IUB Professional Council

Business Meeting Minutes

Bridgwaters Lounge, Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center

October 21, 2009

Council Members in Attendance:  Rob Aspy, Tracy Bee, Jennifer Chaffin, Craig Dethloff (Faculty Council Ex-officio), Martin Hadley, Tiana Iruoje, Christina Kuzmych, Eric Love, Maryanne McDonnell, Patricia Moser, Paula Phillips, Suzanne Ryan (UHRS Ex-officio), Kelly Thacker, Michael Thompson, Ed Vasquez (CWA Ex-officio), Dee Verostko, Beverly Vicker.

Proxies:  Kelly Thacker for Cindy Curvin, Tiana Iruoje for Liz Peck, Kelly Thacker for Doris Wittenburg.

Members Not in Attendance:  Margaret Baechtold, Patrick Smith, Greg Travis.

Meeting Minutes

A motion to approve the September, 2009 minutes as written was made, seconded and passed.

Old Business

2009 Silent Auction

This year’s auction will run November 6-November 20.  All BPC members are asked to present auction items to the BPC office as soon as possible for placement on the website.

Corrective Action/Grievance Representative

Martin Hadley and Dee Verostko have volunteered to act as representatives.  Rob will meet with them to discuss recently-developed guidelines.

Opposite Sex Domestic Partner Benefits

At last month’s meeting, a BPC member opened this topic for discussion because a professional staff employee had approached him about it.  Since last month’s meeting, some research has been done.  This continues to be a financial issue.  Since opposite sex domestic partner benefits would result in a cost to the university, and in light of the current economic situation, the Council has tabled this discussion.

Sick Bank

The idea of a sick bank for donated PTO hours was raised at last month’s retreat.  Suzanne Ryan reminded the Council that this has been brought up several times before and has been rejected due to the cost and complexity of administering such a plan under IU’s current structure.  Several BPC members indicated a desire to continue this discussion, exploring different options to assist professional staff employees during times of crisis.  Michael Thompson volunteered to research this idea further.

Role of Affiliates

The BPC is required by its constitution to invite the Bloomington Faculty Council and the IU Student Association to appoint a member each year to serve in an ex-officio capacity on the BPC.  Other affiliate groups have been invited to serve, as stated in the bylaws.  Letters have been sent to affiliate groups that, beginning in November, any ex-officio member who is absent for four monthly business meetings, and who is not represented by proxy, will be expelled as ex-officio member, except for BFC and IUSA.

New Business

Holiday Policy Change

Suzanne Ryan announced a policy change regarding “at work” time immediately preceding and immediately following a holiday.  Beginning with the Thanksgiving holiday, employees will no longer be required to be at work four hours the day prior to and four hours the day following a holiday in order to receive holiday pay.  They must, however, be on active status.  There is still no holiday pay for any employee on a leave of absence.

Committee Reports

Communications and Marketing Committee – Tiana Iruoje

• Meeting started at 4:15 on September 30th , SPEA 200
• We discussed the following
• Newsletter
• Tiana will be asking Rob for a lot of information
• Re-cap of last year
• Grant information
• Committees that council members were apart of on campus
• Liz will add the quote of the month
• Kelly will compile all the information and send out the draft to the committee
• We will pass it on to Rob to be sent out the 15th of each month
• IU Homepages
• Tiana will find out how we submit information
• Publicity
• We will be working on a tri-fold board to inform others about BPC.
• Serve as a proxy for Cindy Curvin
• Meeting adjourned at 5:00pm
• Next committee, October 27th at 4pm in SPEA

An e-newsletter was sent out to the professional staff employee listservs on Tuesday, October 20.

Outreach and Advocacy Committee

There are two upcoming Know Your Campus events scheduled, the first of which will be on Wednesday, October 28, from 4:00-5:00 pm. in Jordan Hall A106.  Brian Keith, Senior Scientist with the Indiana Geological Survey will discuss various architectural styles around campus.  We can take up to 50 people for this event, and as of today’s meeting, signup was almost full.

The second event is Friday, November 6.   There will be two opportunities to tour the Mathers Museum of World Cultures.  Tours will be offered from 12:00-1:00 pm. and from 4:00-5:00 pm.  There is a maximum of 20 people per tour.

Ad-hoc and Campus Committee Reports

IUB Faculty Council – 10/06/09 – Jennifer Chaffin

• Agenda Committee Business

State of the university address that was rescheduled to October 12 had now been rescheduled again.  It will likely be in February and probably will be a separate meeting, i.e., not part of the BFC meeting.

• Presiding Officer’s Business

Question: Why did some law professors receive increases this year?

The BFC has notified the campus that they would like faculty to have increased involvement in fiscal discussion/decisions, even if it’s “behind the scenes”.

I think there was discussion about a mandate that faculty recognize Labor Day as a day off work.

They noted that the Blue Ribbon Report on Healthcare has been posted.

There are upcoming reviews: SLIS dean and the law school dean.  There was definitely a list of three or four.

• Presiding Officer’s Business

The Vice Provost of Faculty and Academic Affairs and some of his staff presented an overview of FAR (Faculty Annual Report), which is the new, online annual review “form” that faculty must begin using for the 2009 review year.

• Enrollment Update

The Vice Provost for Enrollment Management presented data on trends in IU enrollment.

IUB Child Care Coalition – Jonathan Bolte

September 23, 2009 Meeting overview

Present:  Heather Akou (Sunflower Coop), Sabrina Sullenberger (Office for Women’s Affairs), Mark Miyake (Knee High Coop), Lessie Frazier (Bloomington Faculty Council), Ginny Woodward (School of Education Emeriti), Judith Chafel (School of Education), Carol Baynes (Communication Workers of America), Dina Kellams (Bloomington Faculty Council), Chuck Andrews (Auxiliary Services and Programs), Carol Spencer (Hoosier Courts), Tim Dunnuck (Campus Child care Support/chair).

• IUB Updates
• Financial – child care services is now out of its deficit.  We ended FY2009 with a $150,000 surplus.  Our balance at the end of FY2008 was a deficit of $89,000.  Part of the reason we were able to end with a surplus is that the infant/toddler funding subsidy was able to be used to help defray operating costs for the first time.  The previous two years, the funding was used for construction of the new I/T classrooms at Campus Children’s Center.  For FY2010 we will be using a portion of the funding for operating costs at CCC and CVCCC while also setting aside a portion for future construction. 
• Enrollment – because of the current economy, the directors constructed conservative budgets for FY2010 and projected less than capacity enrollment.  The centers are, however, mostly full this fall.  Our longest waiting list continues to be for toddlers.
• Staff changes – because of staff member retirement and moving from Bloomington, some new teachers have been hired at CCC, CVCCC and HC.  Hoosier Courts is currently doing a search for a new teacher.
• Fun Frolic results – the poor economy has had a negative effect on attendance at amusement events, including the Fun Frolic.  Even though no nights were rained out this year, our net profit was similar to last year.  Each of the IUB centers will be receiving checks for $1,143. 
• Review of operations – the campus is currently in negotiations with Mills Consulting to do a review of the IUB child care operations.  Mills consulting is based out of Boston and works a great deal with east coast universities including UMass, Harvard, and SUNY.  Such a review is common for auxiliary units and we are looking forward to finding out if we can provide quality services in a more efficient manner.  No timeline for the review has been set.
• H1N1 – child care services has been working with Diana Ebling at the IU Health center in developing an H1N1 policy for our centers.  One was developed in the spring but needs to be revised in response to the changing guidelines put out for the Center for Disease Control which no longer recommends school closings.   There was a great deal of discussion among attendees about potential issues with H1N1. 
• Young Children article by Mary McMullen – Mary McMullen, professor in early childhood education and Coalition member, spent last semester doing research on infant/toddler classrooms on several college campuses, including CCC and CVCCC at IUB.  Young Children, the professional journal of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), recently published an article by Mary entitled  “Learning to Be Me While Coming to Understand We: Encouraging Pro-social Babies in Group Settings” which examines how babies develop pro-social skills.  Both the CCC and CVCCC infant classrooms are highlighted in the article and the teachers in those classrooms are listed as co-authors. Mary and some of the teachers also presented at the recent Infant Toddler Specialists of Indiana (ITSI) conference in Indianapolis. 
• IDS Article on Play – an IDS article this spring highlighted the value of play.  As part of the article, the classrooms at Hoosier Courts were highlighted by the author.  An online version of the article can be viewed at:  http://www.idsnews.com/news/inside/Story.aspx?id=69273.
• Accreditation - CCC, CVCCC and HC will all be working on their reaccreditation with NAEYC in the upcoming year.  Less than 10% of centers nationwide are NAEYC accredited.  We are currently meeting weekly to work on reaccreditation together.
• Strategic Planning – the centers continue to work on strategic planning with Chuck Andrews, ASAP strategic planning specialist.  We are meeting weekly to work on action items.  One important result of our strategic planning is that the centers are now working more collaboratively on issues common to all of the centers.   Some other results are our new brochures, our new website and the development of some new polices like our Formal Complaint Policy and Procedure for parents.  

• Day Care Support Account/Committee for Fee Review - the Day Care Support Account, which is administered by Suzanne Phillips, is funded through Student Activity Fees.  The account receives 39 cents for each student activity fee which is used to fund projects and purchases by the five IUB child care centers.  We are among the lowest allocation from Student Activity Fees. Every year or two we go in front of the CFR to justify our funding and to request an increase to our funding amount.  This year we again requested an increase but did not receive one from the CFR.  As part of their report, the CFR recommended that all of the account be used to fund fee assistance for student families.   We have developed a plan to use a large portion, but not all of the funding for fee assistance in the future while still reserving funds to be used by Knee High and Sunflower coops. 

• Parent Fund - in the spring we submitted two proposals to the IU Parent Fund.  One proposal requested funding for student fee assistance and the other requested funding for security systems at the five IUB centers.  We just learned that both proposals have been approved and funded.   We will receive $30,000 for student fee assistance which will be used in conjunction with Day Care Support Account funding.  The security systems have been funded for $35,000.  Tim will be researching security systems in the upcoming weeks to decide on what type of systems to install.

• Next meeting – my goal is to meet at least quarterly so the next meeting will be before the end of the fall semester.  We hope to hear about the recent child care survey by the Office for Women’s Affairs (OWA) at the next meeting.   Date and location to be determined.

Staff Merit Award Committee – Martin Hadley

• I’m on the sub-committee to identify two PA candidates for merit awards.
• Each candidate (2-SM, 2-SS & 2-PA) will receive a $1k reward (taxes included).
• We are to narrow the applicants down from ~25 to three or four.
• Our committee will meet next week (10/19) to determine our top two candidates.
• This will be the last assignment for the committee.

Search and Screen/Review Committees

Dean of Libraries Search & Screen Committee – Martin Hadley

• Went from 4-5 candidates down to two.  Diane Walker (University of Virginia) and Brenda Johnson (University of California).
• Meet throughout the week of 10-5 to facilitate interviews at B-town and Indy.
• Committee to meet on 19-October to identify strengths and weaknesses of each candidate and submit to Provost Hanson.
• This is the last assignment for the search committee.

Provost Hanson will make her decision, hopefully, by month end.

Dean of Law School Review Committee – Christina Kuzmych

The committee will convene again on October 28 to continue with the review process.

Special Guest – H. “Pete” Goldsmith, Dean of Students

At 4:00 Dean of Students Pete Goldsmith joined the BPC for an informal discussion.  He talked about various facets of the support services offered for students on the Bloomington campus.  Dean Goldsmith gave an overview of the “roadmap” his office is working to establish, along with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.  This roadmap will enable students to see where they are and what they need to accomplish in order to achieve progress toward their overall education and employment goals.

Of great concern on the Bloomington campus is the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus.  As of this week, there have been about 280 cases reported.  All students are urged to get the vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

Another concern on campus is traffic and pedestrian safety.  There are several areas on campus the traffic task force is currently focusing on, including Fee Lane, Tenth Street, Tenth and the Bypass, Third Street, and Indiana Avenue.  Dean Goldsmith urged everyone to let him know of any other areas of concern.

A task force to look at implementation of IUB’s tobacco policy has been established.  The ultimate goal is for IUB to be a tobacco-free campus.  Implementation and policing of such a policy could prove to be challenging.

Dean Goldsmith was asked to address the orientation program offered to incoming students.  It seems that some students have unrealistic expectations when it comes to how courses are taught.  Students are sometimes surprised to discover that their classes are taught by assistant instructors, not tenured faculty members.  The result is that at times the assistant instructors are subject to a lack of respect in the classroom.  In addition, this results in an unsatisfactory college experience for the students.  Dean Goldsmith responded by saying this is probably more of a “cultural” issue than an actual gap in the orientation program.  It is a goal of his office is to get students to take responsibility of their education and learning.  Additionally, we need to make parents allies in helping the students become more independent.

In closing, Dean Goldsmith said he is interested in how professional staff employees observe the students at IUB.  Any comments may be forwarded to him at hdgoldsm@indiana.edu.

Announcements

The November business meeting will be held in Kelley School of Business, Room 3055, Wednesday, November 18, from 3:00-5:00 p.m.  Our guest will be Provost Karen Hanson.

Meeting was adjourned at 4:55 p.m.

Meeting minutes respectfully submitted by Teresa Spiegel.