Present: Arlene Allen, Debbie Anglin, Art Battson, Eric Brody, David
Chapman, Andrew Clark, Cynthia Cronk, Glenn Davis, George Gregg, Gail Johnson,
Rick Johnson, Richard Kip, Bill Koseluk, Tom Lawton, Tom Marazita, Bruce
Miller, Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch, Larry Murdock, Kevin Schmidt,
Deborah Scott, Vince Sefcik, Bob Sugar, Paul Valenzuela, John Vasi, Dayna
Williamson
Not Present: Kevin Barron, Ken Bowers, Bill Doering, Chuck Haines, Phil
Handley, Ed Mehlschau, Stan Nicholson, Jamie Sonsini
John Vasi has graciously offered to let ITPG hold meetings in a larger
conference room located in the Library. After a short discussion
it was decided that the advantages (more space) outweighed the disadvantages
(you can't bring your own food or drinks into the Library). Consequently,
our meeting at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 14, will be held in the
Davidson Library in Room 3591 (Mary Cheadle Room).
Cynthia Cronk, Director of Human Resources, then introduced Dayna Williamson,
UCSB's new Compensation Manager. Cynthia noted that she and Dayna
will be striving to reduce the campus focus on classification and replace
it with a focus on compensation.
Cynthia then defined "Work/Life" by saying that the topic refers to
anything that touches our lives at work. Items under discussion include:
compressed work schedules, telecommuting and elder care. Additional
staff resources have been added to address Work/Life issues and improve
communications. Cynthia noted that we have eleven bargaining units
on campus. She also indicated that we need to have reasonable and
fair standards by which Work/Life issues are addressed. Cynthia urged
that we learn what can be offered in this area, alert people to issues
and answer questions before implementing a new program. Any new program
must work for the institution as well as for the employees. If we
make special allowances for workers with elder or child care issues, we
must also be sensitive to workers who do not have these issues; they can't
be always be expected to cover the workload.
Cynthia suggested that we understand the benefits already available
in our plans and do a better job of marketing them to staff. Our
health plan is rated in the top quartile and our 403B and retirement plans
are also good. She and Dayna will work hard to move salaries to a
competitive level and to look at things like more portable retirement benefits.
Increased flexibility in benefits and retirement plans will be required
to attract younger workers.
In responding to questions, Cynthia agreed that housing is a difficult
issue for both faculty and staff. Other comments and questions included
noting that health insurance coverage during retirement
is not currently a defined benefit (and, therefore, not guaranteed)
and that staff might helped by improved counseling on debt management and
financial planning. In response to a question regarding why there
would be separate paths for faculty and staff to make inquiries, Cynthia
noted that faculty and staff have different issues such as sabbatical leaves
and tenure. In reply it was suggested that sabbaticals would be a
good idea for technical staff too.
Moving to old business, the NGB group expressed hope that the equipment
RFP would go to Purchasing soon.
DECAF reported that their investigation of portals continues.
Whether to build or buy remains a question. No standard has yet emerged.
Another issue continues to be trusted authentication for students.
The DECAF web page is almost complete
and will present a starter set of common data elements and links to the
workstation configuration recommendations. In response to questions
it was noted that other departments such as Housing or academic units could
post links to their unique workstation requirements on the same pages.
The group planned to look at iCollege and to continue looking at systems
at UCLA and UCD. Next steps will be to define the needs for student
access.
Auth/Dir reported that the web applications for maintaining LDAP fields
would move to production very soon. An email notification will be
sent.
On the topic of the UCSB web site, it was reported that the new AVC
of Public Affairs will arrive in mid-September and will bring experience
in setting up the web presence of the Journal of Higher Education.
Thus, no action is expected until this person joins the campus. The
group was reminded that OIT provides the platform for the campus web site,
but is not responsible for the content that is published. As web
technology becomes more sophisticated there may be a need for additional
resources for support. Other units might rely on OIT or might choose
to provide their own resources. One future scenario might be for
the campus to improve its content, then add additional technology and then
merge the site into a portal of some kind.
The group then focused on the main topic of the meeting, a continuation of planning for pending intrabuilding wiring projects. To clarify
the record, it was noted that the call for proposed projects went only
to units in Academic Affairs. Those present
were asked if there were any other potential projects that should be considered; no proposals were volunteered. (NB: However, if other divisions
later determine that they have potential projects they should submit them
to the OIT for consideration.)
Elise circulated a handout that presented information regarding seventeen potential projects.
(NB: An online version of this handout (xls) also contains an additional worksheet with notes regarding the data.)
It was noted that rough estimates totaled about $1.4M before construction
costs. Thus, it was decided to develop criteria by which the proposals
could be ranked in priority. The criteria listed were:
- Relevance to campus mission of instruction, research
and public service.
- Timing of need (both program and technical).
- Repairs versus augmentations.
- Cost (include costs of future support).
- Number of people impacted.
- Schedules of other projects (e.g., tearing down
the building or renovating the neighborhood).
- Availability of departmental equipment funds (is
the department a viable partner?)
Discussion of how to categorize costs (perhaps like major and minor
capital improvement projects), how to categorize priorities (High,
Medium and Low) and how some of the projects might be evaluated ensued.
It was then decided to assign a small group of project champions the task
of proposing a priority list. Tom Marazita, Larry Murdock
and John Vasi agreed to meet and generate a proposal to be circulated to
ITPG. If there were no major objections, project work would proceed.
If some items required discussion, work could still proceed on items that
everyone agreed were High Priority. Items requiring discussion would
be handled by email before the next ITPG meeting, if possible.
A related question involved the wiring of the newly acquired Bank of
America building in Isla Vista. The response was that new facilities
that are built or acquired by the campus should be turned over to the initial
occupants fully wired. It was recommended that ITPG support this
view.
The next ITPG meeting with be held at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, September
14, in Davidson Library, Room 3591.
Back to ITPG Meeting Schedule
