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
Present
Present
Excused
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
Present
Present
Graham, Tiffany (proxy)
Hyde-Augillard, Sharon (proxy)
NORTHSHORE
Guichard, Kenny
Waguespack, Desiree
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
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
President Scott Cowen
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2011 – 2012
Present
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
Page 2
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 3:30 pm in room 201 of the Lavin Bernick
Center by Chris Lane.
I.
Review and Approval of the Minutes
The February minutes have not been approved yet. The March 2012 minutes were approved,
but a note was made that Jeanny Keck’s first name was misspelled within the body of the March
2012 minutes.
II.
Guest Speakers
President Cowen and Anne Banos joined us to give us an update on the University.
We received over 30,000 applications for 1,500 spots at the undergraduate level for fall 2012,
and we are doing well at medical school. We expect to have another banner year. All of the
graduate and professional schools should also do well. We are hoping for an incoming class of
1,550. The last few years we were oversubscribed. We hoped for 1,500 or 1,550 students, but
ended up with over 1,600 students. Hopefully that doesn’t happen this year. The deposits are
running way ahead of where we were last year at this time. The quality of the students that are
interested in Tulane is extraordinary, and they are pleased with everything they are seeing.
This also holds true with the medical school and he doesn’t see why it won’t be the same for all
of the other schools. Financially, the University is tracking just as they had anticipated. We had
a couple of dicey years after Katrina to work our way out of the damage. Things were better
about three years ago, but then the recession happened. It has been a difficult three or four
years for all colleges and universities around the country. We should all be glad (as Scott is)
that we are not a public institution, because most of them haven’t had a raise in four years and
had significant layoffs and furloughs. Fortunately, we haven’t had either of those here and
continue to give raises and enhance benefits when possible. He sees us continuing to be able
to do that. The environment for higher education is a tough environment. He hasn’t seen it as
difficult as it has been the last three or four years than all of his life in the academy. All of our
revenue sources, with the exception of tuition, are stable or going down and the costs are going
up. We continue to hire and give raises, which makes up about 75% of our costs. The other
25% is made up of non-salary expenses, and even those costs such as insurance, utilities are
all continuing to go up. That is also true for other colleges and universities. Given the fact that
the enrollment is strong, overall we are doing alright, and he feels pretty good about the
University when it comes to our financial position and our condition as an institution.
We are going through a significant time of capital improvements. We have invested about five
hundred million dollars in the last six years into new buildings and renovations to existing
buildings. We will invest about another two hundred fifty million over the next three years. The
money comes from a combination of sources. In some cases we go out and issue debt. When
we built Weatherhead Hall, we had a bond issued to build it. It is self financing, because the
revenue from the residents pays for the bond issue. In some cases, we build facilities with
private philanthropy. The new football stadium will be built with donations from our friends
around the country. We are also building some buildings with some FEMA money. The
expansion of Howard Tilton Memorial Library will begin in a few months. It will be about a
twenty million dollar project. Most of it will be funded by FEMA. Occasionally, we take money
from operations as we did for Dinwiddie’s renovation. The Uptown campus is in pretty good
shape. There are still some buildings that need work such as Stern and the Social Work
Building. This is also true of the downtown campus and the Primate Center.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
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We are in the midst of a very extensive and comprehensive strategic planning process. The last
time we developed a plan was right after Katrina, which was the renewal plan. We have
implemented all parts of the plan, and they have worked pretty well for us. Now it is time to
think about the next ten years. They have been looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the
University, where the higher education is going in the future and some of our opportunities.
That work will be finished in about the next three months. Next year they will work with the
individual schools and administrative units to develop their plans. That will all lead to another
capital campaign for the University. We successfully completed a seven hundred million dollar
campaign in June 2008. We actually raised about seven hundred and thirty million dollars. The
new campaign will start in a couple of years and will be in excess of a billion dollars for
endowment, operations and more buildings. We are already in the private phase of that. You
really can’t do the campaign until you have a solid strategic plan for the future and know what
you are raising money for.
Scott spends a lot of time on the Medical School. We have some significant challenges with the
Medical School in particular with the clinical platform. We have a joint venture with HCA since
the mid 1990’s. For the most part it has been successful, but we wonder if it can continue to be
successful in the future, especially since they will be building a new VA hospital that will open in
2015 and a new medical center downtown that will replace Charity that will open in 2016. We
will have over two billion dollars worth of hospitals being built within one half mile of our hospital
in the next three or four years, which will offer some interesting competition for us. The question
is whether we will be able to weather that competition. The clinical part of the School of
Medicine continues to be something that he focuses a lot of time and energy on.
The issue of affordability and accessibility is another thing that they are looking at. We increase
tuition every year by about 4%. They don’t think that is sustainable in the long run. If it is not
sustainable, we have to figure out how we are going to finance ourselves. We are at capacity,
so we can’t take any more students. The only way we can increase revenue is to increase
tuition, because all of our other revenue sources are pretty flat. They will spend a lot of time at
the June board meeting talking about that. About 52% of our undergraduates come from
households with a net income greater than two hundred fifty thousand dollars. It is a very
wealthy group, but we are pushing out the middle class and the lower socio economic class.
They can’t afford the tuition. Even though we are increasing aid all the time, we can’t keep up
with the amount that tuition is increasing. President Cowen could not be more proud of the
faculty and staff at the University, and has been since he came here fourteen years ago. He is
very optimistic about the future. He would like to believe that most of the people of New
Orleans feel good about Tulane, but there are some exceptions to that. For the most part,
people appreciate what the University has done for the city. We are probably doing more for
our city than most universities are doing for their cities around the country. We are proud of
that, and we will continue to help the city.
Scott asked for questions. Jeanny Keck said that she would like to see the Liberal Arts
Department – specifically the French Department - get a little more money, because they can’t
afford supplies and the restrooms are in need of an update. Scott jokingly promised to send her
some pens. Scott said that it this generally true around campus. She mentioned that some
people are doing two jobs, but not being compensated for their work. She complimented the
students at Tulane for being great ambassadors for the University. Resources have always
been scarce. Part of the reason is that we don’t have an endowment the size of other
Universities. Also, we live in a part of the country where there is not a lot of wealth. One of the
great things is that we learn to do more with less, and it doesn’t seem to be changing.
Newcomb Hall has had some improvements, and it is on their list to do more.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
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Desiree told him about our CASA Christmas toy drive each year and asked him if he could
possibly help us get the word out this year. We have about four thousand full time and three
thousand part-time employees. He asked her to write Anne Banos in advance to remind her
about our toy drive, and he will find a way to put it in his Tulane Talk, which is much more
effective. It is normally prepared the day before it goes out.
Jeanny asked if we will get the Computer Science major back. The School of Science and
Engineering is putting a plan together to put a new program in place. They put a study group
together and they are looking at their report. There is clearly a plan to add both an
undergraduate major and master’s program in Computer Science. It is up to them and the
Provost.
Meredith from the Financial Aid office asked if there is a plan to have student services housed
closer together as other Universities and colleges do. This has been in the plan for several
years. They are looking at using the School of Social Work building for this purpose for a one
stop shop. We would have to figure out where to move the Social Work department and then
expand and renovate the Social Work building. It is part of the ten year strategic plan.
Laurie talked to Scott about the poor shape of McAlister Auditorium. They installed new seats
on the side balconies of the auditorium, but the ceiling is falling, the walls are crumbling and the
floor was not repaired before they put those seats in. She felt that they should have painted,
and repaired the walls and floors before putting new seats in. Tony Lorino has an ongoing list of
capital improvements and deferred maintenance issues, and McAlister is on that list. This is a
five to ten million dollar repair. The roof is causing the problem. Tony and Scott just talked
about this recently, and they are looking into doing at least some part of the repairs.
We talked about the neighbors on Audubon Boulevard that are not happy about the stadium.
Yvette and members of the senior staff have been meeting with the neighbors regularly. There
will always be opposition, no matter what we do. He thinks the project will happen, but they are
going to look at their concerns to see if there is something we could do to make them happy.
She asked if they could do something to stop the project. Of course they could file a lawsuit or
other things to slow the project down. Every project that we have ever been involved with has
happened, and there have always been neighborhood issues. The group against the stadium is
not very large. This is not a surprise to the University. The capacity of the new stadium is only
about thirty thousand people where the old stadium held about eighty three thousand people.
These residents knew they were buying a home next to a university. They benefit by having
TUPD patrolling their streets, TEMS is available to them at all times and their property values
have increased. It is a good deal living next to a University. The stadium will not be used every
day. Tulane will be sensitive to parking and traffic during a game and have worked out the
traffic flow. They believe every game will be sold out. Lisa asked why we think it will sell out
based on their record. We average about nineteen thousand to twenty three thousand fans at
the dome, so if the games are in the neighborhood on campus, they should sell out. He was
also asked about operations after the stadium is built. There is a certain amount of money in
the project for operations, but who will take care of it is still open.
Chris Lane mentioned that it is getting increasingly difficult to schedule classes on the uptown
campus. Most of the faculty uses technology, so he hopes that there is a plan to upgrade the
classrooms. Chris also mentioned this to Dr. Bernstein. Charlie McMahon was asked for a list
of all of the rooms that need technology or an upgrade. It will cost about one million dollars.
Some of the rooms will be upgraded this summer and the rest should be done next summer.
There are about thirty five rooms to be done.
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
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Chris told him about staff appreciation day. He explained that we are not able to do the same
type of event as in previous years on a weekend, but we want to have a get together on the
LBC quad on the Friday before Memorial Day. We are hoping that supervisors would let their
employees take off to attend. Any suggestions or guidance would be appreciated. President
Cowen said to think about that day since it is memorial weekend.
Someone asked if there are plans for graduate student housing, but it is not in the plan right
now. A new residence hall is set to be built on the Zimple quad for undergraduate housing next
year. A large six hundred bed graduate student residence complex located where Rosen was
located is being considered. They haven’t been able to figure out how to do it financially,
because we would need parking and retail.
III.
Report of the Chair, Christopher
Lane
No Report
IV.
WFMO Liaison
Denise O’Connell came to the meeting in place of Christina Wallace. We had a hiring
proposal question from the previous meeting. We wanted to know when the verbal offer is
extended to an applicant. The hiring proposal has to be approved before a verbal offer is
extended. A member asked if we could get a breakdown of the whole hiring process. They
provided a laminated step by step card a couple of years ago. Alicia remembers that the card
said that you offer a verbal offer before the approval is received. Denise will check into that.
We had asked about a commuter incentive program to have a carpool zone and offer
carpool at a discounted parking rate. She said that TUPD would handle that and that we should
send them a proposal.
We also asked if a list of WFMO contacts for things such as tuition waivers, etc. could be put
on their website. It would be helpful to know who does what within WFMO.
We also want a list of constituents that each SAC member would report back to. If we get a
list of the departments on campus and their location, we can determine which SAC members
they should go to with questions. Chris doesn’t think that the idea was for WFMO to decide this,
Suzanne thought that we used to get a list from Payroll, which included the locations of each
employee. Once we know which departments are located near each other, we can group them
together to determine who would represent that group. We mainly need the list of departments,
their locations and a contact person from each department. Louise said that the list that Denise
is talking about is the list of department heads similar to the list on the address stickers that we
get from Payroll. They also have a list of the contacts that initiate everything for the department.
Suzanne said that they used to try to get a SAC rep for each group of buildings so that each
area is represented. Chris said that may also require us to know how many people are in each
office. Laurie felt that it wouldn’t be necessary to know how many people are in a department
as long as we have one contact person for each department. We would then list all of our SAC
members on our website and list the departments/buildings that each member represents. If a
department had an issue, they would know which member to go to with that issue. Denise will
send that list to Chris.
V.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
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They attempted to have a short meeting, but a student from TEMS came in to give them a
presentation on what they do and how many calls and types of calls that they respond to. They
wanted to stress that they do provide a valuable service to people within a mile radius of the
University and that their volume has increased since Katrina, so they are requesting another
ambulance. Chris thought that this meeting was in March, but we didn’t get a report last month
on this matter.
B. Board of Administrators
President Cowen reported on most of what Laurie had. They introduced people; they went
over signature authority; passed resolutions and did an overview of commencement. Honorary
degree recipients are Ruby Bridges, Lisa Jackson, who is also the speaker and head of the EPA
and Peter Lax, a mathematician. The president’s Medal of Honor is going to Trombone Shorty.
Other topics that were discussed:
Student interest, quality and retention
Impact and reputation for engagement
We were given outstanding accolades for civic engagement.
Research funding is in a financially constrained environment.
Campus, physical plant expansions and improvements
Stability, commitment and performance of faculty and staff
Incoming medical school class is the best in history
Challenges are crime and safety.
John Barnwell, the new head of the police department, was introduced.
Health care landscape will have an impact on the School of Medicine as Scott mentioned
Largest disinvestment in public institutions ever – resulting in increased tuition
College affordability and access is going to be the topic of Tulane board in New York in June
Competing and aspiring to elevate Tulane’s quality and reputation with limited resources
In three or four years they expect stability to break even and they will possibly raise tuition
60% - 80% of students receive financial aid
The debt level of medical students continues to rise – it is about two hundred fifty thousand
dollars on average, but ours is higher than that
Issues with who will go into primary care, because salaries are so low
Students come from homes with two hundred fifty thousand dollars or greater salaries per
year
John Barnwell, new head of TUPD, spoke. They used to have eighteen now have twelve
officers. They patrol from Claiborne to St. Charles and Carrolton to Nashville
Foot and bike patrols continue to monitor or safety and they work with the second district
Rick Potts is the new chief uptown
Increased lighting and lighting repair is a commitment from mayor
Adding Broadway, Freret Street, Maple Street, Calhoun and Willow Street to the primary
corridor for police to patrol
Addition of half million dollars added to safety
John Barnwell will speak to us in May
President of Tulane Alumni Association gave the status of the association. We now have
seventy eight active Tulane clubs around the world. There was 97% giving for Tulane alumni
association board, but it is now 100%.
Jobs, networking and employment are the most import topics that the Alumni Association
will focus on.
VI. University Senate Committee Reports
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
Page 7
1. Benefits
No Report
2. Budget Review
No Report
3. Information Technology
No Report
4. Equal Opportunity
No Report
5. Physical Facilities
No Report
6. Social Issues
No Report
VII. SAC Sub-Committees
1. Election Committee
Elections will come up in the June meeting. If we have anyone that we want to nominate or
if anyone wants to be an officer, we should keep this in mind.
2. Electronic Technology and Information
No Report
3. Staff Appreciation
Lawrence Smith, Alysia Loshbaugh, Jeanny Keck, Kathy Bourgeois, Sheri Bouyelas, Laurie
Orgeron and Chris Lane have been working on the staff appreciation day. We found two bands
that will give us a good price. The idea is to have an afternoon event where staff can get
together for a couple of hours to relax. Students will be gone and things would be relatively
slow. We have a jazz trio from the Music Department and Cajun band. We have $3,000 left in
our budget. Another idea is to have a snowball stand with cups that would have a logo on them.
We are looking at getting donations of food from Mr. Mudbugs and campuses will donate items.
Facilities will donate chairs and tables, TUPD will donate three officers, Shuttles will donate a
shuttle and one to north shore if they are interested. It will be a non alcohol event. We want
the President’s Office to ask supervisors to let people attend. The President’s Council is
meeting on May 27th. Our last meeting before elections is the May 10th. If we change it much,
we have to have refined before President’s Council meeting. Chris asked if everyone likes this
idea. Lisa thinks it will be appreciated but feels that people will take the Friday before a holiday
off or will leave early. A suggestion was made to do it on Thursday from 3:00 – 5:00. Three
years ago they had Ricky Graham during lunch and only about one hundred twenty people
showed up. We hoped if the offices would let non essentials go, they would show up. Maybe
we could incorporate it into standard lunch hour so they wouldn’t have to have permission from
supervisors. Maybe we could have it from 11:00 – 2:00. North shore has a couple of events
and they let them know in advance to let staff go and they don’t have any problem with
supervisors letting them go. Law School deans usually let staff go around 3:00 if there is a
holiday weekend. Downtown employees probably won’t come uptown and go back to work.
They would rather come later and then leave from here. There is a half our trip each way to get
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
April 12, 2012
Page 8
from downtown to uptown and back. Graduation is the weekend before Memorial weekend.
Business School starts summer school on May 14th. Someone asked if our resources would roll
over to next year if they don’t get used. Chris believes that it does. Last year we had a good
turnout, but the year before we didn’t due to bad weather. We ran into a timing issue another
year, so they bought engraved key chains for everyone. That went over well.
There is a baseball game on the Sunday after graduation, so parking will be limited. We
discussed going back to having it on the weekend. We voted to move it to Thursday. We talked
about the time. Chris will check the availability of the LBC. Scott Mitchell will coordinate getting
prizes. Laurie said that snowballs are served in LBC hallway all the time, but Shirley said that
we couldn’t have them in the room that we reserved. Alicia told Hansen that if it rains, we would
set up in Pocket Park or something. Chris will talk to Shirley to see if the Kendal Cram is
available that Thursday. We voted to keep in afternoon from 2:00 – 5:00. Small departments
will have to rotate in order for everyone to attend. We need to check to see if the bands are
available on that day and time. Chris said that he got an offer from Gal Holiday. Lisa didn’t
think she would be good for our event. She plays rockabilly music. Chris will talk to Anne to
see if that day and time will be acceptable and get it to the President’s Council. Chris asked for
volunteers to do fundraising. People would get tickets at check in to win prizes. Lisa will take
care of registration. Others offered to help set up or anything that needs to be done.
Note: Anne sent Chris and email on April 27th, saying that they didn’t feel that the event could
go on this year since we recently had the faculty/staff service day, and they didn’t feel that we
had it developed well enough.
4. Staff Issues
No report
5. Health and Wellness
No report
6. Community Service
No report
VIII.
Old Business
No report
IX.
New Business
Jeanny Keck wants to talk to the president of the student body, but they weren’t able to make
the meeting. Jeanny is going to pursue it with or without Whitney. This falls under Student
Relations, which is not on our agenda. Chris took it off, because they never met. We will
discuss it at the next meeting.
X.
Adjournment
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
The meeting was adjourned at 4:50 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Kathy Bourgeois
Recording Secretary
April 12, 2012
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