Department Heads’ Retreat – Booster’s aren’t going to give for academics.

Financial Update – Jamie Moffitt

Gives us a snap shot of where we are today. Will run through four main topics to give you a sense of the U’s finances. She will run through several slides that are available on the Provost’s website found here: http://provost.uoregon.edu/sites/provost.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/u3/Moffitt%20-%20Financial.pdf

Overview – UO Budget Structure

Our budget is just under $800 million.

Two main pots of funds:

Just under half of the budget is in the E&G funds (tuition revenue, state appropriation, F&A return (from federal grants), Overhead revenue (from auxiliary and service centers), Fee revenue, interest earnings. All this funds the School and College budgets; Central Admin; Institutional Expenses

Other half of funds come from “other funds”: Grants and contracts, auxiliary, service center revenue, restricted gifts Funds: grants & contracts, plant funds, Auxiliary & service centers

Financial Update – end of FY13

Where did we end the year in the E&G? We’re supposed to keep the funds in 5-15% of revenue. This makes sense if you get reliable money from the state – the state wants to make sure that you’re using the funds and not holding on to them. Five years ago we were below this amount, but we’ve been growing and now we have nearly 15% of the funds in balance. However, don’t get too optimistic. This increase of funds is caused by the increase in students. We have not yet created the human and capital resources to support all those students. So this money does not indicate that we’re in great shape and will continue to be so. Note that we’ll be spending lots of money on space and faculty so those fund balances will reduce.

E&G Carry Forward balance: where are these monies located? Since 2009, we have pushed more money out from central administration to the colleges.

We now will re-finance the university. We’ll issue revenue bonds. the rating folks will be very interested in our “unrestricted fund assets” which means how much money we can access in case of emergency. Currently, the U has over $100M in UFA (up from $30M since 2009). These monies are one-time funds, they’re not ongoing.

And think of these monies as emergency funds – we keep them in case of a flood or fire or other disaster. In 2009, the UNA could keep us going for 2.5 weeks. now our UFA could keep us going for 7.0 weeks. Compare ourselves not to our comparator schools but to other flagship schools around the country, the average is 12 weeks. So, we’re in much better shape that we were a few years ago but below average for other flagship schools.

Major recurring sources of operating funds. The legislation has capped our tuition raises at 3.5% for FY14 and 15. Non-resident tuition is increasingly important to the UO.

State Appropriations: Early projection: 1.1% increase in FY14 and 3.0% increase in FY15 (3.0%/4.8% with buy down).

F&A Return: research funds: dropped $1.5M

How much new funding can we expect? Perhaps 2-3% per year.

Key issues Going Forward:

Salary increase funding in the context of available revenue. This is a real priority for us but a real challenge for us when you look at our situation.

Human and capital resources to accommodate the rising student population. Student population for FY14 just about the same as FY13. Since 2008, the student/faculty ratio has dropped from 31.74 to 34.39. In 2000, we were at 27.9 (with 166 TTF). So, we’ve hired several TTF but we haven’t kept up with the rise in students. We average adding 15 faculty/year, but ‘cuz of the retirements or people leaving teh UO we have to hire about 30 faculty per year just to keep even. We will have to add about 60 faculty this year to keep our student/faculty ratio even.

Classroom Infrastructure:

We need about 2000 more seats for the students. We will renovate with classrooms with about 1000 seats in the center of campus. Are also other physical issues (e.g., wireless network) but aren’t going to go into all that at this time.

Key Initiatives to find Savings: Overhead rate project; Int’l Exchange program; Int’l student fee’ Summer session tuition. [Notably, does not mention any places for saving among administration.]

We consciously decided to stabilize our student population. How large should the student population be long-term. We’re looking to change the academic budget model. We want to be able to strategically invest across campus (I’ve no idea what that means). We will take over certain functions, e.g., Treasury, debt management, audit.

Question: how does our faculty/student ratio compare to other AAU?

A: we looked at admin, staff, and faculty average ratios across the AAU. We have considerably lower admin and staff than other AAU average, and also lower faculty though not as much lower as admin and classified staff.

Brad Shelton (VP and vice-Provost) gets up and answers: For student/TTF ratios, we’re at about 35, while the AA is around 25. The gap is much smaller if you consider NTTF. Also, our NTTF to TTF ratio is about average.

Q: could we carry forward more than 5-15% if the state allowed us to?

A: The more important figure to look at than the E&G is the total unrestricted funds, which we can use in case of emergency.

Strategic Planning

Michael Gottfredson. Exciting time for the University because the governor will sign to create a new board for the U. Confirmation hearings will commence for the board, confirmation of the board on Wednesday. Legislative Bill 31-20 sets up the board, which will serve as a coordinating board. We got pretty much everything that we asked for an needed in the bill. It’s a very good bill. We’re a legal entity, ownership of property, ability to borrow, unencumbered management, lack of interference by the state. Also, relatively light coordinating functions by the coordinating commission (HECC) – we don’t want to trade cumbersome oversight from the state for overbearing, cumbersome oversight by the HEC.

We have a pretty decent state budget with a modest increase in funding. Some general obligation bond funds. Major renovation at Straub(?) building. New science building. Approval to use student fees for the EMU renovation; for some residence hall construction and renovation; nearly $1 million for the Museum of Natural History.

Have very good enrollment demand (24k applications), which is critical for our finances. We are still too dependent on non-resident student tuition; we want to expand our portfolio so that we don’t have so many eggs in that basket.

We’re in the “quiet phase” of a fund-raising drive. In reality, we’re in campaign mode all the time, but we’ll soon set the targets and the goals, which serves a PR function. Our endowment is a bit on the weak side. We want not only to raise funds but also to restructure our finances and budgets. (Used the word “aggressive” and “aggressively” several times on this subject.)

Our independence: This is a moment of “great importance” for UO; is a moment of national importance. Will work aggressively with fundraising and re-financing strategies in connection with our academic mission. We’ll need to set priorities and to be strategic.

We know what are our principal needs:

• Competitive salaries to attract and retain faculty. Working hard on this in collective bargaining. (This was the first “need” he mentioned.)

• We need more graduate student support. Need to be able to attract and excel with grad students.

• Need more faculty. We’re behind comparators in terms of faculty numbers.

• Need more financial support for our students.

• Space needs and issues – needs to be in line with our strategic priorities.

We need to work on all of this “in a strategic way.” Need to ensure that our budget model is in line with these priorities. There’s been a lot of talk about how the budget model fits with the university’s mission, and there’s work to be done there. Operating budgets and philanthropic requests need to be in line with these strategies.

We’re talking with our donor base about these needs and strategies. We also need to have realistic expectations about what we can accomplish. Need to move aggressively towards the strategic financing. Already been a lot of work and progress to create infrastructure and support for fundraising.

The biographies of the board members are available. They are all great, all rock stars.

Scott introduction: we can’t talk about all the details, because negotiations are still in progress, but both sides are doing very well and in good faith.

[10 minute pause as they can’t get their documents to come up on the screen.]

Doug Blandy:

We’ve been meeting throughout the summer, resolution coming soon. Academic Affairs thinking more about what the new contract will mean across the campus. Here is a brief summary of a memo of understanding, with points of interest to department heads. Will be lots of changes, particular for the career NTTF.

Barbara Altman:

Huge amounts of details in the CBA, won’t go into all of it here, give mostly overview. Will be big changes in campus culture from this CBA, particularly for hiring and keeping NTTF. You’ll really have to pay attention.

The memo of understanding means changes for adjunct and NTTF. Anybody who’s been here for 3 years or more, you’ll need to think about whether to advance them or if there’s a good reason to keep them in the adjunct position. Once the CBA is in place, you’ll need to think about changing the adjuncts into career positions. Their years of service will count towards promotion. Lots of people will get reclassified, lots coming up for promotion. There are also the new categories for Senior Instructor level II to keep in mind.

Doug:

You’ll need to move quickly once the CBA is in place.

Contracts: No longer will be “timely notice.” In the early spring of the last year of their contract, they need to know whether they’ll get an extended contract. If you don’t notify them, you’ll have to pay them money for the time lost. Need to give the NTTF written instruction on their duties and expectations.

Article X: professional responsibilities. Faculty in both TTF and NTTF in each department will devise a statement of professional responsibilities: course load, service expectations, research, process for determining faculty needs when assigning work load. There will be an increased role for NTTF in departmental governance.

Barbara:

Will improve having meaningful reviews. In the final year, will need to be a review that will open possibilities or close possibilities. We need to get in the habit of having real, meaningful possibilities, including conversations about the future direction of the position. Need to let people know what you want from them and what their future is in the department. We need to make sure that we’re re-hiring people for conscientious reasons, and not just letting the hard conversations slide. We need to change teh way that we talk with each other, and bring in other members of the department into the conversation.

Doug:

If a NTTF has worked at 0.4 FTE for three years, is eligible for promotion. There is no longer an up and out for career NTTF, except for librarians.

Question:

What about review conversation for the people we hire to teach one or two courses a year?

Barbara:

Yes, you’ll let them know how they’re doing in the job. And yes, we’re opening up the definition of career NTTF, and could include people hired for less than 0.5 FTE. We’ve been revising NTTF rules since 2007, and the website is currently well out of synch with our current practices. Once the CBA is in place, we’ll be able to do a full update of what the website says. The CBA will provide a lot of clarity about what we are supposed to do. I’m happy to talk with you individually or your unit to clarify. This year will be a difficult transition, but really important changes.

Q: Sounds like our jobs as department heads are about to get harder.

Barbara:

In some ways, your job will get easier as we clarify what you’re supposed to do. Also, there will be more involvement from more people in your department.

Doug:

The tenure process will not undergo much change.

Article 20: salary. Faculty in TTF and NTTF will need to develop criteria for determining work load and raises. Develop criteria to determine merit rewards. Very clear language for TTF and NTTF must have mailbox, voicemail, office space, access to computer equipment, space to meet with students. Article 45: summer session. Each department works out its rules on summer session, what will be taught and compensation.

Article 43: internal governance: Each unit generates its own written internal rules.

Barbara:

Going back to Anita’s question: Can also keep a position as an adjunct, if for pedagogical reasons. Anita: will have really have to write a review for everybody? Depends on that person’s contract. Looks like there will be fewer adjuncts in the future

Doug: There will be few adjuncts. There’s a rule, something like if a course taught by an adjunct and is repeated three years, should be regularized and moved to career NTTF or TTF.

Q: (Math):

Will we have NTTF devising professional responsibilities for TTF?

Barbara: not clear.

Doug: We’ve tried to maintain as much local autonomy as possible. Different units can work that out on their own.

Scott:

Every unit needs to have input in a mechanism for responsibilities. The provost will have oversight.

Q: will faculty without research responsibilities be able to devise duties for faculty with research responsibilities.

Scott: I hope not. Different departments will devise different mechanisms.

Question from an NTTF heavy department:

Due to budget restraints and raises: we may need to reduce the number of NTTF we have.

Barbara:

Tes, you may have to reduce the number of adjuncts.

Q: Article 20 talks about merit raises based on “scholarship and research”. Are those terms synonymous?

Doug: There are different definitions across campus about what comprises scholarship and research.

Barbara: different fields retain different terms and meaning, and we’re trying to maintain that flexibility.

Q: Will CBA also accommodate new work for new hiring of NTTFs?

A: Don’t recall any language about that in the CBA.

Q: Do department heads continue to make hiring decisions? Or by committee?

A: Department heads maintain that responsibility.

Q: Sounds like there’s a lot of local autonomy. But what are the standards or consistency that we need to maintain?

Doug: Once we start to implement the CBA, we’ll figure out the consistency. Barbara: we’ll determine some consistency for contract types and lengths, and you’ll be able to determine what of those works best for you.

Barbara: looking forward to working with each of you, especially on the NTTF issues.

Scott:

What happens if we get a bad accreditation review? Can get ugly.

Ken: Departments should assess themselves, ask what goals they want for research and for teaching. Then see if their scholarship and courses actually fit those goals. Sometimes what you find is not only ways to improve teaching, but ways to use resources more efficiently and free up time.

Each fall term, will send to each department a packet: found here: http://provost.uoregon.edu/sites/provost.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/u3/Doxsee%20Ken.pdf

Assessment is by the faculty and for the faculty. We don’t need to send Ken the assessment report each year. He needs to know that we’re doing the assessment, but he doesn’t need a report each year.

The Plan: by winter term: we’re supposed to have learning outcomes for each course. TEP can help to devise these outcomes. All TTF and NTTF needs to identify a few (3 to 6) learning outcomes for each course, and include them in the syllabus. Ken would like to see them. This job done by individual faculty.

By end of fall term: Ken wants a current draft assessment plan. You score the plan and return to Ken. You can use Florida’s assessment plan if you want.

If your current assessment tells you that you need to devise a new plan, Ken wants to know that plan.

We need not only to identify areas for improvement, but actually need to do the improvement. We need this for ourselves and for our external assessments. These assessments will help us at the state level.

Others have rushed into assessment efforts. We’re way behind in terms of learning goals. Virtually all the other institutions have established a large, centralized assessing process. We’re trying to keep this less centralized.

Technology: Melissa Woo

Look at all of campus IT: Has spent the past year collecting information. Had listening tour to hear what folks around campus find frustrating or exciting. Lots of concern from people about faculty and student issues, lack of time. Things that work well: IT support. When people talk about what doesn’t work well, also bring up the same things, such as IT support.

What did we find? People on this campus often run in different directions when we would do better to move in the same direction. We sometimes build new things while our infrastructure is crumbling.

Things we’re focusing on:

• We need to hire the right people.

• Communications very important.

• Let you know when there will be downtimes. Promote greater consistency for UO website – consistency in the way things look and work.

• We need standard practices and policies.

• Can cut down on local autonomy and flavor, but can lead to a lot of efficiency and free you up from worrying about the little things.

• For example: Perhaps setup a standard for calendars or email, so that we can interact more smoothly with others

• We’re looking to make the infrastructure neater, tidier, and more efficient.

• Focus on security, e.g., identity and access management.

• Will be very important for receiving government grants.

• Need more personnel to support or teach faculty how to use technology

• Get more personnel and make sure that they’re helping the faculty as needed.

• where and how are we spending money on technology

• This may lead to some anger and hurt feelings. Central IT has a pretty transparent budget. She wants to look around campus and figure out how to spend money more effectively.

• Wifi needs

• This issue can eat up millions of $ each year if we’re not careful. Students bringing in multiple devices into each classroom. Running into problems of design to accommodate

Hope to create internships for our staff and students. Develop learning outcome goals for students. Working with Eugene to create public wifi broadband, particularly helpful to poor folks.

Work to figure out where to do things from scale. She doesn’t want complete centralization – prefers to allow local IT autonomy.

Q: You have said that there will be changes that will upset people, such as new polices and practices, or new ways of allocating the money. Can you please give examples? What is a new policy or practice that is going to upset me?

Melissa: for example, get standardization on use of calendars or email.

Fund Raising – Mike Andreassen:

What is Advancement? Has to do with external relations. Advancement is Development, or fund raising. Working on efficiency, so that we spend less money. Money goes to two buckets: departments and colleges; central admin (phones, computers, etc.). We have a fairly large team, both here and Eugene and in various cities. HR; Operations team: maintains contacts and builds new contacts. Alumni group. Federal group: Working with federal gov’t has changed: earmarks are out, working with agencies is in. need to devise new ways of gaining federal grants and fellowships.

Last year had the second best development year in UO history: $200M in private gifts. Highest ever academics donations: $85M. About 50% was athletics. Mike thinks that donations should be more like 2/3 academics and 1/3 athletics.

We have more prospects and proposals than ever before. The lion share of our donations come from just 5% of donors. We spend a lot of time and energy on the smaller donors, but they are the future prospects and upon which we will build our future campaigns.

There are 190k UO alumni, but have information on only 90k.

We have increased the number of face-to-face meetings: now up to 5000 people that we meet in person per year, and will increase that.

We need to do better in contacting corporations.

Q: Can we allow our alumni to keep their email address?

Mike: we don’t, but we should.

Melissa Woo: that’s a practice, not a policy. We could work to allow it. Mike: this is a great idea to help students see that they have a lifetime relationship with UO.

We want to help Ducks get jobs: create a network of Ducks who want to hire Ducks; create social media networks, mock job interviews, etc.

Q: Regional versus school/college development officers?

Mike: We are promoting both school and regional officers. There’s always a tension between those teams. When we assess the quality of an officer, we don’t consider just money brought in but also the quality of the visits.

Q: Our department for the first time setup an alumni newsletter, but we had a real hard time getting the list of our alumni. If we had more information we could be more helpful.

Mike: Lots of donors want confidentiality. Our information on donors is often out of date.

Q: we also tried to figure out who are alumni are. So we setup an alumni listserv. We put on this listserv a link to employers, in order to entice alumni to visit the site.

Mike: That’s great. But notice that you now have a database that’s more updated than what central has. That’s not your fault, that’s our fault. But this means that when we want to contact them for an upcoming event, we won’t know how to contact them.

Melissa Woo: Email is for old people. How are you using social media or texting?

Mike: Thinking about using crowd forming. However, we don’t want a self-forming crowd of alumni to give us something that we can’t use or need.

New Dean of the Honors College: What’s the role of high end travel by faculty for fund raising?

Mike: We do travel sometimes. But we don’t have, as often I would like, a faculty member as a part of those trips. We’re starting to build our international fund raising. We have lots of Ducks in Asia, Europe, etc. There’s a fund-raiser now (name?) who is working on international.

Q: Should we tax athletic gifts?

Mike: we’re not going to attract any large funds by taxing athletic gifts. Other big state schools (Michigan, Wisconsin, UC) don’t do it. This could also turn off donors.

Comment: At U X, the faculty were frequently involved in donor events, going to dinners and talks and meetings. I don’t know if that helped increase donations. But it helped faculty to feel more involved with Development and more amenable to help. At UO, when Development says we’re supposed to do something, folks get their backs up and ask, “what’s in it for us?” If faculty were more involved, we might have better relations with Development.

Mike: Yes, exactly. totally agree.

We are hiring new agents. We are working to build more volunteer activity.

In all campaigns on other campuses, the two biggest recipients are athletics or the medical school. We need to move more money to the other parts of campus, and get 2/3 donations to academics.

Q: I’m a huge football plan. But if we succeed in this campaign, get $1.2B and half goes to athletics, what is the next thing you’re going to build? What new building does athletics need?

Q: what’s the downside to taxing the athletic donations? This last year, a 5% tax would have brought $5-6M to academics. What’s the downside? Would it hurt the core mission of teaching/research side to lose some athletic donations?

Mike: People aren’t inspired by this sort of tax or fee. The idea is to get them excited about the UO, then inspire them to give to the academic side. We don’t want to turn off the athletic donor who might become an academic donor.

Comment: Don’t call it a fee or tax, call it an opportunity to help the students.

Mike: we’re building relationships with these people. If a donor doesn’t want to give to something, we don’t want to be in a position to turn down the gift or to aggravate them. We want to get them excited about giving.

Q: What’s your strategy to get academic donations to be a larger percentage?

Mike:

Q: If we assume that most of the big donors give to athletics, it would require a big shift in culture or donor demographics of donors.

Mike: Most of the big donors are to academics. Most schools have one or two big athletic donors. Most of the athletic donors are small donors – people who donate just so that they can get tickets to the games, and they’re not interested in giving anything else to UO.

CRM system and Retention Promotion: VP for Enrollment Management Roger Thompson

Presentation found here: http://provost.uoregon.edu/sites/provost.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/u3/Thompson%20Roger.pdf

Student lifecycle, from prospective student to enrolled student to alumni to donor. We consider donor status as the best measure of alumni satisfaction.

What Affects retention?

Academic and cognitive; Financial; Social

Who is at risk of dropping out?

Look at high school GPA, test scores; low income; first generation

Applied for enrollment after the deadline, etc.

Academic – Admissions Efforts

If you enroll better students, you’re more likely to retain more students. We’re a public institution with a public mission, so we can’t enroll just the students with the best profile. In Admissions, we don’t look at financial status. We consider only academic status, leadership, etc.

We look to build intersections of merit support and financial need. 70% of students who receive merit based aid also have financial aid.

Social Integration

Aside from academic aid and financial aid, need to build social support as soon as students arrive.

What can you do? What are the millennial’s like?

This generation has grown up entirely as VIPs. They have been coddled and treated like they’re really special. They arrive at college thinking that, after college, they will get a great job and start their dream career. However, it’s not like that unfortunately. Many college students will struggle to get jobs straight away, this is because, although they’ve been to college, they don’t have much work experience. This means that most jobs won’t be interested. However, with the help of free resume templates, college graduates will be able to present their skills and experiences in a formal layout which could increase their chances of being employed. These students shouldn’t assume that they will have their dream career straight away.

For in-state students, the family makes a $100k investment for college. For out of state students, the family makes a $200k investment to get their kid through UO.

He recommends that we learn about the milenials and about their parents: they have distinct expectations. 30 years ago, incoming freshman said they come to college in order to become a more educated person. now, freshman say they come to college to: 1) buy a house; 2) get a good job

CRM Introduction:

Constituent Relationship Management

Our goal is to create a lifetime relationship with these people. Track all lifetime interactions; Improve the UO’s image; Personalized communication (make the individual feel important); Make sure that our decisions are data driven (really check in with the students to know what they want and expect); reduce data silos

We need to increase and improve our data

We went “live” on CRM on time and under budget.

The incoming freshman class has the highest GPA, SAT scores, most AP/IB credits

More diverse student body: 26% domestic minority; 10% international. Socioeconomic diversity: Last year we enrolled 403 Pell Grant recipients, this year we’ll enroll 560

Q: Glad that you guys are promoting the university to students, but that’s not my job. Many faculty don’t think it’s their job to sell the university or their departments.

A: I disagree. I think that faculty are selling their discipline to students every day. We’re all selling something. In those introductory courses, I hope that some of those students really get inspired. And they will remember their favorite professors.

Q: what about graduate retention?

A: I don’t know those data well enough. We recruit a lot of our grad students from UO undergrads, and that’s a problem. We should get more of our students from other colleges.

Q: In the School of Ed, most of our students are grad students. And we have to do most of the recruiting ourselves. We could really use help with recruitment. I’m not trained or educated in recruiting, but your office is full of people who really work on these problems. It would be great if you guys had a division that worked on grad students.

A: We can provide you some tools. CRM is a tool that should help with your google contacts sync to keep all of the data centralized in one place. Our charge is primarily around undergraduates, but we’ll be happy to help with graduates.

Q: What about transfer students?

A: Many of our competitors (e.g., LCC), show students how much cheaper it is to do two-years at LCC then two-years at UO rather than do four-years at UO. We’re having a hard time getting the transfer students. We have a problem in which students transfer here from 2 to 3 years in a community college, and by the time they get here they are running out of financial aid.

Scott: how have we improved our data?

A: We’ve improved statistics and regressions, better demographics so that we can reach the student either here or at home. We try to identify the 7% of incoming class that is most at risk. Ask the deans to make a direct contact with some of these students.

Q: on your chart of at risk students, I notice that the non-native speakers aren’t on the chart. Anecdotally, they seem to have problems. Am I wrong?

A: The non-native students tend to do quite well. Of the students who aren’t successful, there’s not a real difference between the domestic and the international student populations.

Q: Can department heads get access to the data on students?

A: Yes, you can get access to the data.

Things you can do to help: get your grades in on time, show up for your office hours. We see the students are are waiting to get into grad or law school or start a job, and are hanging on one grade that still hasn’t come in. Those things make a difference in a student’s memory of the UO.

Sexual Harassment Reporting and Training Initiatives – Jamie Moffitt

We’re now hiring a new HR person. We need to have clear regulations for cases of discrimination.

We’re going to roll out a mandatory, online training session.

We have issues of harassment and discrimination, and we need to create a safe environment in which people can go to report and get help. We have only three staff members who deal with issues of harassment and discrimination, which is not enough for 25k students and 5k employees. The purpose of the training is to help faculty and staff know what to do under certain circumstances.

This training is necessary to meet federal requirements. Also, United Educators, the insurance company that covers us for harassment/discrimination cases, wants us to take this training.

In addition to the program by United Educators, we have another program to provide information specific to the UO.

The program will run 60-90 minutes. Will roll out in October, and you’ll have until spring to finish it. Not required for student workers, more targeted towards permanent faculty and staff.

Q: do GTFs need to take this program?

Jamie: Good question, I don’t know.

Q: How will you ensure that faculty will do the training program?

A: I was afraid I’d get that question. At first we’ll nag you a lot. Hopefully we’ll have only a few recalcitrants, and then will bring out a stick.

Q: Is it training that you will pass or fail? How will you test proficiency on the material?

A: No. I think that if you answer wrong, the program will tell you the correct answer. And then will ask you again.

It would be great to have feedback from you after you have taken the program, so that we know how to improve it.

Comment: Want to reiterate that GTFs should take this program. Not only because they’re in a power relationship, but also because they observe things that they should report, but don’t know how to.

Presentation at: http://provost.uoregon.edu/sites/provost.wc-sites.uoregon.edu/files/u3/Wolf%20Kelly%20payroll.pdf

Let’s discuss payroll. Why important? Some businesses use Fort Collins payroll services to make sure their payoll documents are in order and some decide to keep their books in house. Either way, payroll services are vital in a business.

Employee relations – everybody wants their money on time.

Budget – need to get the payroll money correct.

Audits – we get payroll audits on leave, grants, overtime/furloughs. Also on annual financial statement audits. The audits can be internal or external (from OUS). If you’re reading this and have been looking to find a way to help manage payroll within your business better than before, it may be worth checking out sites like cloudpay.net for a potential solution. Once this is sorted, you’ll have more time to focus on other aspects of your business. Dealing with the financial side of any business is very important.

Regulatory environment: federal, state, local rules.

Top five things to know:

• Pay people if they work, don’t pay people if they don’t work

• FTE percentage is a reflection of hours worked/expected (1.0 FTE = 40 hours/week)

• Nonexempt employees (e.g., classified staff) must keep timesheets of hours worked. Faculty and OAs are exempt (so you can work them into the ground without paying them any extra).

• Nonexempt employees are legally entitled to breaks and a meal period.

• Overtime cannot be traded. Can’t have somebody work 9 hours today and 7 hours tomorrow and call it even. If work 9 hours today, that’s one hour of overtime regardless of what they work tomorrow.

Q: is it a problem if a person works through lunch then leaves early?

A: On occasion, that’s fine. But as a regular thing, that opens us up to liability.

Q: What if the employee requests to work long today so she can leave early tomorrow?

A: not allowed, even if the employee requests. Doing so requires you to pay overtime today and to cut their pay for tomorrow’s shorter hours (or give them leave pay).

If you have questions, ask the payroll coordinator, human resources personnel, etc.

Very short notice to these speakers, we asked these people to talk only just recently.

The UO bargaining rep for SEIU:

We had a negotiating meeting this weekend, still don’t have a contract. Negotiations ongoing. The strike date has been moved from Sept 23 to Sept 30.

From UO’s HR department:

If there is a strike on campus, you will need to inform HR how many of your classified staff who is scheduled to show up each day and how many don’t show up. You just need to provide HR the numbers. However, for payroll purposes you’ll need to track who shows up for work. They don’t need info on OA’s or anybody who is not in the SEIU.

We have an incident reporting form: They have info on appropriate picket locations (can’t picket a building that has a classroom or laboratory).

They will staff a hotline. If you come to work but can’t do some critical function because of missing staff, call us and we can maybe provide you with another worker.

We’ll do a typical debrief with you after the strike.

Q: If we get questions from classified staff who don’t want to participate in the strike, to whom can we direct them?

A: there’s a link on our website

Another speaker (I think from HR): we’ll inform you ahead of time if you aren’t in SEIU and that you’re required to work.

Scott: Faculty and GTFs are required to work during the SEIU strike, and not to observe the picket line.

Dennis Galvan – International Studies

An umbrella organization for lots of int’l groups. The International Studies group is the graduation of the Global Oregon Big Idea.

We’ll host international junior track and field meet in July 2014. At this event, we’ll want to highlight our international research profile.

Andrew Bonamici – Libraries

Doing improvements to Blackboard. Work to ensure we don’t have the bug that brought down the system in finals week of spring 2013.

Encourage faculty to sign into BB this week, to make sure that you’re comfortable with the interface.

LMS: Learning Management System Review

This is an alternative environment. Faculty have been reviewing and discussing with us, want that to continue. Hoping folks will use this stuff in real life UO courses. If you want to try it out, contact Helen Chu.

The BB contract runs through 2015. We’ll have an alternative system available by fall 2015. Not clear whether we’ll keep BB or not: The alternative system may be a new version of BB, or could be an alternative system.

Starting winter term 2014, faculty have the opportunity to start trying a new platform. Will start to bring faculty on board to the new system, offering training sessions in fall 2014. We will run two systems in parallel in 2014-15. Will have the new system fully in place by fall 2015.

Scott: we’re hoping to have lots of faculty try out the new systems this coming year. We hope they won’t just be tech savvy people, but also people who are normal-level users who will give a better sense of the quality and usability of a new system for most users.

Q: Any incentive to entice people to try the new systems?

Scott: we may be able to give some money to people for the extra time it will take? Also arrange for some tech support for the new systems.