Tulane University
Staff Advisory Council
Minutes of Thursday, November 12, 2009
ATTENDEES
ATTENDEES
OFFICERS
UPTOWN CAMPUS
Susan Barrera, Chair
Gwen Chavez, Vice Chair
Rob Platner, Election Coordinator
Lisa Britton, Recording Secretary,
Present
Present
Present
Present
Kathy Bourgeois
Linda Cantero
Erin Coffey
Liz Davey
Present
Absent
Present
Present
Proxy
Present
Shirley Dymond
Miriam Espinosa
Mike Griffith
Michael Harrison
Cynthia Hayes,Immediate Past Chair
Romella Hodges
Alysia Loshbaugh
Present
Present
Present
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Suzanne Lossi
Aaron Martin
Lisa O’Dwyer
Laurie Orgeron
Kimberly Vega
Judy Vitrano
Emily Capdeville (proxy)
Jeannine Coxen (proxy)
Simon Dorfman (proxy)
Jeanny Keck (proxy)
Present
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Absent
Absent
Absent
Present
Member at Large
Cheryl Sterling,Corresp. Secretary
Jered Bocage, Parliamentarian
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Tanya Ambrose
Ron Cail
Linzi Conners
Cheryl Dempsey
Tami Jenniskens
Paula Lucas
Merisa Pasternak
Patsy Stewart
Shirley Tubre
Present
Absent
Present*
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Present
Excused
NORTHSHORE
Scott Goings
Corrie West
Robert Johnson (proxy)
Present
Present
Absent
INVITED GUESTS AND VISITORS
Scott Cowen, President
Travis Tague, WFMO
Catherine Chan, WFMO
Deborah Love, Institutional Equity
Wendy King (proxy for C. Sterling)
* Via teleconference
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2009 – 2010
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
TU Staff Advisory Council Meeting
November 12, 2009
Page 2
Call to Order: Susan Barrera, SAC Chair, called the November 12, 2009 meeting of the Staff
Advisory Council to order at 3:30 p.m. The meeting was held at the Lavin-Bernick Center, the
Rechler Room on the uptown campus.
I.
Review and Approval of the Minutes
Chair Barrera called for a motion to approve the October 12, 2009 minutes and the minutes
were approved.
II. Guest Speaker, Scott Cowen
Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University offered to give us some highlights of Tulane’s
major goals and then would like to have a question and answer session. Six major highlighted
areas:
1. Academic planning
 Continue to implement all aspects of renewal plan dealing with undergraduate
education.
 Doctoral education – rebuilding programs and approved three French, Linguistic and
Ageing.
 School of Medicine – all relates to the hospital (Charity Hospital) and where our students
will be trained. We need to make the right decision so that we get things right for the
medical school.
2. Leadership People and Organization
 To date, unsuccessful in finding a dean for the law school.
 Some reorganization of administration -- Yvette Jones, Institutional Advancement will be
Exec VP. We want to mount a $1 Billion campaign and have committed to hiring 70 staff
members over the next three years to build up this infrastructure. Anne Banos – VP for
Administrative Services taking on some of Yvette Jones and Tony Lorino’s
responsibilities and also Student Affairs. Tony Lorino – do some streamlining in his
organization, searching for new VP for Physical Facilities and Services. Six areas will
report to this person who can free up responsibilities so Tony can focus on issues
dealing with the School of Medicine and collegiate athletics.
 Continue to pursue climate control and beautification. Even with downturn, we have not
given up on doing this. Under leadership of Liz Davies we have done a lot of climate
control. Beautification projects, landscaping and the renovation of Dinwiddie Hall as a
lead certified building. Liz is working with people to get our carpet neutral and we are
getting a lot of recognition and proud of what Liz and her colleagues are doing.
Committed to doing a green campus and proud of what Liz Davies and her colleagues
are doing for our university.
 Committed to enhancing campus safety and protecting our people, we are adding more
lighting and cameras around campus, hiring more police to patrol after hours, adding a
police sub-station on Broadway.
 Salary enhancements – in 2008 a study was done to review faculty and staff salaries.
As we moved forward in implementing the recommendations of the study, approximately
half of those marked for raises, did receive their raises. However, with the economic
downturn, program had to be shelved. Cowen has not given up to bringing the some
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November 12, 2009
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staff and faculty salary enhancement program back but needs to see the 2nd Quarter
financials.
Two things done to show appreciation to the staff – Tulane is absorbing all of the
insurance increase next year, and also extended the winter break by an additional day.
3. University Development
 Despite economic downturn, we are going to continue to raise money.
 Capital Investments and Improvements – McAlister is going to turn into a plaza. All
money for that project was raised by donors, not university money. Will add greening
and beautification to the middle of the campus.
 Dinwiddie Hall is being renovated, break ground on a new residential college in the
spring.
 Alumni House being worked on.
 Large infrastructure project ($30M) for the downtown campus. Must be done prior to
expanding the downtown campus.
4. Master plan
 Move administration presently in the medical school building (1430 Tulane Avenue) to
the Murphy Building. Then upgrade and convert the medical school to be a research
facility. Waiting to see what money we will receive under stimulus package and
construction grants.
 Infrastructure is the first step and has to take place before we can go forward with the
upgrading.
5
Financial area – Tulane has weathered the economic downturn better than most
universities. Beating all projections from Katrina and the economic downturn. Cowen is
comfortable where we are now.
6
Civic – we are very involved with our community. The city of New Orleans has a new
appreciation for Tulane. Also everyone around the country is seeing what we at Tulane
are doing for our city.
Questions from the floor:
What is going on with the corner lot on Liberty and Canal? We do not own that lot and if the
price were right we would probably want to own it but the price isn’t right.
What is going on with the renovation of the basketball arena? We decided not to renovate the
Fogelman Arena. We didn’t think it was worth the money so instead we are going to build a
practice facility for basketball and should be approximately $12M project. Only will do if all
funding is raised for it, and we have about half now.
Off of McAlister there are some remnants of air conditioning systems that is sitting and rotting.
Do we really want campus visitors seeing this eyesore? Cowen is aware of it and will check on
this but all relates to FEMA litigation. Problem is our hands are tied on what we can do. All
relates to final settlement issues.
Is the McAlister project expected to be completed on time? Yes is it on target to be completed
in January 2010.
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November 12, 2009
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Heard that Cowen was in the Time magazine, is that true? Yes is it true. Time magazine will be
out tomorrow with the “Top 10 University President’s in America”. Cowen met them and
expressed that he doubts that he personally deserves the accolades but believes the people
that work for him deserves the award. Everything we do is truly a team effort. His pleasure is
seeing that it gives tremendous visibility to the university and the city.
Cowen asked what some of our concerns are:
Parking – not enough parking available, too expensive. This is for both uptown and downtown
issue.
Salaries and pay raises – Cowen said this is an important issue for him. A study was done back
in 2008 looking at staff and those employees below the salary range. Plan was to bring
everyone up to the range where they should be. Some salaries were brought up and then the
economic downturn, so we had to put this plan on hold. The first priority to finish bringing
everyone up to the salary range and then they will plan to offer annual raises.
Hiring freeze – is there any end in sight? Cowen thinks yes. His concern is when money is
available he wants to reward those workers that deserve to have raises. So even though we
are in a hiring freeze we have had exceptions and we still hired 300 people. We are not that far
off on the number of staff now compared to where we were pre-Katrina.
What is the status of FEMA settlements? We recovered approx $78M from FEMA and
approximately another $30-$40M in reimbursements. Other mitigation projects like HowardTilton Library, McAlister and that could be another $30-$50M. We have made a lot of progress
with this new Presidential administration.
Is there any plan to change our athletic level? We have to be patient. Bob Toledo is trying to
build a team it takes time. We are capable of winning every game for the remainder of the
season. In football, Cowen thinks we are going to get better. If we look at private, highly
selective universities, other than USC, none has had consistently winning seasons. For
example, Notre Dame win/loss record is almost the same as ours. Rice so far hasn’t won any
games this year and they had a couple of good years. Cowen is very proud of our student
athletes.
Chair Barrera invited Cowen to our Fun Walk for Staff in February. Cowen said it is on his
calendar. He offered to help and thinks a terrific thing we are doing and he offered his help in
way he can.
Susan congratulated on the recent Carnegie award and presented him with our “Star President
Award” and thanked him for everything he does for us at Tulane. He appreciated the award and
thanked us for making Tulane a great university.
III. Report of the Chair, Susan Barrera
Chair Barrera wanted to pass along a couple of issues:
A staff member emailed Susan to explain she and her domestic partner are registered with
Tulane as domestic partners. Her partner recently had a baby and the staff member wanted to
put the child under her medical insurance. She was originally told the only way she could do
that is to adopt the baby but in the state of Louisiana, she is not allowed to do that. Susan
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November 12, 2009
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forwarded the email to WFMO. Kelly Furlong, the new Director of Benefits reviewed the issue
and found out Tulane could cover the partner and the child. WFMO was notifying the staff
member that her partner and child would be eligible for medical coverage.
We received a request asking if there is a website we can post when a family member dies?
The reason for this request is that the Tulane community is so large it is hard to know when
some passes away. This was discussed at our meeting and was agreed that most people
would not want this posted or announced. While everyone understood the request, most felt it
would be better not announcing difficult news on a website to everyone.
Two downtown representatives resigned Linda Miller and Glenda Folse. Two downtown proxies
- Ron Cail and Tonya Ambrose have agreed to be downtown reps.
IV. WFMO Liaison
Catherine Chan, Director, HRIS and Payroll and Travis Tague, Director of Customer Relations.
Catherine wanted to address a question submitted to WFMO regarding the vacation pool. The
vacation pool was originally established to be for emergency purposes to help any employee
who does not have any paid time to use. The policy does not allow you to donate to a specific
individual. However, if the person has applied for and received FMLA, they need to request
time from the pool. Usually they will be given the time as long as there are hours in the pool.
There is no dollar value that goes into the pool it is an hour value, strictly time.
Also, when an employee has reached the limit of accrued vacation hours, the hours over the
limit are lost unless they designate the hours to the vacation pool. Suggested we get the
information out for staff to donate those excess hours to the vacation pool.
V.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate
No report, meeting was cancelled.
B. Board of Administrators
No report.
VI. University Senate Committee Reports
1. Benefits
No report.
2. Budget Review
No report, next meeting is scheduled for December 2nd.
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November 12, 2009
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3. Information Technology
No Report.
4. Equal Opportunity
Lisa Britton reported this committee had their first meeting for this Fiscal Year. The goals for
this committee are to examine policies and procedures relevant to staff and faculty family
leaves. Of particular interests are:
 Automatically stopping tenure clock for birth/adoption of a child
 Resources (or lack thereof) for departments to cover the responsibilities of staff or
faculty member that is on the standard 6-week family leave.
 Training and education surrounding pregnancy stigma (or child-bearing potential),
particularly during the hiring process.
The committee will meet again in December to review the practices/policies of our peer
institutions relating to the above goals.
5. Physical Facilities
Gwen Chavez reported at the meeting was to review the uptown campus projects:
Completed projects:
 Howard Tilton Library
 Technology Center with collaborative spaces and interactive resources and a PJ’s
Coffee
 Campus lighting – to enhance the safe and beauty. Emergency lighting and regular
lights are around the campus.
 Claiborne sub-station (across from Rosen Lot) – provides security on the edge of
campus and really for use of TEMS.
In progress.
 Dinwiddie Hall renovation – will house anthropology department (now spread out in
seven different locations), the Middle American Research Institute and classrooms.
It is estimated to be completed in July 2010. Done simultaneously with the
submerged road project on St. Charles be done by the city.
 McAlister project has been in the works Phase I and is fully funded (closing McAlister
and work on the LBC quad). Create a safe and pedestrian campus, estimated
completion January 2010.
 Newcomb Pottery Garden was dedicated in May 2009 and has been completed.
Plants depicted on Newcomb pottery and the water garden was completed at the
time of our meeting and the plants were being put in.
 Glazer Garden and Bocce Court will be next to Wall on Willow Street. Conversion of
the undeveloped space. We were named “the tree campus”, 50 trees were donated
to Tulane.
 Renovation of the former Pi Kappa Alpha house will be a Tulane police substation.
 Newcomb Place drainage – to start while on winter recess break. Plan is to close
part of Newcomb (by the dorm) and is expected to be completed when we return
from winter recess in January.
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Residence Hall construction will start in February after drainage and pile driving is
complete. Expected to be complete in August 2011
Drainage Phase II starting June 2010 and completed July 2010. Will need to open
up Freret Street by the Howard Tilton Library. Need to open this street to Freret
because part of Newcomb will be closed to work on the drainage. Will close one
side of Newcomb starting from the middle of LBC quad to Willow Street. This is
going to take place during the summer when there isn’t too much traffic.
Confirmed projects:
 Alumni House -- Elevation is completed and waiting on approval on FEMA to phase
out the work. Estimated start date was to be October 2009, waiting on permit.
 Designated smoking areas, no covered areas but putting out receptacles.
Upcoming constructions sites:
 Cut curb at Freret in May to August 2010, must be completed before Phase II.
 Want to put up a flood wall around the uptown power plant. Details not complete yet
but intend to start summer 2010.
 Howard Tilton two floors to start September 2010 to September 2012
 Drainage Phase III to begin July 2012-September 2012 Freret to middle of LBC
quad.
6. Social Issues
No Report.
VII. SAC Sub-Committees
1. Election Committee
Rob Platner has no report. He did want to remind everyone elections are in April and invites
everyone to start thinking about running for an office or nominating someone for an officer’s
position.
2. Electronic Technology and Information
No report.
3. Staff Appreciation
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Feb 27, 2010 plan to start registration at 10:00 with the walk beginning at 11:00 am.
Met with Anne Banos, and also Justin Newell and Jason Potuto with Athletics. All
willing to help and have some contacts.
Athletics offered us free tickets for each staff member and their family participating in
our event to attend the baseball game free.
Scoreboard will show some SAC highlights.
Planning to have a completion between departments to try and get a large turnout to
attend the game.
Another meeting with Anne Banos to present a written budget to see what we can
get financial help and/or get donated.
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Plan to have an online pre-registration to help us get some idea of the number of
people to attend.
4. Staff Issues
No report.
5. Health and Wellness
Judy Vitrano reported:
 Kicked off the Walk Well program this week.
 Upcoming seminars – LBC, Primate Center and downtown campus.
cessation, holiday eating. Emails sent out prior to the seminars
 American Heart Association, hart walk is Saturday November 21st.
Smoking
6. Community Service
Gwen Chavez reported the CASA Holiday drive email went out and will be sent out again
before the Thanksgiving break. Due date for contributions is Friday December 4, 2009.
Collection sites have been set up at each of the campuses.
VIII.
Old Business
None.
IX.
New Business
Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 3:30 pm in
the School of Public Health Dean’s Conference Room in the Tidewater Building downtown.
X.
Adjournment
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Lisa M. Britton
Recording Secretary