department was African
American. Most all of the employees that were fired were African American. They tried to
speak to Debra Love, but the person under her said that it was not an OIE matter. They have
about 5,000 monkeys & about 175 people in Facilities. These jobs are hard to fill, due to the
nature of the job. Cory isn’t sure if the people that were fired would be willing to do anything
about it. They are already understaffed as it is & now it is worse since they have fired these
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 8
employees. They have opened up about 200,000 square feet of lab space in the last two years.
Some employees felt that there was age discrimination. Some of the older employees were
moved into administrative jobs. They tried to force some of the older employees out by offering
them retirement packages, but they didn’t want to retire. Those employees wanted to know if
they could force them to retire if they were able to carry out the normal duties. Tulane doesn’t
have an age retirement policy. About four men were moved to the hardest manual labor at the
center where they would have to move animals & push heavy things & dress in layers of
clothing in hot weather. One of the guys retired, because he was very upset that they did that t
him. The others are struggling to do that type of work. Chris suggested finding someone within
the Law School that would be good at writing this proposal. Another member suggested talking
to the Law Clinic. Normally you get one free session & that person may want to help to write the
proposal. Someone from the Business Law class may be able to help with it as well. Rob
suggested talking to Mickey in the General Counsel’s Office. Meredith and Scott showed up
and they were trying to act as though they were there to see the Occupational Health
Department & they wanted to see the documentation that requires employees to go home if they
are sick, etc.. This was a week after Cory spoke to Ruth about what was going on & they tried
to act as though they wanted to learn about what they do there. They deal with Scott on the
drug and alcohol policy. Desi gave a scenario of an employee working in a coral with the
primates when they are ill & they pass out & they may not be found for a period of time. Ruth
said that it was highly unlikely, but Desi said that in their business they have to prepare for
unlikely events. If this practice continues, they may end up with very bad employees or
employees that do not care. Ultimately there will be a problem, whether it is major or minor. A
member suggested including all campuses when we write this proposal to include everyone &
every pilot program. Gwen suggested that the first request is that all pilot programs be written
& given to all employees, so they know what the rules are. Anything that deviates from what is
in the staff handbook should be written somewhere. They want to note that if an employee
brings a note in from a doctor that there cannot be additional retaliation. It seems that it should
be important to the University to protect the employees and the primates. A member suggested
going to Anne Banos with the complaints, because she is approachable. Another suggested
going to Scott Cowen with it. Cory said that she told Ruth that she is not looking to get rid of the
policy, but it needs to be revised. It was decided to take it directly to Anne. She would be sure
to communicate with Scott Cowen. Another member talked about a program that she had
implemented. She had to do a pilot & Anne Banos said that it could only be for six months &
they couldn’t target one specific department. She wanted to do it with Facilities, because their
job is very physical. The pilot was return to work on modified duty. People were getting fired,
because they didn’t have FMLA, they filed a worker’s comp claim & they didn’t have sick time.
After 12 weeks if they didn’t have FMLA, they were fired. She started to see how many people
were being injured & being fired & they were being sued because of it, so they needed to
implement a program where people can return to work. The program is going to be
implemented as of January 1, 2012. She had to do a pilot program for six months with at least
two departments (they did three). After six months, she had to meet with Anne & present a
report to her & then she went in front of the senate committee & then the President’s board for
their approval. It was totally scrutinized by Scott Schneider in the General Counsel’s office
before anything. He told her that under no circumstances could you have any liability behind
your policy. When she first started working here, the drug and alcohol policy was spearheaded
by her, but it was pulled from her & she didn’t even know that pilot was still going on. She was
told that there was no way that it was going to happen. Cory said that it is for anyone that
carries a weapon & the Primate Center decided that they are going to extend it to anyone that
has access to a controlled substance. The reason she wanted to implement the drug and
alcohol policy is because we have a lot of people who have had severe injuries, because they
were under the influence & they couldn’t prove it. They had to let them keep working. She said
that she agrees that this has to be put into a package & they will have to show proof & submit it
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
December 08, 2011
Page 9
to President Cowen. You cannot mess with your employees according to General Counsel.
They told her that she couldn’t accommodate only one nationality – she had to accommodate
everyone. There are three people in Facilities Services that are out of work & are on light duty.
Two are African American & one is white & she was told that if she can’t accommodate the
African American employees, she can’t accommodate the white employee. Cory said that it
was funny that after they spoke to Ruth, WFMO, General Counsel and Anne Banos showed up
at their campus to see what they do there. They came to speak to the supervisors only. The
decision was made that Cory would write a draft from her notes & then we could find someone
to help refine it. She feels that we will probably only have one shot at it, so they want it to be
written well. Chris is going to help review it. Lawrence said he would also review it. Cory is not
a Primate Center employee. Everyone agreed that this should be done.
X.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Bourgeois
Recording Secretary