Trustees Liaison/Staff Association/Communication & Enrollment Meeting
Minutes for 2/10/12
Dalton 2 10:25 – 11:30am
Attendees:
Board Reps: Margaret Morrow and Justine Jentes;
Staff Association Reps: Dolores Burdo, Lisa Camma, Diane Craw, Vicki Gerstenfeld,
Carrise Mangano, Bill McKenna, Ann Ogle, Lisa Shafer
Communication & Enrollment: Matt Gray, Maureen McGonigle
Administrative Support: Annmarie Hofmann, Lea Miller
Registrar’s Office: Kirsten O’Beirne
Student Financial Services: Ethel Desmarais
I.
College Handbook/Departmental Handbook Review
a. In October Staff Association initiated a comparison of the College and Departmental
Handbooks.
b. In November it was announced at the General Staff Meeting that this would be done.
c. As of January 27th – not all handbooks were submitted by departments
i. Two questions:
1. If the department handbook was currently addressing only procedural
issues as it should be, why is it taking so long to turn in?
2. How long will it take to make the appropriate updates and submit
them?
a. Margaret Morrow understood that the departments were asked
to have this completed by month-end.
II.
General Staff Association Meeting – held November 9, 2011
a. Ray Albert spoke on the Dispute Resolution Process and has been meeting with various
departments to re-educate staff on this issue.
b. Sally Heimann addressed the group about the Class Dismissed Project and invited
members of the Bryn Mawr community to share their healthcare experiences as it
related to class in interviews she would be sponsoring.
III.
Collaboration with Administration
a. In our last report to the Board, Staff Association stated that one of our goals was to
build a more collaborative relationship with college Administration. In a September 6,
2011 meeting with the President, we discussed having a Town Hall (State of the College)
meeting to be scheduled this spring semester. This meeting has a tentative date of
March 2nd and is awaiting confirmation from Administration. SA clarified that the Town
Hall meetings were not the Looking Forward Forums that were held in the fall around
campaign planning. The Town Hall meetings would be open to faculty and students as
well as staff. It was suggested that the Town Hall meetings take place at least once a
year; preferably once a semester, and that a good time for the fall meeting would be
soon after circulation of the President’s letter that outlines her agenda for the year.
i. Staff Association feels it’s important to have students, staff, and faculty feel
informed about the state of the College (financial, etc.).
ii. Updates/Renovations that have been made might help staff realize the
maintaining and upkeep that goes into such a fine facility.
iii. The reason for relocation of departments would be informative to all
employees.
iv. It would be helpful to the community to post an organizational chart with the
updated positioning of divisions, departments, and staff.
1. The Bryn Mawr Insider/Weekly is a good electronic source of
communication; however, not everyone has email or has the
opportunity to read the entire electronic post.
It was mentioned at Administrative Office Heads meeting that this was
an important issue.
v. The idea of following the model of the “Big Cheese” meetings might be good,
where questions are submitted anonymously prior to the meeting, then
addressed by administrators at the meeting, in addition to questions from the
floor.
Funeral Leave Policy: a request to have an addition of “one day for others” was
initiated in August and to be brought to the Benefits Committee. This has been
postponed until one of the winter or spring Benefits Committee meetings. Vanguard
discussion took precedence.
IV. Trustee Liaison/Staff Association/ISS Clarification Meeting - held 12/6/11
See “quoted” Minutes below:
“ December 6th Meeting with the Staff who met with the Trustee Liaisons in September
Minutes taken by Elliott Shore
Attendees:
Administrators: Jerry Berenson, Janet Scannell, Elliott Shore
Staff: Amy Rojek, Lillian Amadio, Dolores Burdo, Diane Craw, Carrise Mangano, Lisa Shafer
Telephones -- lack of operator and issues with the directory
1. No plans to reinstate operator position; however the voicemail system will be improved this
summer
a. Look into moving up the option to connect to the help desk
2. We will send out a communication about how to best use the current online directory
a. Ability to view and print out the departmental listing
b. Ability to keep a tab active for the directory
Communication about who does what -- in light of reorganization of various offices
1. Need to develop a clear communication to the staff of where everyone will be located in
January after all of the moves have been accomplished
2. Communication about basic responsibilities of the departments with contact information
(ask at Administrative Heads that every department does this -- have not done this in a
while
Data about people in PeopleSoft
1. There is incorrect data in the system due to a lack of consistency among the offices, lack of
consistency of data standards
2. The existing data standards committee needs to address this
3. The reorganization should help this problem since data entry has been centralized in
Student Services and in Resources/Alumnae
4. We might develop a listing of information for people in the system and have the appropriate
departments check for accuracy -- this is a big job that will take some time.
SciQuest
1. There have been some difficulties in placing orders -- this has been often due to the vendors
not maintaining their catalogs in the system.
2. When there is a problem, there is an alternative way to place orders, but additional staff
training is needed.
Copy Machines
1. Although we have replaced all of the older machines with the same type of machines by the
same vendor, there have been more service problems with these machines --we are working
with a vendor on this issue. ”
IV.
Evaluation of the Enrollment and Communications merger
a. Are there plans to evaluate the changes?
b. Are there benchmarks being used to determine its success?
c. Are there financial benefits/consequences?
d. What is the level of student satisfaction?
e. How does it compare to pre-transition?
Beginning in September, Staff Association was informed the Trustee Liaison meeting would be
shared with a different department. Communications and Enrollment personnel were asked to
share the meeting with the Trustee Liaisons at this particular meeting in place of the original
Resources group.
It was made quite clear that Staff Association was in no way trying to criticize a particular
department but trying to clearly communicate to the general staff why some of these changes
were made and who is now responsible for what in each department.
Changes are usually made with a certain goal in mind. What staff is asking is how the progress
and outcomes are being evaluated. Is there or will there be something in place to do that?
Perhaps a way of making clear to the community would be to publish an updated organizational
chart that would be College-wide and departmentally correct.
Margaret Morrow understood that the College intends to survey users of the system, perhaps in
fall after there is more experience with the Guild move, and the survey would be like the pretransition survey with additional questions. Benchmarks would include service satisfaction,
enrollment totals, tuition revenue, number and quality of applications, etc.
Ethel Desmarais remarked that there have also been changes within the student administrative
services departments; e.g., the enforcement of student bill payment, that are financially
beneficial to the College, but may not get great reviews from students. One change that will be
popular is the implementation of an e-bill and payment system. Asked what effect that might
have on staffing, the response was that no loss of positions was anticipated.
Annmarie Hofmann also explained on-going efforts to improve operations through all staff,
team and team leader meetings. These have led to accelerated staff learning and improvements
like on-line receipts.
Discussion continued regarding the navigation of the online directory. Questions were raised as
to its consistency and accuracy.
After the meeting ended, several of the Enrollment & Communications staff remained for
conversation and clarification of topics.
The sharing of the meeting with other departments has proved to be quite beneficial and
informative. Staff Association would like to see this continue.
In the future Staff Association thought it might be a good idea to have the designated
department meet before -hand to be better prepared to share the Trustee Liaison meeting.
Staff Association presents an agenda well in advance of the meeting – the department attending
comes as a guest. This makes departments somewhat unsure of why they are there. Staff
Association stresses the importance of the “sharing department” feeling comfortable and a true
part of the meeting. We will be working toward a way to better organize the time element of
this meeting.
Respectfully submitted,
Dolores Burdo
2/14/12