Tulane University
Staff Advisory Council
Minutes of Thursday, April 10, 2008
ATTENDEES
ATTENDEES
DOWNTOWN CAMPUS
Glenda Folse
Tami Jenniskens
Roxanne Johnson
Paula Lucas
Linda Miller
Cindy Stewart
Shirley Tubre
Karen Hiller (proxy)
Merisa Pasternak (proxy)
Yesenia Vasquez (proxy)
OFFICERS
Cynthia Hayes, Chair
Susan Barrera ,Vice Chair
Rhonda Earles, Elections Coord.
Kathleen Brumfield, Record Sect.
Cheryl Sterling, Corresp. Sect
Jered Bocage, Parliamentarian
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
MEMBERS – AT – LARGE
Lisa Britton
Rob Platner
Verna Lee
Present
Present
Excused
INVITED GUESTS
Stefanie Allweiss
Present
PTOWN CAMPUS
Marty Brantley
Gwen Peacock Chavez
Liz Davey
Shirley Dymond
Miriam Espinosa
Paul Forbes
Lisa O’Dwyer
Judy Vitrano
Linda Wright
Argentina Acosta (proxy)
Jenny Daigle Benoit (proxy)
Aaron Martin (proxy)
Laurie Orgeron (proxy)
NORTHSHORE
Eileen deHaro
Mary Little
Robert Johnson (proxy)
Present
Excused
Excused
Present
Excused
Present
Excused
Excused
Absent
Present
Excused
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Excused
Absent
VISITORS
Present
Excused
Present
Present
Present
Excused
All Officers are serving the Staff Advisory Council term 2007 – 2008
Call to Order: Cynthia Hayes, SAC Chair, called the April 10, 2008 meeting of the Staff Advisory
Council to order at 3:30 p.m. The meeting was held at the The Lavin-Bernick Center for University
Life, Race Conference Room.
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I.
Review and Approval of the Minutes: Cynthia Hayes, SAC Chair, called for a motion to
approve the March13, 2008 minutes. The minutes were approved.
II.
Report of the Chair
 Cynthia stated that it had been a busy month.
1. New SAC Web-site - Cynthia thanked Aaron Martin and Linda Wright for their help
with launching the new web-site. It has not been completed yet; however, there is a lot of
new and good information. She would like our feedback as to what should be added or
edited, etc.
2. Staff Recognition Event – Cynthia thanked Lisa Britton for all her hard work on the
event. She did a lot of preparation, etc.
3. Constitution Committee – Cynthia thanked Jered Bocage and the Constitution
Committee for all their hard work on revising the constitution.
III. Guest Speaker – Felicia R. Brown, Program Manager, Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public
Education Initiatives
Ms. Brown joined the “Cowen Institute” in November, 2007. The Institution began in March
2007. It has organized itself in four general areas all in support of public education and its
transformation. The four areas are: 1) Clearinghouse Function – trying to identify and match
resources located in New Orleans and outside the city to support public education. 2) Research
Function – Identifying, developing, and sharing best practices and research on what makes
public schools and school systems successful. The State of Public Education in New Orleans
report will become an annual report. What the report does is basically chronicle what has
happened in the past year as it pertains to public schools. Later in the fall Michael SchwamBaird will be doing some data collection around LEAP and academic achievement, so there will
be another reporting of that as well. The State of Public Education does not contain a lot of
specific information as it relates to student achievement. They will also be looking at some other
issues. 3) Public Policy Function – The Systems Director is scheduled to work on matters
relevant to facilities. There is a lot of deferred maintenance prior to the storm. However, the
storm exasperated the conditions of most of the facilities. Therefore, she is looking at whether or
not they should have a local and/or state authority to help, which may have other jurisdiction
have to help support facilities in any number of ways. President Cowen was designated to cochair a group of civic and business leaders in the city to look at school governance. “What will
the over-arching governing structure for public schools be?” 4) Programming – The work that
Felicia is primarily engaged in falls into two functions: a) they identify programs that will help
support school achievement and college readiness. They are looking at piloting a program used
in Texas at a high school on the west bank. They also looked at a Principal Development
Program which will work in conjunction with the Business School to provide professional
training. b) Engage in various constituencies at the University. They spend a lot of time looking
at the faculty and undergraduate work.
Sojourner Truth Academy (STA) is a new charter school that will be opening this fall. At
present, they are still trying to identify where the school will be located.
IV.
Human Resources Liaison: Stefanie Allweiss, Executive Director of Employee Relations
and Equity
 Recognition Event – Stefanie thanked all the SAC Members who attended and helped with
event. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of food and cake. They will look for ways to
improve the event.
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V.
Resiliency Sessions – They had the first meeting at the School of Medicine with a provider.
Kevin McCarthy who is a licensed psychologist and a vendor to both Cigna and United
Healthcare presented. It was a wonderful session. A number of administrators from the
School of Medicine attended. The purpose was to discuss what types of issues they are
seeing in their departments and what they can do. There were a number of brochures
available. They will ultimately be going to the School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine
and then the Department of Medicine because they are so big.
Progressive Performance Management Sessions – Stefanie has been designated to head this
initiative. There are a lot of new supervisors who have not worked in supervisory positions
previously who need some assistance and after reviewing the performance evaluations,
WFMO realized that there is a need to have a program to assist those new supervisors to
better utilize the tools available.
Staff Issues - She is working on the answers to questions she received at the last SAC
meeting.
Wellness Committee – They have not had a meeting. One is scheduled for next week.
Officer Reports
A. University Senate: The University Senate met on April 8, 2008. Report from meetings was
given by Rhonda Earles.
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New ASB and USG officers were introduced, and minutes from the last meeting were
approved.
President Cowen provided a copy of his presentation to the Board during the March ’08
meeting for inclusion with the meeting minutes. He excerpted the following from that
report:
▫ Undergraduate Admission: 34K applications were received for admission in Fall ’08,
which could result in enrollment of over 1400. The overwhelming majority of the
class came from the “early action” pool. There are 2K from the “regular action” pool
on the waitlist. There are 577 deposits, the largest number at this time of the process.
(The previous highest total was 503 for the class entering in ’05. That year’s yield
was 1,673.) The plan for 2008-08 is to examine merit aid and to raise the
qualifications for that aid.
In response to a question, President Cowen stated that applications from HispanicAmericans and Asian-Americans are up considerably. Applications from AfricanAmericans remain static, resulting in 300 to 400 admitted from this pool.
In response to another question, President Cowen remarked that the # of accepted transfer
students could be one method of limiting enrollment.
▫ Dean Searches: President Cowen reported that both dean searches (architecture and
liberal arts) have progressed nicely. He expects to announce one position this week
and the other within the month. (N.B. Carole Haber was named dean of liberal arts
on 4/8.)
▫ Fund Raising: A Board committee is developing a post-campaign strategy for fund
raising.
▫ Insurance cases: The university has settled another of its cases against an insurance
company—Lloyd’s. The case was for $67M; while he couldn’t relate the amount of
the settlement, President Cowen stated that it should be obvious on the fiscal year
statement.
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Faculty Handbook: In response to another question, President Cowen referred the
membership to the Board’s response that was distributed. The question, in general,
was “Does the Faculty Handbook have the status of a contract?” The Board referred
to the handbook in which it is stated that the document is a general guide to the
policies and operation of the university and that it was not created as a contract. If the
handbook were to be treated as a contract, it would be reviewed and likely
substantially rewritten to ensure appropriate judicial interpretation. In addition,
Louisiana law does not recognize such handbooks as contracts.
Committee Reports were distributed to the membership and will be included with the
minutes upon approval.
▫ Athletics – no questions asked
▫ Information Technology – The question of synchronizing passwords for the various
systems was asked. Since many of the systems are independent of one another,
syncing is not possible at this time. Other options are being investigated.
▫ Physical Facilities – Plans for redeveloping Fogelman, the Rosen site, and the Med
School site are ongoing.
▫ Equal Opportunity – no questions asked
▫ CEP – There was much discussion regarding the review of undergraduate courses
offered by schools without undergraduate degree programs. The committee
investigated the establishment of a fall break of two days in duration and proposed a
subsequent change to the academic calendar to accommodate such a break.
New Business
▫ The Senate endorsed the administration’s position of opposition to HR199 that will be
considered by the Louisiana legislature. If passed, this legislation would permit
individuals with carry permits to carry firearms on campuses.
The voting membership met in executive session to review matters brought forth by the
Committee on University Honors.
University Senate meetings may be found online at http://www.tulane.edu/~usenate/ once they
have been approved.
The SAC as a group decided to endorse Administration’s position of opposition to HR199. A
letter will be drafted by the Chair and forwarded to Jim Macklin.
B. Board of Administrators: No Meeting. A meeting is scheduled to be held in May.
VI.
University Senate Committee Reports:
1. Benefits – The Benefit Committee had a meeting this week. Anne Banos and her
representatives have been meeting very frequently with Kinloch. They are an outside
consulting firm for looking at this whole issue regarding the negotiations with various
providers. There was a healthcare summit in February. At that summit, UnitedHealthcare,
BlueCross/BlueShield, Coventry, and Humana were present. Aetna and Cigna were not able
to make it but Kinloch did meet with them subsequently. Once their proposals have been
analyzed by Kinloch, the results will be shared with both the Healthcare Oversight
Committee and Senate Benefits Committee. Meetings with the finalist will be in July. At
that time, it will probably be determined who will be the healthcare provider in 2009 and
open enrollment will begin in October. It is a very lengthy process.
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2. Budget Review – No meeting. The next meeting will be scheduled for either April or May
2008.
3. Information Technology – No Report.
4. Equal Opportunity – No Report.
5. Physical Facilities – No Report
6. Social Issues – Liz Davey was not able to attend the SAC Meeting today; however, Cynthia
Hayes drafted a letter to the Chair of the Social Issues committee addressing all concerns that
SAC discussed in the last meeting as it relates to the new Tobacco policy.
VII.
SAC Sub-Committees:
1. Election Committee: Rhonda Earles, Chair of the Election Committee reported. There is one
nomination for four of the five officer positions. No one was nominated or volunteered for
the Recording Secretary position. Kathleen with her current workload has decided that she
does not want to run for recording secretary a 2nd term.
2. Electronic Technology and Information: No Report.
3. Staff Appreciation: Report given by Lisa Britton, Chair of Staff Appreciation Committee.

The Ricky Graham presentation will be held on Monday, April 21, 2008. Dixon Hall
has been reserved from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. Doors will open at 11:30 am. The
performance will be for one hour from 12-1 pm. We will have some promotional
give aways and refreshments. Volunteers will be needed around 11:30 a.m.
4. Staff Issues: No Report; however she will call a meeting before the next meeting.
5. Constitution: Report given by Jered Bocage, Parliamentarian and Chair of Constitution
Committee. The committee went through all the amendments and suggestions that were
submitted. Since most of the members had left, it was decided that at the next meeting we
would spend more time reviewing and approving the changes to the Constitution.
VIII. Old Business: No
IX.
New Business: Dining Services at the Uptown Campus – Lisa O’Dwyer was contacted by the
District Marketing Manager of the Uptown Campus Dining Services Department. She would
like to organize a faculty and staff focus group to find out 1) why we do or don’t use the dining
options that we have and 2) what we like and dislike. Lisa was hoping to get some volunteers
of about 10 to 12 people. It will consist of one meeting.
Next Meeting: The next meeting will be held on May 8, 2008, Downtown Campus,
X.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:12 PM.
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Kathleen Brumfield
Recording Secretary
Approved ________on ____________, 2008
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