Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting

Present –Dennis Cecere, Peter Cokkinias, Marti Epstein, Danny Harrington, Helen Lewis, Jeff Perry, Stephanie Reich, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, David Scott, Elizabeth Seitz, Andrew Shryock, Will Silvio, and Jeri Sykes.

1. Danny made a motion to accept the minutes from the previous meeting. Helen seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.
   

2. AFT conference May 3 and 4: Danny, Helen, Jackson, Peter, and David.
   

3. NY conference, April 7-9: Danny, David, Stephanie, Will, and Andrew.
   

4. Election – election committee will be in contact with AAA. The on-line election is not really possible as this will be a contested election with multiple candidates for offices. The department of labor does not recognize contested on-line elections so a paper ballot is the better way to go. There is not really a higher participation for turnout with on-line elections according to AAA. Their recommendation is doing a paper ballot to each faculty member’s home that they would send directly into AAA in NY to be counted. AAA would then share the results with the Election Committee and they will email all faculty. We are setting up a timeline right now and will proceed accordingly. Marti made a motion for the election to be done by paper ballot mailed to faculty member’s homes, Dennis seconded, and the vote was unanimous to have the election via paper ballot sent to faculty member’s homes.
   

5. We have two active grievances both at step three with the Provost.
   

6. Jackson brought up creating a scholarship for a student, criteria may include someone on student government. Let’s create a sub-committee to research further: Dennis, Andrew, Wendy, and Peter.
   

7. All-faculty meeting Thursday, March 7, 1-2 to discuss the faculty budget.

Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Michael Abraham, Dennis Cecere, Peggy Codding, Marti Epstein, Helen Lewis, Margaret McAllister, Jeff Perry, Denise Pons-Leone,Stephanie Reich, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, David Scott, Elizabeth Seitz, Andrew Shryock, and Jeri Sykes.

Management – Larry Simpson, Jay Kennedy, Joe Bennett, Matthew Nicholl, Scott Trach, Ron Savage, Lori Johnson, Bill Whitney, Darla Hanley, Jeff Klug

Jackson opened the meeting.

Scott Trach is here to present about the Early Alert System. The system has been in place since 2009, fall of 2011 Roger brown went public encouraging faculty to use the system, 2015 Office of Student Success. SAP standards, etc. in Scott’s presentation.

Faculty have very rarely received a closure letter saying that the issue has been resolved.

Scott: some cases don’t get resolved … but I would like to follow through with any specific cases, some students leave the college without resolving the issue.

What about first semester students?

Scott: we reach out through mentors and the LENS class to connect with the student to try and resolve the issue.

Lori: we have recently revamped the system of academic advising and we now have 7 advisors with a case load to reach out and create a relationship with the student. Any follow-up via email for faculty is success@berklee.edu

If there are specifics questions on specific cases, feel free to contact us.

Larry: do you have info on specific classes or areas in which Early alerts have been filed?

Scott: I haven’t done that much focused research but I can.

What are your goals for the programs and where are you going from here?

Lori: we want to drive usership, we want to support more, and be more proactive when possible – but we need information. When multiple faculty file an alert on one student, this really helps bring that student in the forefront. We really want to work on retention and student success.

Do you have any numbers on the students that don’t succeed and why?

Scott: we are working on pulling those numbers together but there are many different reasons for students leaving: financial, death in family, poor students, it’s all over the place.

Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Prince Charles Alexander,Helen Lewis, Margaret McAllister, Jeff Perry, Stephanie Reich, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, David Scott, Elizabeth Seitz, Andrew Shryock, Will Silvio, and Jeri Sykes.

Management – Jay Kennedy, Chris Kandus-Fischer, Lis Tomlin, Scott Trach, Lori Johnson, Jeff Klug, Joe Bennett, Ron Savage, Sgt. Foley, Dave Ransom, Melinda Thomas, Rachael Winters, Leah Driscoll, Bill Whitney, Mila Thigpen

Jackson opened the meeting.

Chris Kandus-Fischer discussed the topic of delayed or non-response to student psychological assistance requests. Set the stage for the last two falls with significant issues, fall of 2017 – Globe article and last semester the fire on Hemenway St. caused major issues for the Student Services teams.

Jeff Klug made a presentation regarding the Student Services team members and their roles. We have an academic advising area and counseling center that are now separate, in the past they were connected. We are trying to respond to all our student needs. Jeff went through all the programs and student support for Health/Wellness.

Lis Tomlin went through the Counseling Center and their very new staff (75% have been here less than five months) and the clinical operations of the office. A picture of the fall: 8% of the entire Berklee students and 12% of the BoCo students were seen by the Counseling Center. We see all students that go to a hospital and then upon their return before they can return to class. Overall, there has been a substantial increase to the number of students that we are seeing at every level. In the past, students could have 12 sessions over their entire stay at Berklee, now we offer 12 sessions per year. We don’t really handle weekly appointments for students, we will refer out to someone that needs weekly therapy.

We are all required to report any sexual assault or self-harm – if you don’t know who to contact, please contact Public Safety and they can direct you to the appropriate office.

Is there one place that we can send students to then get sent to the correct office?

Chris Kandus-Fischer – we are working on cleaning up the on-line presence and the communications. Right now, we don’t have one place to contact – the best place to start if you don’t know where to send the student is Public Safety, they can then direct students to the correct place. We are looking into having a physical location for all the offices but right now we are all over the campus. We are looking at all the possibilities and a centralized location would be ideal.

Technology and prevention to help isolation. We have a program called Thrive that connects students to therapists in the area and helps direct them to appropriate services. In terms of prevention, we have done several clinics and ongoing campaigns to help awareness of our services and help the students.

Jay: Chris talk to your people and find a set of links to provide the union to put on their website as resources.