LFSA Exec - Minutes -May 15, 2020

LIBRARY FACULTY-STAFF ASSEMBLY (LFSA)

GENERAL MEETING NOTES

May 15th, 2020

Executive Board

• Betsaida Reyes - LFA Chair

• Paul Thomas – LSA Chair

• Brian Rosenblum – LFA Vice-Chair

• Chris Bohling – LSA Vice-Chair

• Erin Wolfe – LFA Secretary

• Scott Cossel – LSA Secretary

Call to order:

10:15am - Call to order by Betsaida Reyes – quorum met with 47 attendees

Introductions of new colleagues

• Jim Korneman – Anschutz Night and Weekend supervisor

• N. Kivilcim Yavuz – Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher

• Molly Herring – Archivist Associate

Approval of fall LFSA general assembly minutes

• Motion to approve minutes (Marianne Reed) – seconded (Deborah Dandridge) – approved

• Correction to 12/2020 LFSA general assembly meeting minutes – Marianne Reed rather than Marianne Baker

Dean Smith’s Remarks

• Town Halls replaced standard officer hours since March. Dean would like to start holding office hours again along with the Town Halls. Gabriela Mora will send out a sign-up list link for office hours on Wednesday, May 20th.

• Call for faculty and staff award nominations will go out next week. Please consider nominating someone.

• Re-entry and re-opening plans

o AD’s are in the processing of collecting names of employees the Libraries may invite to return to work. For the time being, if working remotely is working for you, plan to keep doing it for the foreseeable future.

o First phase: a limited number of people will need to be on-site. The Libraries will not force anyone who is uncomfortable returning on-site. To the best of our ability, the Libraries will not force high-risk people come back in the near future. Health and safety are the priority. Dean Smith is in contact with campus operations and requested that they come through Watson Library and do a walkthrough to protect everyone’s health. They will provide advice on steps being taken in the research buildings (e.g. one person per elevator at a time; maintaining social distance; etc.)

o June 8th is the earliest date the Libraries will move towards re-entry. This will, of course, also take state and county statements into consideration.

o Still expect that a limited number of people will be on-site and the rest working remotely for some time.

• Budget and job security

o Best case scenario for budget shortfall is $50 million. Total shortfall also depends largely on enrollment for the fall.

o There is currently nothing definitive about how to respond. There will be a letter going to the deans about options from the Provost.

▪ First step is to keep enrollment up

▪ Second is to look at reserves and cut costs

▪ Last option is to look at salaries and furloughs

o Not sure what furlough program or details about salary cuts would look like if implemented.

• Questions:

o Miloche Kottman – if furloughs happen, will they be during the summer or fall? Dean Smith is not sure. Dean is concerned about timing, particularly the disruption of the process of faculty needing to prep for in-person, online, or hybrid classes. We should

know more soon but fall is more likely. Fall enrollment is also a factor. The Provost is clear that there’s no need to solve a number bigger than it needs to be and thus is deliberately waiting; see what the federal government does; what the state does.

o Ann Snow – if staff are furloughed, we they still retain health insurance? Dean Smith stated one value of furloughs is to keep health benefits. However, some universities have ceased contributing to retirement. There are currently no furlough lists and potential furloughs will most likely be across the board (or a pay cut). Might also be graduated to impact higher paid employees.

o Marianne Reed – do we have a budget number for student employees next year? Dean Smith has not been told he needs to reduce the student employee budget but that may need to happen. The Libraries will hire, but perhaps significantly fewer.

o Betsaida Reyes – will the collections budget be reduced given the fiscal challenges? Dean Smith stated Shannon Royer was given a number for the collections budget but not sure if that budget will require cuts. The current number is actually slightly higher than in recent years in recognition by the campus that the collections budget is underfunded. Dean Smith approached the new Provost about fixing the collections budget in small increments. In addition, the Provost is reviewing academic and administrative costs with an outside firm. To date, they are not looking at the Library, but they know we are underfunded.

▪ Betsaida Reyes reminds everyone that the outside study is funded by

endowment, not the academic budget.

▪ Dean Smith states the Provost has always planned to do this review.

o Rebecca Orozco – if people are furloughed, will they be potentially be paid back in the future? Dean Smith stated his percentage of the salary cut is for six months, the Dean’s original salary returns if all goes well. However, the lost salary during the cut will never return, except perhaps with future raises.

Report by Ad Hoc committee on governance website and SharePoint

• Sara Morris – task force formed to investigate why governance websites were disorderly, the role of SharePoint, and to propose a solution.

• Committee members are Ann Snow, Sarah Goodwin Thiel, Matt Torres and Sara Morris

• SharePoint was never sanctioned by the Libraries and governance committees chose between CMS and SharePoint to post content.

• The Committee suggestion to the LFSA Executive Board is to shut down SharePoint except when the functionality of SharePoint is needed.

o The University Archives doesn’t work with SharePoint, thus requiring all content to be sent to the Archives [manually?]

o Calendars should stay on SharePoint, or anything which needs to stay behind a firewall.

o Otherwise the ad hoc committee encourages LFSA executive board to implement some sort of control on the website (e.g. a webmaster, etc.)

• There is lots of content missing from the past two years. Committee suggests checking your inventory, even if you were not a committee secretary, to see if you have any relevant documents. There is a link in the file attached to this meeting invitation through which one can post these documents for a new web master.

List of open positions for LFSA committees

• Nominating Balloting Committee: no list of appointed positions yet. Committee needs a slate of candidates for elections; hopefully by Friday, May 22nd. Please email if interested.

• Jon Giullian sent a message to KULIB-L listserv for LFA members regarding a ballot for PTR criteria and procedures. Please send in ballots.

• Questions

o Deborah Dandridge – is there a list of faculty and staff by status so that we can support others along with nominating ourselves? Faculty list exists (by rank) on SharePoint. Staff list exists on SharePoint as well, and Mike Broadwell might have a current list of staff if needed.

o Brian Rosenblum stated there might also be a list of faculty who previously served which might be useful so that no one is overburdened (i.e. the same people won’t

continuously be asked to serve).

Reports from Governance committees

• CRSA

o LRF funding for 17 awards by 13 applicants; for a total of $5,930

o GRF funding for 2 applicants; for a total of $6,200

o More information on the awards will soon be available on the CRSA page

o There will be four available seats on CRSA next fiscal year

o Questions:

▪ Marianne Reed – with the travel restrictions, have any funds come back? Scott Cossel stated only one request processed so far by Shannon Royer. Some

people confirmed they were not able to use their funds.

▪ Sara Morris – if some didn’t use their funding, will that funding be added to next year’s allotment? Shannon Royer stated that if some allocations were not used by June, usually the funding is gone, but there are case-by-case circumstances. Please speak to Shannon as needed.

▪ Andi Back encourages LFSA Nominating and Balloting Committee to send out ballots soon. Sara Morris stated there are deadlines in the Code.

• No other committee reports

• Brian Moss – staff senate

o Officers elected for coming school year

o Professional Development Committee originally stopped accepting applications for funds when the University canceled all travel, but they recently reopened applications so USS and UPS can request funding for virtual conferences.

o Last year’s staff senate president is continuing push to adjust the makeup of the University Senate; to be more equitable in terms of having faculty, staff, and student representation. Per current code, faculty have about 60% of the representatives, with students and staff each having 20% representation despite larger population of each versus faculty.

• John Giullian – faculty senate

o Elections completed

o Status of tuition assistance is unknown at this point but assumes it may still be available; administration wants to keep this, but financial situation may change that stance. No discussions to date.

New business

• Chris Bohling reminds LSA that Staff Develop Month will be in June over Zoom. LSA is currently putting this together.

• Gabriela Mora – sending out an email for open office hours with Dean Smith. Six spaces; fifteen minutes each. Email Gabriela if interested.

• Chris Bohling (acting as an ex-officio staff member on the University Senate Committee on Libraries) – concerns amongst the Committee about continued access to periodicals and about making them available and easy to access. Committee supportive of open-access.