Staff Advisory
Committee
MINUTES
Monday, January 27, 2003
Attendees:
Jane
Bedard, Jan Bureau, Nancy Crosby, Elaine Hansen, Christopher Lee,
David Long,
Keith Pray, Mary Risko, Anthony Shostak, and Keith Tannenbaum, Eileen
Wisnewski
Members
Not
Present: Carol
Carpentier, Paul Dumais, Jeannine Ferron, Jane Frizzell, Brenda
Hammond, Carol
Wyse-Ricker
Discussion
Items:
1.
President
Hansen began the meeting by updating us on the Board of Trustee
meetings. She stated that the Trustees did
some minor
restructuring of the Board and eliminated or combined some standing
committees
enabling the Board to work more effectively.
2. Chris
Lee then
informed us that the Employee Recognition Luncheon will be held on
Friday,
April 18, 2003. He also
informed the
Committee that Wednesday, April 23, 2003 will be National
Administrative
Assistants day with activities planned throughout the
day.
3. Chris
then
reported that 303 responses had been received from this year's Staff
Opinion
Survey -- down slightly from last year's number of 319
responses.
4. The
question
was then asked about possible layoffs at Bates (due to Bowdoin's
recent
announcement). President Hansen
responded by stating that did not foresee any immediate changes of
this
magnitude at Bates and explained that our situation differs from
Bowdoin's due
to hiring practices and the endowment size.
She also stated that there is a silver lining to a smaller
endowment in
that if you have to cut 5% of your spending and you've always had less
to
spend, you then have less to cut.
5.
Suggestion Box
items were then read:
• Chris
Lee was
handed 7 more Staff Opinion Surveys that were placed in the Suggestion
Box --
which brought the total to the total of 303 which was reported under
item #3
above.
• There
were a
couple letters in the Suggestion Box stating that some employees
believe that
it is unfair that newly hired hourly personnel (as of July 2001) receive 10 vacation days, 10 sick
days, 11
1/2 holidays and 2 personal days, while hourly employees hired prior
to July
2001 receive 18 vacation days, 10 sick days, 11 1/2 holidays and 2
personal
days. Although this may seem
unfair at
first glance, the College felt that in fairness to all employees, it
was time
to implement this change, thus "grandfathering" hourly
employees
hired prior to July 2001 with the system which they were hired under,
and at
the same time giving those employees with many years of service to the
College
a slight "bonus."
Note: This
does not affect those employees who are salaried employees — their
vacation
days remain at 24 upon their hiring.
• A
suggestion
was made that the College give employees 2 to 3 snow days a year with
pay so
that vacation or personal days would not have to be used. If those days were not used, they
could then
be applied to personal days or choice time.
A solution to this would be to take time off without pay (for
hourly
employees) or comp time (for salaried employees) -- stated in the
Employee
Handbook as one of the few situations that this is acceptable. The College understands that Maine
winters
are difficult for some employees who have to travel a distance;
however, the
decision to come to work or not is an individual choice and one that
each of us
needs to make. The College
hopes that
each individual choosing to stay home on a storm day is able to make
other
arrangements to make up their time, etc.
A paid storm day would not be feasible to all the essential
personnel
who must report to work during storms.
• A
letter in
the Suggestion Box asked that the College change the check cashing
procedures. The only place on
campus to
cash a check in Libbey Forum.
When one
arrives at Libbey, you must sign in and wait your turn. It tends to get a bit busy at Libbey
at
times. This particular
individual went
to Libbey to cash a check at lunchtime and when they arrived there
were 6 to 8
students waiting to be served.
The
individual signed in and waited -- and on this particular day and time
there
was only 1 person serving everyone.
For
those employees who have their paychecks automatically deposited (as
encouraged
by the College) there are times when a personal check needs to be
cashed for
spending money and it is discouraging if one has to wait longer here
on campus
to cash a personal check than if one would go to a bank. If employees need to go to a bank to
cash a
personal check, then there is no reason to have automatic deposits --
one might
just as well go to the bank and cash their
paycheck.
• There
was a
suggestion that the College announce when it will be serving alcoholic
beverages at campus functions, especially at an event when employees
and
families are invited.
Apparently, some
employees were surprised to find beer and wine being at the
President's Holiday
Reception. Some thought that it
was
inappropriate in light of recent campus events involving
students. They thought the holiday reception
to be more
of a cocktail party than the family/staff meal they had expected. While it was not the College's
intention to
create a cocktail party environment for the purpose of consuming large
quantities of alcohol, perhaps it could have been better thought of as
an
atmosphere in which the Bates community was provided an opportunity to
show
responsible-open drinking of alcohol in a social environment therefore
setting
examples that differ from the typical college drinking environment
such as dorm
parties or late night/early morning drinking.
In any case, it seemed that the larger part of the Bates
community who
attended the Holiday Reception seemed to really enjoy it and the beer
and wine
was kept to a minimum and everyone exhibited responsible adult
interaction.
Submitted by David Long