Minutes for August 12, 2024

UC members present: Bernard-Donals, Jones (chair pro tem), Kendall, Stein

Others present: Michelle Felber, Julie Scharm, Jenny Skibba, Jen Young

Chair pro tem Jones called the meeting to order at 1:03 pm.

The minutes from July 22, 2024, meeting were approved by automatic consent.

Rob Cramer, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration, reported that the blended fringe rate used in Workday would be the rates negotiated for grants and contracts. Rates will still differ by employee type but will be consistent across funding types. They plan to add money to 101 budgets to cover fringe costs.

The Temin Lakeshore Path study is underway looking at the path between Limnology and heading west to the boathouse and beyond. There are growing concerns about pedestrian/bike conflict. There also concerns about erosion. They have started collecting feedback and will be continuing that during the fall. The study will wrap up in December with a report in early 2025.

There are approximately 1300 people on the waiting list for Eagle Heights. Regarding the issue of housing for international students who may receive late visa approval, Vice Chancellor Cramer indicated they were going to work with departments to better understand how this happens and look for solutions both on campus and off campus.

In regards to the new budget approach, the graduate tuition task force has provided their report. They are planning to put together shadow budgets in early to mid-fall.

Patrick Sheehan and Karen Massetti-Moran from the Office of Human Resources discussed plans for Workday implementation in July 2025 for human resources, finance and research administration. Planning for staff will be in March 2025 through go live. Training will be available in a variety of ways. They are also working on cut over planning. 

Paul Seitz and Haley Rogers from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration provided quantitative data from the administrative quality satisfaction survey. The response rate was 14% with a 71% completion rate. This is a decline in response rate, but increase in completion rate over las time.

Satisfaction in research administration declined with other areas increasing and no change in facilities from the 2022 survey. Generally, employees reported greater satisfaction with local services than central. Faculty had significant differences from staff in their satisfaction in facilities, finance, HR, IT and general administration.

For the two custom questions, one centered on communications and various administrative areas. About 40-60% of people reported receiving communications about most areas. The lowest were hostile and intimidating behavior, facilities and maintenance and mobility and accessibility. The second question was about administrative processes impacting success. Faculty reported that travel reimbursement, travel planning and procurement had the most negative impact on their primary work responsibilities (44-53%).

Overall the survey highlighted areas for opportunities including more timely and clear communications about benefits, process improvements on facilities work orders and maintenance and renovation, increased communication about large scale initiatives and others. 

Jones adjourned the meeting at 2:53 pm.

Minutes submitted by Heather Daniels, secretary of the faculty