April 2012 Archives

If you have faculty who are making the switch to or from the 9 over 12 pay schedule, please give them the Memorandum of Agreement to sign, then forward the completed form to your financial service team by 5/28/12. 

http://policy.umn.edu/prod/groups/president/@pub/@forms/@hr/documents/form/912p.pdf

If you have faculty who are on the 9 over 12 pay schedule but will be on an unpaid or partially unpaid leave this upcoming year, it is imperative that you give that information to your financial service team so that the associated payroll documents can be processed to avoid over-payments.

The Donor Management System (DMS) will be offline Thursday, April 26 at 1 AM until Monday April 30 at 7 AM for a major Oracle infrastructure upgrade. From a user's perspective, there will be minimal functional changes after the upgrade. You will be notified when systems are restored.

Systems that will be offline:

• DMS
• AIM
• Scholarship Tracking and Reporting (STAR)
• mobile DMS
• The Net

Systems that will be available:

• Lyris
• Online Giving
• University of Minnesota Foundation (UMF) website

Please contact the DMS help desk (6-8544) with questions.

As you know, there will soon be an administrator vacancy in the Institute for Global Studies (IGS).  The Assistant Dean for International Programs and several west bank center directors have been working towards a goal of shared administrative services. An Administrative Director (#0600) position has been developed, and this position will be key in helping the center directors realize their goal. We encourage all those interested to review and apply for this exciting opportunity. The description of the position and qualifications (req# 177700)  can be found at:  https://employment.umn.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp?postingId=539675
If you have questions regarding the position, please feel free to call Margaret at 6-9352. Thank you.

CLA HR is asking units to hold off on issuing B-term instructional appointment letters. The college is contemplating changing the template letter by removing the non-renewal language. We hope to have an answer within a week. If you have opinions about this change, pro or con, please contact Margaret at 6-9352.  Thank you. 

It is with mixed emotions that I announce the departure of Renada Goldberg, department administrator of Speech Language Hearing Sciences (SLHS). Renada has accepted a position with the College of Education and Human Development, and her last day in CLA will be May 4.

We would greatly appreciate hearing from you or someone you know who could temporarily assist SLHS while we work with the department chair to determine a replacement for Renada. SLHS needs immediate help with the following tasks: merit letters, summer hiring (underway, but not complete for faculty and students), preparing a promotion packet for external review, budget close-out and clean-up of accounts, possible facilitation of a faculty search if approved in the budget request. If interested in helping SLHS, please contact me as soon as possible to discuss this further. It would be helpful if one administrator is available to serve as the point person to work with Peggy to coordinate others who might help on particular tasks.  I would appreciate if you could contact me by Friday, April 27 about your availability.

On behalf of CLA I extend my gratitude and well-wishes to Renada on her career path.

Thank you,  Wendy (5-8484, lanex025@umn.edu)

The AFSCME Technical and Clerical contracts will be ready for distribution soon.  All AFSCME employees will receive a copy of the new contract.  CLA HR is coordinating the distribution effort of the contracts for our supervisors.  If you receive a message directly from central Human Resources asking for the number of contracts, please disregard, as we have been asked to coordinate this effort for all CLA units. 

Please let CLA HR (clahr@umn.edu) know how many copies of each (clerical and technical) contract you will need for supervisors and others in your unit.  We'll get this count and request the contracts and get them mailed out to you as soon as we can. Again,  please do not include BU employees in this count as the BU employees will receive the contracts in a separate mailing.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

The Summer Research Support form  for summer research support drawn from non-sponsored funds provided by the college and/or University has been updated.  Information about the policy, along with the form, can be found at: http://cla.umn.edu/intranet/faculty/SummerResearchSupport.php

Last month we shared information about CLA-OIT's Server Hosting service. As far as research support goes, that's just the beginning. Request the following services or a consultation by contacting the CLA Service Desk at 612-624-4357 or 4help@umn.edu.

• File Backup & Restore on Servers
• Research Clusters
• Unix Environment
• Database Hosting: Oracle
• Database Hosting: Postgres

Below is a copy of the CLA NOW Agenda for tomorrow's meeting, which will take place in the Willey Hall Seminar Room from 9:00am to 10:30am.

Download the agenda here

The ReUse Routes will not operate on Tuesday, April 17th as our focus will be on Beautiful U Day. Departments and individuals are encouraged to participate in the campus clean-out on Tuesday, April 17th. Visit the Beautiful U Day site for more information on the campus clean-out event: http://www.buday.umn.edu/
Please share/distribute to your building occupants.

As many of you know, OHR has started a job family classification redesign initiative.  This project will upgrade the University classification system for Civil Service and P&A employees. The goal of this initiative is to attract and retain highly talented and performing employees. To date, they have completed the communications job family study, and have started the Info Tech study.  The objectives of this initiative are:

• Ease of administration - with job promotion criteria clearly defined and established pay parameters
• Clearly defined and understandable classification structure and career paths
• Consistency of classification application across the University
• Transparent compensation and classification systems understood by managers and employees

More information can be found at:   http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/toolkit/compensation/jobfamily/index.html

OHR needs your help to identify employees who might fit into the next study.  We need your help to identify the names of P/A and Civil Service employees whose work focuses on community programs. Staff in professional, supervisory, and managerial (including director) roles are included in the study.  Staff may be currently classified as coordinators, assistant to, program manager, director; as well as administrative professional and community programs specialist/associate. 

Work in this job family involves engaging community/industry/business groups on issues of common interest, and working with partner organizations to address those issues in ways that advance the University's research, teaching, and service mission.  The primary function is the establishment and/or management of a partnership with an external organization.  Typical functions also include planning and/or directing a community partnership program, networking with, and serving as a liaison with the external partner(s).

Please send us the names of the employees whose work effort of 50% or more is related to community program work, as defined above and in the attachment.  If someone's job is a good fit and you are not sure about the 50% - please note that. Click here for a one page summary of typical responsibilities performed by individuals in this job family.  (Not every position will perform every responsibility listed.)

By Friday, April 13, please send the employee name, job title, and name of his/her supervisor to the CLA HR email account (clahr@umn.edu).  Once the information is compiled, OHR will communicate with the employees and supervisors regarding the next steps on the study.  If you have any questions, please contact Margaret Yzaguirre (mmy@umn.edu; 6-9352).  Thank you, CLA Human Resources

The memo to University Senior Leadership, regarding the FY13 compensation plan, has been posted (http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/pay/salaries/index.html).  The University has also posted compensation information regarding undergraduate students working in non-academic positions.  We are awaiting the compensation plan for graduate assistants and undergraduate students working in academic positions.  As has been the practice in CLA, the dean will spend the next few weeks meeting and consulting with appropriate representative groups within the college.   We are also working with OHR to clarify a few detailed questions, such as positions eligible for or excluded from the compensation plan.  Therefore, please do not implement salary adjustments based on the University's compensation plan memo.  Towards the end of April, the dean will issue the CLA compensation memo which will include time lines for submission of materials for faculty and P/A merit.  If you have any questions, please contact Margaret Yzaguirre (6-9352; mmy@umn.edu).  Thank you, CLA Human Resources

The following email below went out to all graduate assistants Tuesday (4/10) afternoon.  Also, the Charge of Unfair Election Practices and the Stay of Certification of Results of Tabulation Order and the Maintenance of Status Quo Order must be posted in areas where graduate assistants work. Please print and post these documents ASAP.

Patti Dion, Director
Employee Relations and Compensation

University of Minnesota Graduate Assistants,

On April 5, 2012, United Auto Workers/GSWU filed a Charge of Unfair Election Practices against the University of Minnesota. The union claims that the University's activities prior to the March election affected the election outcome, where graduate assistants voted to remain in a non-union status.

As a result of this filing, the Bureau of Mediation Services has stayed the election results pending an investigation of and ruling on the charges. The Bureau has also reinstated the Maintenance of Status Quo Order. This means that the University cannot make changes to terms and conditions of employment, including pay increases, until the Maintenance of Status Quo order is lifted.

We will continue to communicate with you and update our online FAQ as we have more information and a timeline for a ruling on these charges. If you have questions or concerns at any time during the process, please email ohr@umn.edu.

Patti Dion, Director
Employee Relations and Compensation

While Google continues to tweak the interfaces of Apps and Gmail not everyone agrees all changes are improvements. For some reason, I've been unable to retrain my brain to understand the Gmail toolbar buttons, which now have icons instead of descriptive text. If you want the old text buttons back, you have the option to switch them in Gmail's settings.

To toggle the buttons back to text, head to Gmail's settings and, under the General tab, scroll down to "Button Labels". Click on the radio button next to "Text", save your changes, and head back to the inbox to see the new (old) buttons. Enjoy!

On behalf of the Office of Undergraduate Programs, I am writing to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation for your assistance with our 9th Annual Open House for admitted CLA students and their families. On Saturday, March 24 we had 784 students and 1425 family members on campus for us to showcase first-hand the College of Liberal Arts experience. Your willingness to participate and volunteer your time, talent, and expertise was critical to our success. The feedback from students and their families was extremely positive. They praised the organization of the event, programming options, and the opportunity to meet and talk with faculty members.

Thank you for collaborating with us to recruit the Class of 2016.

Jennifer Windsor, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs

The following Q&A was added to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the Administrative Policy: Parental Leave for Academic Employees. This Q&A is included to clarify the amount of paid parental leave available for the birth mother.  The policy is located at: http://policy.umn.edu/Policies/hr/Leaves/PARENTALLEAVE.html.  Please communicate this information within your unit as appropriate.
 
Can a birth mother take six weeks of paid medical leave for physical recovery from the birth and then, after the medical leave, take an additional six weeks of paid parental leave?

No.  The birth mother cannot take more than a total of six weeks paid leave in connection with the birth of her child, unless the mother qualifies for additional time under the paid medical leave for her physical recovery.  As stated under the Reason for Policy section of the parental leave policy, the six weeks of paid parental leave for the birth mother is for the purposes of both bonding with the child and recovery from the physical disability associated with the birth.

We want to make sure you are aware of this recent communication about Treasury Accounting Endowments and STAR.

All University Scholarship Endowments (Participants) have been integrated into the STAR system.  All U of M participants with "Quasi" appearing in the Fund Type/Chartfield1/Chartfield2 column require a Spending Plan.

A job aid on entering a spending plan into the Data Management System (DMS) can be found at http://www.finsys.umn.edu/treasury/dmsspendingplan.pdf. 

For assistance with developing spending plans, please contact Bob Balfour at balfo003@umn.edu or 624-9872.

For assistance with STAR, please contact Mary O'Brien at mkobrien@umn.edu or 625-6829.

And for assistance with finding recipients, please contact Dianne Danov at d-dano@umn.edu or 624-2057.

This message was sent by Treasury Accounting, a unit within the Controller's Office of the University of Minnesota to departments with scholarship endowments.

Annual Review. Written evaluations of contract faculty performance are required for all contract faculty in residence for any portion of the 2011 reporting period (spring semester 2011 and fall semester 2011). In addition to informing decisions about salary adjustment (when permitted), these evaluations are important for ongoing faculty development.

Renewal Letters. Contract faculty being renewed for 2012/13 must receive a letter of renewal based on the attached template. Renewal letters for 2012/13 should be prepared only after a funding source has been identified for the position and approved by the college. Contract faculty renewal letters are subject to the approval of the college. Please submit renewal letters to the Office of the Associate Dean for Faculty, at clafclty@umn.edu, along with a statement about the source of funding for the position for FY13.

Download the template. Please refer questions about the contract faculty renewal process to Angie Plambeck or John Blair.