Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Michael Abraham, Prince Charles Alexander, Dennis Cecere, Peggy Codding, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Marti Epstein, Rich Grudzinski, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, and Will Silvio.  

Management – Larry Simpson, Jay Kennedy, Bill Whitney, Kari Juusela, Matt Marvuglio, Jeanine Cowan, Amelia Koch, Chris Connors, John Eldert, Stephen Riggs.

1. Jackson opened the meeting, 150 Mass Ave Building Access Project Overview-Mac Hisey. We have an approach that is feasible and a viable. The plan will have two entrances that are accessible at 142 and 150. Mac presented several drawings that showed the project at its end state. There will be several stages – the short-term is immediate ADA access, the drawings show beautiful glass and brick (similar to the drawings of the 160 building) that is more of the end game; first, lets make it ADA compliant. Now there are three elevators, we will add another for four total. The new elevator will be adjacent to the dorm elevators. Alumni Affairs will be moved. 
   
   Mac – we went through 10-12 designs, they are all expensive, and this plan seems to be best for all involved, with the best entrance and flow.
   
   Wendy – an elevator is a good answer, but in the case of a power outage people from the basement and other floors need to get out of the building.
   
   Mac – we will have that issue in any building with more than two floors. We have an ADA consultant that we have been talking to through the entire process and will continue to work with him. The cost will be in the millions.
   
   Stephen – there are smaller areas where we will need to remove a few stairs and put in a ramp.
   
   Mac – we are happy to talk about the financial costs for this project and all other topics. We will be ready to discuss the 2.5 shortfall at the next meeting.
   
   Jackson – is the 2.5 million shortfall being addressed in other areas like budget cuts, etc?
   
   Mac – we are trying to keep ahead of any financial situations before they create a problem and we run at a deficit.
   
   Enrollment – we are admitting more students, about 300 more to insure that we hit our target enrollment. We are looking at increasing revenue through hitting our target enrollment. 
   
   Larry – this spring we are 100 students lower than we had last spring, we were not expecting this. We need to get better at hitting our goals and maintaining our enrollment. We will not be increasing the student population; we are just admitting more students to insure we hit our goals.
   
   Financial aid v. scholarships – we should bring Mark Campbell in to discuss this topic and enrollment.
   
   Jackson – we are looking for an accounting of how the 2.5 million shortfall happened in the first place.
   
   Mac – the 2.5 million is a cost overage not a deficit.
   
   Larry – we had the budget in place before any student signed up for any 50-minute lesson or the ACI course. We are now looking for ways to resolve the issue.
    
2. Part-time conversions – where do we stand? February of 2013: we will be doing all 12 conversions at that time. We agreed to the 12 being done before the end of the contract in 2013 and that is what we are going to do. We will look at the divisions and the needs of the college as we make the choices.  The merging of the writing and technology divisions has been very successful at this point – a lot of cross-curricular activity.
    
3. Spring 2012 grade submission deadline – currently it is Thursday May 17, management would like to move it to Wednesday May 16.  We discussed the possibilities and we will discuss further at our next UEC meeting.