COUNCIL OF RESEARCH ASSOCIATE DEANS
JUNE 19TH, 2014
101 Walter Library
1:30-3pm
ATTENDANCE: Gayle Anderson, Laura Bloomberg, Ann Garwick, Sven Gorr, David Hagen,
Brian Herman, Philip Herold, Paul Kiprof, Sally Kohlstedt, Clarence Lehman, Jerian Lind, Alex
Rothman, Michael Schmitt, Rosalyn Segal, Peggy Sundermeyer, Pamela Webb, David Werner
DISCUSSION
Announcements and Updates
 Grant Notifications – Peggy
o At the last meeting, an associate dean suggested informing assoc deans on regret
letters for extramurals
 Concern for faculty not wanting assoc deans to know about failures
 Possible solution: let associate deans know when all have been submitted
 Space Survey – David Hagen
o Base year for figuring out F&A rates
o Need to know information about research space
o Announcement regarding a survey will be sent out soon
o Will be asking RRC managers to identify finance folks
o Would like ADR’s to help with awareness
 New System for Effort Report – David Hagen
o Introduces effective date – allows staff to be on or off a specific grant on a
specific date
o Will be launched soon, likely fall
Jobs Family Project
Sheila Reger and Kathy Brown, Office of Human Resources
 Project outcomes
o Clearly defined career paths
o Competitive pay ranges
o Common structure that enables UMN to identify and measure work performed
o More efficient admin processes
 About
o Review of Civil Service and P&A positions only
o 18 total families identified, 10 are completed
o Anticipate completion by 2015
 Project Stakeholders
o Starts with Op Ex team
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o Subject matter experts
General Process
o Communication to each employee
 Email requesting position description
o Gather info
 Advisory group, focus groups, interviews
 Position descriptions
 Org charts
 Other
o Analysis
o Draft structure
o Market salary analysis
 Consultants do the market research
o Employee mapping to structure
Position description collection
o Submit using online template
o Supervisory review
o One grouped position description may be appropriate
o Descriptions submitted to HR unit
Appeal Process
o Employees have option to appeal placement
o Requires supervisor approval
o Average 7% of employees have appealed
o Average 19% of appeals granted
Q: Why do supervisors have to approve appeals?
o Based on experiences from job family reviews in the past few years
o In the long run, it is important to have supervisor support
o Wanted to make sure employees were working with their supervisors on the
process
Q: Interested in your perspective on whether or not it’s good to be moving into such a
small number of categories
o 15-18 is kind of standard in higher education
o It is going to be a culture change though
Q: It seems like we’re changing the problem from people doing the same thing with
different title moving to people doing very different things all with the same titles
o It’s just meant to be a designation of the amount of work
Outcomes
o Most employees had no change in pay
o Some exceptions
 If they were under the new minimum, the pay went up to match minimum
 If they were over the max, they had their rate frozen for up to three years
o Most employees remained in current employment group or had the option for no
change
Research Job Family – current job titles
o 919 Scientists
o 202 Community Program Associates and Specialists
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o 126 Coordinators
o 1020 Research (specialists, fellows, associates)
o 236 Other (e.g. directors, accountants, engineers, executive assistants, developers)
Initial steps for research family
o Planning sessions with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), project sponsor, HR leads
– focus group identification, identification of unique factors or issues to consider
o Introductory email communication
o Writing and collection of position descriptions
o Information sessions
o Info, resources, Q&A, and more can be found online
At the end of the day, HR wants the associate deans to understand the process and get
answers to any questions, and hopefully work together to get to a place where they have a
clear understanding and are supportive of the program
HR understands the associate deans and employee fears and just want to be as clear as
possible and answer all questions to help allay fears
Also, if you take a look at the job families descriptions – keep in mind when hiring new
employees to make sure they are placed in the right family
Q: What is the problem you’re trying to solve? Is it a response to legislature – will we be
able to answer their questions better?
o Short answer is yes
o For example: a job like “coordinator,” how does that get reported? This will help
with issues like that
o Will help us describe what kind of employees are doing what type of work
Strategic Planning Update
 Update from the steering committee (Alex Rothman)
o Focused on moving forward with finding cornerstone leads
o Focus is on the four columns – cornerstones
o Each area has two leads
o Working on responding to cornerstone leads’ questions/concerns
o What really needs to be done now to make sure the work being done really makes
some changes and sticks
o How would information be disseminated?
o What might come out and how it is or isn’t in line with the policies and
procedures of the university at large
o How does the OVPR plan combine with the research grand challenges initiative
and/or other similar university-wide movement? Making sure they’re in alignment
 Cornerstone perspective (Laura Bloomberg)
o A lot of moving parts
o Thinking about aligned strategy
o Each cornerstone has four supporting goals
o Laura’s cornerstone focuses on serendipity
o Co-lead Mark Swackhamer – didn’t know each other before and have found that
they work together well, so it makes sense they work in the area of serendipity
o First step is to look for great stories of serendipity on campus
o Asking people to tell stories and others to listen to the stories and maybe relate to
their work
o Q: Are you working with grad students at all?
 Faculty, grad students, and some community partners – will go from there
 Cornerstone teams were definitely encouraged to be thinking about the
role of students, it’s definitely on the list