Fillable Printable Committee Meeting Minutes Template 2009

Committee Meeting Minutes Template 2009

Executive Committee Meeting

Minutes of January 15, 2009

Convener:

Janiece Kiedrowski, Chair

Recorder:

Cherie Williams, Secretary

Present:

Area I: Rebecca Goodman, Tirzah Evege-Thompson

Area II: David Ballard, Leslie McCain, Anastasia Johnson

Area III: Mary Pitts, Kathleen Kielar

Area IV: Pamela Rose, Laura Yates, Jason Parker

Area V: Nancy Battaglia

Officers: Janiece Kiedrowski, Ann Marie Landel, Cherie Williams

Excused:

Gene Pohancsek, Area III

Louise Lougen, Area V

Larry Labinski (ex-officio)

Guests:

John Beltrami

H. William Coles

AGENDA

1. Approval of minutes of December 4, 2008

2. Report of the Chair

3. Report of the Vice Chair

4. New Business and Discussion of Draft Resolution

5. Old Business

6. Guest Speakers: Robert Shibley and Bradshaw Hovey – Update on Master Planning

Process

7. Adjournment

MINUTES

1. Approval of minutes of December 4, 2008

The minutes were approved.

2. Report of the Chair

No report at this meeting.

3. Report of the Vice Chair

No report at this meeting.

4. New Business and Discussion of Draft Resolution

The next Executive Committee meeting will be held on February 12 instead of February 5.

Janiece will be at the SUNY Plenary on the fifth.

The draft resolution was sent via e-mail to all committee members before the meeting for their

review. Stacey Johnson sent a copy to Tara Singer-Blumberg from UUP for her comments.

Janiece received a response from Tara and told the committee that Tara objected to the first

paragraph of the resolution that referred to employee performance programs. She felt that

employee performance programs were unique to the individual and the duties they area

assigned. UUP would object to a blanket statement regarding performance programs if this

were to go through as is. As to the rest of the document, she felt it should be reworded to say

“the Professional Staff Senate encourage” instead of using the word “require”. Tara felt the first

paragraph of the resolution “…be it resolved that the University at Buffalo require all employees,

starting with our senior level administrators, to have an annual performance program that

incorporates institutional targets and guidelines for employee development” should be removed

entirely. Tara stated to Janiece that employees are evaluated based on what is in their

performance programs and was unsure how employees could be evaluated on employee

development.

A discussion among the committee members followed.

Stacey Johnson added that performance programs are part of the UUP contract. Human

Resources has been working to get supervisors to complete performance programs for

employees. She did not feel that it was necessary to have this mentioned in the resolution

because these are already required as a condition of employment. She said that the difficulty

arises when supervisors fail to complete them for employees or when they are late with their

programs. This is a contractual issue and we may be crossing boundaries by including a

reference to it in the resolution. She felt that if an employee was able to contribute to the

content of their own performance program, they could include development and training as part

of the program.

Janiece contended that this affects employees at all levels. One of the intentions of the

resolution is to have leadership participate in leadership development training so that those who

don’t have very good managerial skills will have the opportunity to improve their skill set.

Stacey replied that she thought what we were asking for was for professionals to be treated as

professionals and that training and development should be part of this process. Employees

need to be encouraged to include training and development in their performance programs on

an individual basis. She did not feel it was the job of PSS to mandate this. She continued that

PSS is in the position to work with professionals to ensure that they were aware of policies,

provide opportunities for professional networking and to have professionals attend PSS

meetings. If the Senate does not feel this is happening we should be meeting with the

President and advising him of the benefits of having these things occur. She also said that it

was UUP’s job to make sure the contract was enforced. By mandating that management add

development and training to an employee’s performance program, we were creating a term and

condition of employment and this is not the prerogative of PSS.

David Ballard agreed with Stacey that performance programs are a condition if employment. He

felt that adding a generic statement to a performance program about development and training

makes it difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate a person on. He felt we were really asking

management for more flexibility and opportunities for employees to become involved in a variety

of activities on campus.

Tirzah Evege-Thompson commented that our intent was to support initiatives coming from the

Office of Organizational Development and Training and that would integrate training and

learning as part of our organization. With this in place, our organization would evolve to

become a learning organization and this would help the institution to survive during difficult

times. There are skills that managers and supervisors need to have in order to function well

during difficult times. PSS should be sending the message that this organization supports that

integration and we should use the resources that we have on hand.

David replied that he did not feel the performance program should be the vehicle to do this.

Kathleen Kielar said that the President has already issued a statement supporting performance

programs for all employees so she suggested that the resolution should include this in the

“whereas” section and remove the reference to performance programs in the “resolution”

section.

Bill Coles agreed and said that we should start the resolution with the leadership development

reference and that the point could be made without directly referencing performance programs.

Laura Yates added that she thought the intention should be to require standard classes that are

taken by supervisors, both new and old, so that supervisors have the tools to do their jobs.

Stacey felt that we should state that since the University is creating learning opportunities, we

encourage employees to participate in those opportunities.

Kathleen also commented that we don’t want employees to be penalized for participating in any

learning opportunities.

Tirzah agreed that the performance program language should be removed because it could be

misinterpreted and that weakens what we are trying to accomplish. We need to look for other

ways to state our position.

Cherie Williams added that the first paragraph of the resolution could simply be restated to say:

”The University at Buffalo encourages university leadership to provide learning opportunities for

their staff”. Stacey added that the PSS also encourage staff to participate on these learning

opportunities. Cherie stated that the leadership training program has already been created but

is not being utilized. This could be a very beneficial program for the university if it was

embraced by senior leadership.

Pam Rose felt that employee training and learning expectations should be stated in a job

description so that any new hires would be expected to become life long learners while they are

employed by the university. She felt this might evoke a culture change at the university.

David added that the support for training needs to come from the top otherwise it won’t become

part of the culture.

Nancy Battaglia agreed that we should move the first paragraph of the resolved section to the

“whereas” section and state that the “University at Buffalo encourages all employees to have a

performance program”. The rest of the resolved section was broad enough in scope. She said

the last paragraph should include yearly employee evaluations in the measurement terms.

Individual departments can then determine if they use performance evaluation as a means of

measuring this.

Leslie McCain said that we want to see training and involvement at the university. In some

areas, employees are discouraged or reprimanded for participation. This resolution is focusing

on training and she would like to include wording that promotes learning and broader

involvement in the mission of the institution. PSS helps to provide the global context of what is

happening at the university. Ann Marie Landel added that this was critical in light of the huge IT

transformation that is occurring on campus.

Bill asked how leadership development programs tie in with employee training, what the intent

was for asking for a leadership development program, and what the program would look like.

Nancy replied that it was not necessary to elaborate on what the program would look like. The

resolution already states the expectations and the leadership development should address

problems that are issues (i.e. lack of employee training) as part of the program itself. She felt

that we should also include participation ratios as part of the metrics that would be used to

measure the learning climate.

Laura suggested using learning development plans for employees and opting to include these in

an employee’s performance program package.

John Beltrami said that what we are trying to do is to change a culture at the university and

cultural changes cannot be legislated. Without including expectations of senior leadership and

accountability from the very top, there is no point of the resolution.

Janiece stated that we should retain the leadership development language as part of the

resolution.

Stacey felt we should state that management participate in the established leadership

development program on campus.

Nancy thought we might include a statement that encourages Human Resources to continue

building programs that promote fairness and equity for the staff.

Jason Parker felt we should name-check the leadership development program and include the

specifics in the resolution.

Janiece concluded the discussion by saying that the resolution will be taken back to the Policy

and Governance Committee with the Executive Committee’s input and they can rework the

resolution. It will then be brought back to the Executive Committee meeting on February 12,

2009 for review.

5. Old Business

Bill Coles reported that there was a little more than $11,000.00 to-date promised for this year’s

Wellness Awareness Day. Bill submitted a grant proposal to CSEA and will also apply for a

UUP grant. He is also requesting funding from Independent Health. At this point he was unsure

how many community organizations had contributed the $30.00 event fee. The information

regarding the event will be placed on the PSS website very soon. Save-the-date postcards and

the brochures will be mailed out in the near future and he will coordinate the mailings with

Nancy Battgalia’s office. Nancy has offered the services of her student staff to address the

postcards and brochures with mailing labels.

6. Guest Speakers: Robert Shibley and Bradshaw Hovey – Update on Master Planning

Process

Bob began his presentation by saying that mechanically we were in the final act of a four act

play. The presentation on November 19, 2008 presented material which was initially shown on

April 22, 2008 at the Campus Concepts meeting. That presentation showcased the ideas that

had been created for each of the three campuses that would give each campus a concrete

identity. The North Campus would be home to Arts and Sciences, Management and

Engineering. The South Campus would house the professional schools and be involved in civic

engagement. The Downtown Campus would be our Health Center. At this point, even though

the ideas originated with the Deans and Vice Presidents, they needed to be tested again to see

if these ideas had settled in. They came back after review still intact. Bob continued that we will

start with a major investment downtown with the Clinical Translation Research Center and a

biosciences incubator which will be combined with a vascular facility from Kaleida. This will give

us a fully integrated first step into the Downtown Campus in addition to a new Educational

Opportunity Center and the UB Gateway in the M. Wile building. All of these are funded, as is

Kapoor Hall and some of the smaller maintenance projects on the South Campus. There are

funds for the engineering building and plans to structure the financing of the new residential

housing south of the Ellicott Complex. UB is spending close to $500M in phase one. Questions

have been raised about how UB can do this given the current economic conditions. Bob stated

that you cannot define the vision of the university in any one budget year. The university put a

strong vision forward and even in lean years UB can still move ahead. Much of the plan, as

much as 40-50%, could fund itself. For example, the commercial venture known as the

Commons sits at the million dollar corner of the North Campus. There are plans to move this to

a new building on the Furnas Lot and then build a residential and classroom facility on top of it.

With cooperation from the Bookstore and First Amherst, who is the lease holder at the

Commons, that facility could be upgraded as it is built and UB could begin to build a “Main

Street” to the Ellicott Complex. The existing Commons and Bookstore would be torn down in

order to build a conference center, a boutique type hotel and possibly a faculty club and these

would finance themselves. We could increase the number of events held on campus and one

can begin to see how UB would be able to compete with other institutions that have these types

of facilities. A professional education center on the South Campus with residential capacity

gives that campus a heart-of-the-campus location and this could be financed on its own. UB will

be building over the next 3-4 years on state dollars that have already been committed to us.

Currently we are at draft review and are about ready to go through the legal reviews on the plan.

By the end of spring we should have a final plan. The whole process of participation has been

spectacular with the number of people who have participated and given their ideas and

feedback. They have been working with dozens of small subject-area specialists across the

campus, fine tuning the plan.

They are still working with the same set of six guiding principles with academic excellence as

the primary reason for being. The idea of three strong campus centers that are all connected

and the ability to forge improved relations with the city of Buffalo, Town of Amherst and the

County of Erie, have helped to shape and direct the plan and make us mindful that we are

prudent stewards of the university’s resources. If you don’t need it, don’t build it. If it makes UB

more competitive with recruitment, retention and professional performance through facilities,

then we should build it. Environmental stewardship is another key component and we can be

proud of the environmental planks in the plan. Finally, it is just not enough to build state-

standard structures that are not attractive. These don’t attract potential students or leave a

lasting identity with faculty or staff. If the plan is flexible, it can promote academic excellence

and good quality of life, while staying open to program variations and phase of overtime. On an

annual basis and every five years the plan will be reviewed to make sure it’s on track. There

are a whole set of key ideas and principles that are going to drive this plan even within the

flexible phasing and framework.

The learning landscape, ecological design, campus character and environmental stewardship

are all key elements that influenced this plan. Transportation is key to the plan and we must

make sure the physical plan supports our mission as a university. Bob displayed core diagrams

of the plan on a PowerPoint presentation and spoke about calming traffic, both vehicular and

pedestrian, on the North Campus. The vehicle for doing this is slightly controversial until one

looks at the life safety statistics. The use of small round-abouts calm and slow traffic

significantly and save lives. If you can save more lives by using a certain type of intersection

and you don’t do it, you are liable. In some ways safety drives a strategy of traffic calming and

pedestrianizing of this racetrack known as the Audubon Parkway. Bradshaw added that this will

also facilitate the movement of traffic through the intersections because people won’t be sitting

at a traffic light and so we’ll see less pollution generated. The distances are also being

shortened to make it more efficient to drive from one area of the campus to another. Bob

continued that Putnam Way may be removed and other ways to service the buildings will be

found to make this a pedestrian concourse that is comfortable and easy to navigate. David

Ballard asked how deliveries would be handled if we do away with vehicle traffic on Putnam

Way. Bob replied that there will be inserts into the spine and fingers will be built off of those.

Bradshaw commented that a very detailed diagram is available for viewing on the main planning

website or on the Flicker site under Phase III. It has been worked out for every building and

every loading dock.

Mary Pitts asked if the university was intending to stabilize the perimeter of the South Campus

and whether the University would invest in housing in that area. Bob replied that it is a great

concern for all three campus centers. UB has to look at the perimeters of each campus. It is

difficult to get the consultants to draw things off campus because it is not UB’s property.

Suggestions will be made so see if we can improve this. A series of meetings is occurring in

January that are deigned to develop strategies that will put the University and a few of our local

foundations, particularly the Gloria Parks and University Heights housing contingents, into the

business of becoming a community development corporation and then doing some

development. There are good examples of how this can work, although it tends to work better

in a stable, growing economy.

Kat Kielar inquired if the principle of eminent domain could play a part here. Bob indicated that

local governments are afraid of it as it is a very aggressive action. It is a good and useful

planning tool, but the city of Buffalo has not exercised this option since the subway was built.

Jason Parker wanted to know how much money had been set aside to refurbish the South

Campus once the Downtown Campus is built. Bob replied that the proposal involves the

demolition of Carey-Sherman-Farber as well as the demolition of Kimball Hall and other

temporary structures like Diefendorf Annex. The plan is to build a new Law School and a new

School of Social Work. We expect to use our buildings and facilities more efficiently and to

increase the new building capacity. If we build a new Medical School downtown within ten

years and also move the Nursing program down there, we will have the ability to tear down

Carey-Sherman-Farber. Dental Medicine and Pharmacy will stay at the South Campus for a

long time because both have received significant financial investments and they won’t get to the

end of their useful life for a while. UB will have to amortize these projects. Pharmacy may not

go downtown for thirty years and no one knows what pharmacy education will look like in thirty

years.

Bob also spoke about what will be happening with the perimeter of the North Campus. The

naturalization around the perimeter will increase and move inward. The landscape will have

more vitality to it and it will be about pedestrians and how they move around on campus.

Precinct identities will be established for the College of Arts and Sciences and we will have to

determine how we integrate these with recreational and outdoor spaces. Residential capacity

will increase as will the variety of living spaces, possibly including senior citizen housing in the

next thirty years.

Kat Kielar asked what was happening with the area around the Ellicott Complex. Bob said that

there will be a new building constructed similar in character to the Ellicott Complex. It will have

one of the first experimental green roofs and will be a LEED Gold building. The construction will

use not only brick but a tile that is manufactured in our region, less than fifty miles away. The

building will host a mix of residential space, classroom and learning spaces, and recreational

areas. It is a far cry from what we have been doing with our residential spaces and it is meant

to last a hundred years. Hopefully it will be a place that people will enjoy and remember. The

first round-about will be constructed there and a new road will lead up to it from Ellicott, saving

thousands of gallons of gasoline for shuttle buses. The chiller lines and round-about will be

constructed first and then the new building will be constructed within the year.

Ann Marie Landel asked where the front of the North Campus would be located. Bob replied

that a campus this large never has a front. The challenge will be in figuring out how it never has

a back. There will be round-abouts coming from Millersport Highway and the 990. UB will have

a more readable landscape and one will be able to arrive on campus from all four points of the

compass.

Bob continued the discussion by noting that the South Campus is in many respects an easier

campus to reclaim. Respect for the quads and the layout that E.B. Green gave us are

foundations for this. There will be redistricting around the center quads and a green “finger” in

the grand lawn that E.B. Green envisioned. Bob would like to see housing and commercial

buildings as transit oriented development and create student housing above it. Designers are

including a professional education center, a new Law School and a new School of Social Work.

Architecture and Planning will remain but will be given a coherent home. New student housing

will be built and four existing dormitory structures will be torn down in 2010. The south Ellicott

project should be the replacement housing for the demolished structures on South. The current

issue with the South Campus housing has to do with fire alarm systems and they are still

discussing what they could do to buy more time. Bradshaw added that the University’s

aspiration is to house more students on campus than off where students can be part of campus

life and can benefit from student support services from Student Affairs. Bob said that the time

frame for the South campus depends on how soon the State realizes the opportunity that UB’s

growth represents for the economic success of WNY. If the State realizes the importance of

this, things could move quickly.

Bob continued that we have the least amount of detail for the Downtown Campus because we

don’t own the land. We do have a strategy to co-locate with our colleagues, particularly Roswell

and Kaleida, who have land and are happy to see UB join them. Nursing and the Medical

School would come first; Public Health and the professions would follow. Dental Medicine and

Pharmacy would join the Downtown Campus as their current and new facilities reach the end of

their useful life. The academic health center would occupy 2.6M gross square feet of the

Downtown Campus. This campus could grow to 4.1M gross square feet by providing additional

space for residential living, library-support spaces, and other essential services. New

construction would account for 2.5M gross square feet of this space. Kaleida and Roswell both

have build out plans and we need to figure out how all three entities can share support services

and space. There are many ways to reassemble programs to get shared services and support.

At this point in time we are not sure what the 21

century library looks like. The current

literature says it is a distributed model not a centralized one and that it is in a mixed-use

environment. In the short-term on the North Campus, we envision significant improvements to

Capen and Lockwood as library facilities. The fourth phase of the “Heart of the Campus” project

includes a new library building on the North Campus.

Bob addressed questions that were posed by committee members. Tirzah Evege-Thompson

asked how the plan accommodated future needs of the university and used the example of a

virtual university as opposed to a brick and mortar one. Bob responded that UB relies on the

progression of the virtual campus environment to support the idea of three campus centers

seamlessly connected. Videoconferencing, on-line classes and other technologies all play a

part in this. The notion that UB would be virtual in the way Phoenix University is virtual, is not

part of the thinking right now. UB thinks that place matters. Our campuses have to be really

great places for our institution to be competitive in the 21

century. Bradshaw added that

telecommuting does play a part when you look at it from an environmental stewardship

perspective. However, many people still have jobs where they need to meet people face-to-

face. This also applies to students. Tirzah replied that she also thinks of a virtual campus as

being attractive and beneficial to an international population of students. Bob responded that

there was a task force put together by Elias Eldayrie that looked at contemporary classroom

environments of the future that draws heavily on the international core of students.

Several committee members asked Bob to address the parking issue on campus. Bob stated

that we are years away from figuring out how to build a parking a garage in terms of financing.

There is a high cost to free parking. There might be ways in each of the state funding

allocations to buy down some of the parking debt. We need to figure out how to allocate

parking using our perimeter strategies. If you come to campus in a single use vehicle, parking

will be the least convenient and incrementally more convenient as you increase the number of

occupants in the vehicle. We may need some ability to sell spaces in a parking garage to help

pay for this demand. We should be making a strong distinction between staff parking and

access requirements and student parking and access requirements. You cannot take away

parking from students without substituting the NFTA or rail line access. Finding ways to make

the North Campus a hub instead of an end destination would change the commute time to the

airport or the Galleria Mall. President Simpson is having conversations with each of the NFTA

Commissioners to find ways to fix transportation problems for UB that can also be beneficial for

the rest of the region. We need to improve the north-south route and we know we need

alternative methods of transportation. The parking garages that will be built will be designed

looking forward to the types of technology they will be expected to support. We need to solve

the problem of connecting rapid transit from the Downtown Campus to the North Campus as

well.

Janiece asked whether demolishing buildings was good environmental stewardship. Bob replied

that this is a difficult issue. Ultimately one has to say that you don’t build buildings to save

energy, you build them to serve a function and achieve a mission and you do this with as light of

a touch as you can. UB has to become a more competitive institution and we are not going to

do this by retaining buildings like Carey-Farber-Sherman or Kimball Tower. The plan is that we

can build to be competitive while maintaining an eye to the stewardship issue.

Leslie McCain asked when the CFTA would connect to the spine. Bob said that the plan

envisions indoor and outdoor spaces connecting with each other giving us a seamless

connection throughout the campus. This will happen incrementally as each building is erected.

7. Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m.