STAFF ADVISORY COUNCIL Meeting March 16, 2011 Executive Committee Nicky Bruckhart, President, nbruckha@du.

edu, x14241 Saskia Sawyer, Vice President, Saskia.sawyer@du.edu, x12704 Sarah Childs, Treasurer, Sarah.Childs@du.edu, x13501 Kate Johnson, Webmaster, kate.johnson@du.edu, x16515 Christa Bruning, Secretary, Christa.Bruning@du.edu, x13170 Members in attendance: Kathy Aliaga, Facilities Ashley Beaudry, The Womens College Nicky Bruckhart, Athletics and Recreation Christa Bruning, University Communications Sarah Childs, Human Resources Lisa Cox, Institutional Compliance and Internal Audits Linda Daubers, Graduate School of Social Work Kris DeForest, Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Anne Gross, Admission Becky Gonzalez, Bursars Office Cheryl Jackson, Morgridge College of Education Kate Johnson, University Communications Gayle Keahey, Law School Mark Kintgen, Penrose Library Tina Miller, University College Marty Neary, DU Bookstore Sherry Newhouse, NSM/SECS Arianna Nowakowski, AHSS/Languages and Literature Samara Rasmussen, Graduate School of Professional Psychology Saskia Sawyer, University Advancement Kay Schneider, Institutional Research The meeting was called to order. 1. Introduction of the Council Members. 2. Guest speaker: Chancellor Coombe Staff Morale Survey Q: Per July 2010 meeting: Senior Administrators opinion and Staff perception regarding staff morale differences were discussed in our July 2010 meeting. There seems to be a communication break-down from top to bottom and vice versa as to if this was an issue. Chancellor acknowledged that this needed to be addressed. With the new Human Resource engagement survey coming out will the results be made public to the faculty and staff? Also, what will be the

plan to improve morale if needed and make sure Senior Administration and Staff are on the same page regarding the survey findings and action needed to be taken going forward? Q: Per December 2010 meeting: A question was raised if there could be a central location for suggestions on how to improve DU as a workplace. Would this be possible? Could SAC handle this? Would a box of suggestions be something that would be supported by the Chancellor? A: HR will be sending out the survey soon. Structure, Financial Aid Review, Ratings Q: A question was brought to SACs attention that both the Faculty Senate as well as the major Student groups (undergrad, graduate & law) has the opportunity to report directly to the Board of Trustees. Currently, SAC does not report any staff items to the Board of Trustees. Would this be something that the Chancellor would perceive as being valuable for the Board as well as SAC to report staff items an updates to the Board? A: The Chancellor does not have a problem with that at all. Students do that and so does faculty. He is happy to recommend it to the Board. Nicky asked how to present to the Board and would like to ask other groups what has been done in the past. The Chancellor suggested talking to Don McCubbrey and the Faculty Senate for recommendations. Talk about key things you want them to know. SAC will have about 5 minutes of time. Q: We keep hearing about extra aid money for students but University College students seem to be left out. I know our tuition is less than the DU campus but with so many students either unemployed or underemployed our tuition is still a lot of money to them. Any chance of UCOL students being eligible for some of these funds? A: Extra aid money has principally been for undergrads and some for grad students. The question has been raised in the past but it is discounted heavily already and is a tad lower than half the regular tuition. The likely hood of this happening is small because rates are already lower. Q: What can DU change to become one of the top 12 or even 20 schools in the nation? A: The Chancellor would put our undergrad programs up against anyones right now even though were not reflected in the top 12 or 20. In part it is due to a visibility problem, not being on the east or west coast. It is also driven by research and our research establishment is tiny in comparison to other schools. For example, ours is $21 million and CUs is $600 million. We measure quality by kinds of undergrad and grad students we have and the impact of research. Q: Do all the deans on the DU campus have a PHD? A: No, all but one, Christopher Hill. He is perceived by many as one of the top two or three U.S. diplomats. Its more about administrative leadership and being in a position of leading the faculty and staff in the unit and is reflective of kinds of things we want to train students for.

Employee recognition, Merit, Benefits Q: Per July 2010 meeting: SAC would like to push for more acknowledgment of employees years of service. Who do we need to ask / work with to make this happen at this years Staff Picnic? Q: Staff would appreciate other forms of recognitions, such as additional time off, small financial bonuses, etc. The small amount of merit increase does not encourage employees to go the extra mile. What is the Chancellors view on this and what can be done to address this? How can SAC help to push make a change? A: Yes, it would be ok to recognize employees years of service with separate events for certain lengths of time, 10, 20, 30 years, etc. Cathy Grieve would be the person to contact concerning recognition events. Q: Per December 2010 meeting: Chancellor acknowledged the need for more opportunities for promotions. What has been done to advance this? Is this something that SAC can help encourage or promote? A: Nothing has been done. There needs to be more leverage for promotional ladder. It works and rewards people for real accomplishments. It should not be done in merit but there needs to be more rungs added and needs to be implanted on the staff side as well (as opposed to only faculty). It has been suggested to senior staff but no proposals have been turned in yet. Perhaps it should be approached by thinking about titles and a salary bump. This is financially more manageable by DU. SAC can communicate to senior staff, via Craig Woody, that they are willing to help with this. Talking with Amy King in HR is also a good starting point. Other types of recognition were bonuses that happened during merit. The Chancellor believes that people were reasonably unaware of the bonus pool during the merit process. Q: Staff is still concerned about merit increases. It seems like the University does not feel it is necessary to adjust pay for inflation and cost of living increase, which, on the other hand, employees expect as it is a common practice outside of DU. It has been brought to our attention that staff is feeling like they have gotten a pay decrease over the last two years, when factoring in cost of living increase, inflation. What is DU doing to address this? A: The Chancellor is against cost of living raises because they cannot be planned for the University and we have to be able to see into the future. Q: Per December 2010 meeting: Chancellor was not opposed to expand tuition waiver to include not-for-credit courses, enrichment courses. What does SAC need to do to push this forward? A: SAC should talk with the Provost as he makes the operating budget for DU. Q: Rumor has it, that the ECO pass will not be accepted by Denver transit starting next year. Is this correct? If yes, what will DU offer in place of it?

A: The Chancellor has not heard this. Q: With the new HR employees being in place, is there a plan to review salaries for similar positions across campus and adjust if necessary? There are wide gaps that exist for similar positions. Because it costs much more to replace and train a new employee versus equalizing pay for a current employee it seems like evening out the salaries is a better option. A: The focus will be put on total compensation/benefits versus compensation alone. Much of the country has gone to this. The new structure will do this and will look at salary, benefits and the total package. It may improve benefits. It doesnt help to advance salaries if health costs eat it up. The new structure couples all together. Q: Per December 2010 meeting: The Chancellor left it up to the specific Departments to allow for the benefit of telecommuting. There seem to be confusion about DUs overall stand on telecommuting. Could the Chancellor instruct HR to add this into the Employee handbook, orientation, manager trainings, etc.? A: The Chancellor will ask HR to do this. It is at the discretion of the individual units whether to allow telecommuting or not. Q: Per July 2010 meeting: Chancellor wanted to look into the possibility of a sliding scale for parking fees as well as Ritchie Center membership for employees. Has this been addressed? What can SAC do to address this further? A: This has not been done. Charging for parking is required as it covers the cost of new parking structures and the cost of upkeep on current parking facilities. Parking is indexed against salaries. The Chancellor will talk to parking services about coming up with a model to see what this would look like based on debt and maintenance on lots. Q: Would the University think about possibility of issue and support of portable hardware (wireless routers, Windows notebooks, iPads and similar) for DU Employees, and offer a subsidy for high-speed Internet access to employees whose duties can be accomplished while working at least one day per week at home, rather than commute every day? This would improve DU sustainability in general and particularly help staff that are moving during remodels (who are not always in public contact positions). A: The Chancellor is not opposed to this at all. We do some but it is very limited. We had a lot early on but not as many now. The Center for Teaching and Learning has a pool of laptops. Connectivity for those who work at home would have to fall within the budget for each unit, which brings up budgetary questions. There was some discussion about what Purchasing would cover and it was thought that Purchasing will only pay for it in limited circumstances. More discussion covered that computers can be purchased at a discount as long as your home does not have to be considered as an official part of DU. Telecommuting should be looked at as a different way of working and not a benefit. It can be very productive. Data needs to be gathered on who is telecommuting now.

Holidays and Snow days Q: Per December meeting: the University does not acknowledge any religious holidays including Christmas. This statement produced a lot of comments and questions. Since the University was started from a Christian church and is still the Denver Seminary, isnt it an affront to the founders that Christmas is not observed? A: The University would have to recognize all holidays and there are many. Q: Who makes the decisions on the priorities of holidays? Why do we observe Martin Luther Kings birthday, but not the holiday honoring US presidents or veterans (especially given that most school districts, esp. DPS, observe those days)? In addition, this causes problems for employees with children in those school systems. A: We have never done Presidents Day. Winter quarter days are hard to give up; this might be the reason why. DU doesnt observe very many holidays. Q: Concern has been raised by a vet that the university does not have any program or acknowledgment of Veterans Day and considers this to be an insult to the many veterans on campus. Even if the day is not a holiday (day-off), what could be done to have a ceremony or program for Veterans Day on campus? A: Veterans Day is not a DU holiday because the day is needed for class days. It is fine to acknowledge the day but it is not an official DU holiday. DU needs counseling services and resources particular to vets. It is currently a pressing issue. Q: Per December meeting: the wording on the HR website states that there should be an additional day if the holiday falls on the weekend. Staff feels deprived of a day off. Chancellor offered to look at the website and talk to HR about this. Has this been done? (This was specifically concerning the holiday break and New Years Day.) Q: From the HR website: If the holiday falls on a Saturday, it will be observed on Friday. If it falls on a Sunday, the holiday will be observed on Monday. Paid holidays do not count toward the payment of overtime. A: The Chancellor will talk to HR about that and so should SAC/Nicky. Q: Since our last snow day several questions were submitted to SAC about the possibility of changing snow days to a delay start schedule or allowing the option of telecommuting on a snow day? Has there been any discussion about changing the snow day policy or structure? Would this be something that could be looked into in the future? A: The Provost is ultimately responsible for deciding if the University will close. Some of the factors taken into consider are if Facilities is able to keep the parking lots plowed and people located throughout the city area that tell us about road conditions on commuting roads. The decision is made by 4:30 a.m. The Provost consults with Jeff Bemelen before making the decision. The way its done now gets to the real issues: DU operations and safety of faculty and staff. It happens so infrequently they have chosen to either be closed or not. The last time was due to extreme cold. The University had to be closed once during finals at 2 p.m. and it caused many problems. The Chancellor recommended that we invite the Provost to talk at a SAC meeting.

Review process, Collaboration issues Q: Why does the current PEDS system not require 360 reviews? Staff would like to have the opportunity to review their supervisors. What could SAC do to ensure this is part of the current PEDS evaluation system? A: This is fair; we do it on the faculty side. Administrative evaluations work to an extent. There is compartmentalization and the general impression is that the info is usually of extremes, which can be acted upon if there is a large enough sample with the same result. This can be valuable but needs to be done in a fair way; not sure if it would work for staff. Evaluations of most senior staff should not be out of the question. The Chancellors perspective is mixed on if this has value or not. He would want to make sure the whole staff wants to do it and there would need to be training on how it can be done productively. Q: The decentralized structure of DU seems to interfere with establishing a true team feeling. There is also the feeling of departments only being interested in their own agenda, without the big picture in mind. When coming across issues related to that mentality, what can an employee do, aside from talking to the supervisor? What is the Chancellors feeling on this topic? Would it be possible to have the Chancellor address this consent with Senior Staff? A: The Chancellor hears lots of comments, in different ways. We are decentralized but not as much as in the mid 90s. We are far less internally competitive now. DU as a whole is more now than it used to be. People want to feel they belong to a whole; we are not good at internal communication. We are creating an internal communication group within University Communications. We have not had this in the past. We need two-way communication and this will help with it. Q: Has the Chancellor been asked about his views on the recently released Review of Institutional Data on Women document? A: No. DU started looking at this when the Chancellor was Provost. There are some interesting patterns. Women advance aggressively through early stage of career and then stop. There are a lot in faculty peaks; they make tenure then do not progress onto full professor. The Chancellor was pleased to see the study because it looks at the whole. He didnt see anything that surprised him. DU is not alone, it happens elsewhere that women are not progressing; is it due to childbearing or the structure? Its hard to put a finger on why there are barriers to women at particular advancement levels. We should see more women in senior ranks than we have. There has been no response yet from senior leadership. He would like our response as a group. The study is posted on the Institutional Research website. Childcare Q: The topic of child care and DU involvement does not go away. Can the SAC review the outcome of the latest study DU conducted on this topic? What should /could the SAC do to bring this topic back up, if needed? A: Yes, SAC can review the study. There was a Child Care Task Force created that was headed by Dick Gartrell, which resulted in the enrollment in a childcare program but not to go with on-campus childcare. The study was done at least four years ago. SAC should

talk with Amy King about this issue and to see the survey. The Chancellor would like to see proportion of people using services since the last report. One concern about oncampus childcare is the cost is high and people at DU with no children dont want to pay for a benefit for a sector of the population. Its good to have the conversation. In years past there have been lots of conversations about it and some of the concerns are liability, cost, training, etc. Q: It has been brought to our attention that the Bright Horizon Back-up Care only has a limited number of spaces available for DU usage. This has not been made clear to the staff and has left several people scrambling for Child Care (as they were planning to use this benefit) for spring break. Again, there seems to be confusing information on the HR website. Could the Chancellor please urge HR to explain to the entire staff the benefits of the back-up childcare system? In addition, there seems to be the perception that this benefit differs for faculty and staff. Is this correct? Are there other areas where faculty benefits differ from staff benefits, considering that the website does not give the impression that benefits differ for faculty and staff. Q: HR lists the Fisher Early Learning Center as a child-care option for DU employees. Fishers application process is a Q: lottery. For $100 a DU employee may enter the Fisher lottery and may or may not be accepted. Rumors have circulated that the center now focuses even more on out-side families, making it even less likely for DU employees to get accepted. Rumor further has it that the reason behind this move is money driven (as non-DU families do not get a discount). What are the possibilities that DU will review the application process of Fisher in favor of DU employees? Should HR not be required to state it very clearly on the website that being an employee does not influence the acceptance rate, if that is indeed the case? What can SAC do to help clear up this situation? A: The proportion has tipped to 50 percent DU families and 50 percent community families. It was initially 60 percent DU and 40 percent community. Fisher is inadequate in size. Staff receives a 15 percent discount and we do have faculty and staff who do use it but its not always affordable. The cost structure has to stay in the black. It was born out of a conversation like today. Departmental restructuring and FTE positions Q: What changes does the Chancellor anticipate from the upcoming leadership change in HR? It came to great surprise to the community that the director was hired from within, after the restructuring was explained as needed to change the culture successfully. How do you think the culture will change if the leadership has not? A: Restructuring was not done lightly. We hired an outside firm to review HR and there was a national search. Amy will do well. The intention is to be a more effective HR for the employees and not saving money. Q: What was the reasoning behind the UA restructuring, considering the success of the campaign kick-off? A: It was facilitated by a number of things. It was not performance related; there were a couple of staff changes including Ed and Adam leaving. The Chancellor was pleased to promote Scott Lumpkin. We hope to come out of the campaign with a stable and sustainable structure and annual giving. We are creating a structure that will last beyond individuals. Ed is now the Chief Development Officer. All the changes are positive.

Q: When is the university thinking about adding FTE positions again? A: We never had a freeze no matter what people have heard. We were trying to constrain growth of people but there was no policy; that was never the case. The layoffs were done intentionally and we are currently very financially stable. We may not be hiring a lot of people. The strategic increase in tuition is driven to compensation. We cannot increase compensation without higher tuition costs. Q: Which departments are going through restructuring right now? Will there be more this year? Q: What are the chances of University College staff all being in 1 building? It doesnt need to be a new building but all being in one place would be helpful. It was mentioned in the past the cable center was suggested to put UCOL staff all together. Is this a real possibility? A: There will not be a new building built for University College employees. The Chancellor has looked at this and could not find a place to put University College all together. Internal Communication Q: Per Dec 2010 meeting: Chancellor admitted that internal communication is an issue. What has been done to address this and how confident is Senior Management that it will improve? A: There is a department being formed within University Communications that will handle internal communication for DU. This deparrtment will work closely with HR as well. We felt the Communications office was the best place to put this department. There has been little to no internal communication in the past but there will be once the department is in place. Currently there is a search for the Manager of Internal Communication. Q: Per Dec 2010 meeting: Staff would like to see Chancellor office hours similar to the currently offered Student office hours. Would the Chancellor consider adding monthly or quarterly open office hours for employees? If yes, what can SAC do to move this forward? A: The Chancellor is happy to consider this. It works really well for the students. There would need to be some rules regarding office hours. Staff should not use that time to go around other avenues for issues. It should be used for suggestions on whats working/not working and ideas for improvement. Q: There seems to be confusion/no clear direction regarding the level of faculty/staff participation in the ASCEND campaign. How is the campaign progressing in general? Also will employees be getting periodic updates about the ASCEND campaign? We got the initial background of it at Convocation, but have not heard anything since. Will there be updates on this and how often? A: We will start the internal part of that in the fall. We intend to talk about faculty and staff engagement. Yes, there will be updates. There is a good website with a lot of information on it.

Other items across campus Q: As addressed at July 2010 meeting, Chancellor had stated he would to look into relaxing the current policies of paying for retreats and meetings off-campus: Has this been addressed? What can SAC do to move this forward? A: The Chancellor has had some conversations about that with people. Senior Administration is concerned about changing it. It was costing DU a bundle, more than a million dollars a year on food service. Need to talk with Craig Woody and Gregg Kvistad about how it can be done responsibility. Q: How would SAC go about requesting a review of a possible installment of a crosswalk between the T-lot (tennis courts) and Sturm Hall? A few people have raised concerns about the challenge this particular intersection presents to pedestrians and motorists alike. A: No answer ran out of time. Q: Will TEDxDU be continued in future years? If it is, will staff resources/time be reallocated to it? A: No answer ran out of time. 3. Announcements:: y Egg hunt is April 23 y Nicky will send out action items to be tackled by the new task force 4. Meeting adjourned. Next meeting: May 18, 2011, 12 1 pm, DuPont Room, Mary Reed Building. Respectfully submitted, Christa Bruning Secretary