ATTENDEES ATTENDEES
OFFICERS UPTOWN CAMPUS
Susan Barrera, Chair
Gwen Chavez, Vice Chair
Present
Kathy Bourgeois
Linda Cantero Present
Rob Platner,
Election Coordinator
Lisa Britton,
Recording Secretary,
Member at Large
Present Liz Davey
Cheryl Sterling,
Corresp. Secretary
Present Shirley Dymond
Jered Bocage, Parliamentarian
Excused
Excused
Erin Coffey
Miriam Espinosa
Mike Griffith
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Linzi Conners
Cheryl Dempsey
Present
Excused
Present
Excused
Present
Michael Harrison Present
Cynthia Hayes
, Immediate Past Chair
Excused
Present Romella Hodges Present
Present Alysia Loshbaugh Present Glenda Folse
Tami Jenniskens
Paula Lucas
Present Present
Excused
Present
Linda Miller
Merisa Pasternak
Patsy Stewart
Shirley Tubre
Tanya Ambrose (proxy)
Ron Cail (proxy)
NORTHSHORE
Scott Goings
Corrie West
Robert Johnson (proxy)
Present
Present
Present
Suzanne Lossi
Aaron Martin
Lisa O’Dwyer
Present
Present
Absent
Excused
Laurie Orgeron
Kimberly Vega
Judy Vitrano
Emily Capdeville (proxy)
Absent
Present
Excused
Jeannine Coxen (proxy)
Simon Dorfman (proxy)
Jeanny Keck (proxy)
Present INVITED GUESTS AND VISITORS
Travis Tague, WFMO
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2009 – 2010
McAllister’s catered lunch prior to the start of the meeting.
Call to Order: Susan Barrera, SAC Chair, called the July 10, 2009 meeting of the Staff
Advisory Council to order at 12:25 p.m. The meeting was held at the Tulane National
Primate Research Center in Covington, Louisiana .

TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting July 9, 2009 Page 2
I. Review and Approval of the Minutes
Some revisions need to be made to the June 11, 2009 minutes. Revised minutes will be sent out to everyone for review prior to our next SAC meeting in September.
II. Report of the Chair, Susan Barrera
Chair Barrera gave the following brief report:

Election of the new officers was in June
– Chair, Susan Barrera; Vice-Chair, Gwen
Chavez; Election coordinator, Rob Platner; Recording Secretary, Lisa Britton; and
Corresponding Secretary, Cheryl Sterling.

The August 20 th meeting is going to be an orientation for the new representatives.
Also as new representatives, everyone is required to participate on a committee.
The various committees will be explained at the orientation meeting in August and you can sign up at the September meeting.

Will be looking to add three Members-At-Large to SAC.

Thanks for Cynthia Hayes for updating our SAC-ListServe, so you will start receiving
SAC emails. We also have SAC-TALK, way we can discuss issues without have a meeting.

President Cowen will be our guest speaker for our November 12 th and we can now try to line up Tony Lorino. If you have any suggestions for a guest speaker, just let
Susan know.
Goals for new year:
 In the spring “Family Fun Day” – planning a walk/run for staff and their families and will tie into the Tulane baseball game. We will be having a meeting to discuss and plan as soon as we have a final date. We are waiting for the baseball schedule to come out and as soon as we have a date will let everyone know so we can start planning this event.

Staff Scholarship Program
– this will be a financial “gift” for staff members taking college courses and we want to get this plan rolling. We need to work on getting donations to get this started.

Heart Walk – in November, Dr. Ben Sachs (Dean of Medicine) is co-chairing and we would like to have as many participants.

KABOOM playground project
– Susan will be meeting with the KABOOM contact to see what we need to get this project going.

Holiday project – we collected money for CASA and we want to continue doing this. We may also try to do this during the year. Would like to have a CASA representative as a guest speaker to give us some insight into what they do and how we can help.
Thanked Robert Johnson for the Primate Center gift bags for everyone here. Mr.
Johnson (Manager, TNPRC Communications) gave a presentation on the Tulane

TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting July 9, 2009 Page 3
National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) and after the meeting he will take anyone interested on a driving tour of the center.

The Primate Center is funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and has been in existence since 1964.

TNPRC is one of eight primate centers located around the country. We are the only primate center to be awarded a multimillion dollar grant to build a Regional
Biosafety Laboratory.

Seven divisions of medicine: Bacteriology/Parasitology, Collaborative Research,
Comparative Pathology, Gene Therapy, Immunology, Microbiology, and
Veterinary Medicine. The Primate Center was awarded a grant to build a
Regional Bio-safety Laboratory and the construction is underway.

Diseases being researched: AIDs and HIV infection, Human T Cell Leukemia,
Krabbe’s Disease, Lyme Disease, Malaria, West Nile Virus, in addition to other viruses.

The TNPRC animal resources program supports nonhuman primates assigned to both research programs and to breeding colonies. The research colony is composed of animals assigned to active research studies and are housed indoors in secure access controlled animal housing facilities. The breeding colonies are housed in outdoor field cages and are not experimentally exposed to infectious agents.

Tulane Regional Biosafety Laboratory being built at the Primate Center is a biosafety level three (BSL-3) facility. Biosafety lab is a place for scientists to safely and effectively study infectious and toxic materials. Research conducted in the facility will focus on the development of treatments, vaccines and diagnostics for emerging infectious diseases that occur naturally such as Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and against biological agents that have the potential for misuse for terrorism. Overall goal of research is to protect the health and safety of our community and nation.
III. WFMO Liaison
Travis Tague, Director Customer Relations for Work Force Management. Communicate directly with the customer which is all of the staff at Tulane. In process of developing programs for teaching and training initiatives for the workforce at Tulane, also coordinating the communication process to make sure all info gets out to everyone, for example the health care enrollment. We at WFMO want to work with SAC so that we can better communicate with everyone.
Question from last meeting: Do we have a grievance process or committee?
The grievance procedure is listed in the Tulane Handbook. If an employee has an issue that is not settled, the employee has 10 days to submit in writing their concern to the department head, who then has 3 days to respond in writing. If cannot agree, then grievance given to WFMO. If the grievance is still not resolved, will then be turned over to a grievance review panel. There has not been a need in over the past six years to engage the review panel. Believes it is due to proactive nature of working with WFMO

TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting July 9, 2009 Page 4 or the process of mutually agreeing to a decision has been amicable in settling the disputes without going into any panel situation. This is in the handbook as the guidelines.
Discussion from the floor:

In-house training for tools needed for your job, specifically the new Microsoft programs.

Commuter flexible savings account.

Since we are trying to go green at the university, is there any discussion about having showers or some type of facility in the different buildings for those that ride their bikes, or walk.

Shuttle service around the campus and the difficult parking situation.
Agreed SAC will submit in writing proposal to WFMO as a way for WFMO to address our question(s). Also noted SAC has a Staff Issues Committee that handles any concerns from the staff, the concern is discussed and can be forwarded to WFMO or the department head.
IV. Officer Reports
A. University Senate
No meeting until the fall.
B. Board of Administrators
No meeting until the fall.
V. University Senate Committee Reports
1. Benefits
No meeting.
2. Budget Review
No meeting.
3. Information Technology
No Report.
4. Equal Opportunity
No Report.

TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting July 9, 2009 Page 5
5. Physical Facilities
Gwen Chavez is on this committee and a meeting is to be scheduled soon. Wanted to make everyone aware new polices on appeals are being established and will be listed on website. The plan is to take a picture of your parking violation and reason for you receiving a ticket. With this combined information, all future tickets will be complete thereby leaving no reason for an appeal to be submitted.
Comment from the floor: a ticket was issued to someone who had a “handicapped” license plate, who parked in a designated “handicapped parking space”. He received a parking ticket. He was informed that all campus handicapped parking spaces must have a Tulane handicap parking pass. This seems to be a problem for anyone coming to visit the campus, how would a visitor know they need to get a special pass?
Answer: Any visitor coming to campus can park at a parking meter. Handicap spaces are only for Tulane handicap permits. You can go to the Parking
Department and purchase a handicap pass for $5.00 or park in a metered parking space.
6. Social Issues
No Report.
VI. SAC Sub-Committees
1. Election Committee
No report.
2. Electronic Technology and Information
No report.
3. Staff Appreciation
At our September meeting, will discuss the Family Fun Day. Email will come out once a date has been finalized.
4.
Staff Issues
No report.
5. Health and Wellness
Judy Vitrano reported:

TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting July 9, 2009 Page 6

Finishing up on the Online Heath Assessment — over 1,000 people completed the online assessment and received a $75.00 gift card incentive to participate.
127 people completed online health coaching and some registered for the telephone coaching with another $75.00 incentive. Encourage as many people as possible to participate, takes approximately 15 minutes.

Walking program still continuing, people (July 26 th ending date for drawing $100 gift card). Next program “Active for Life” – August 3 rd through October 11 th and you will get points for certain activities. Looking to recruit team captains and have teams. All in effort to get more people to be physically active.

Erica Taylor
(Tulane’s Wellness Program) is offering fitness classes such as yoga, and also upcoming seminars. Emails will be sent out to everyone notifying of topic, date and time for the seminars.
6. Community Service
No report.
VI. Old Business
None.
VIII. New Business
The August meeting is for the new representatives only.
The next regular SAC meeting will be held on Thursday, September 10, 2009 at the
Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life in the Rechler Conference Room at 3:30 pm.
IX. Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 2:05 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa M. Britton
Recording Secretary