July 2020 President's Report
On July 13 there was a UA Network and power outage in the Butrovich Data Center, effecting list-servs and other network capability. OIT, Facilities Services, and crews worked late into the night to bring the network back up and running. Statewide OIT was collecting systems that were not running. VCAS Queen shared that they have scrapped the planned outage in order to get everything back up and running again. There will likely be another scheduled outage in early August.
Executive Officer Nickole Conley attended the July Staff Council meeting to discuss the Shared Services plan. Nickole shared that they received a lot of feedback on the shared services model. They are working with the PIT crew to look at other universities and what they have done as they have implemented shared services. When they are done gathering all the data, the final plan will go to the Core Cabinet, Chancellor's Cabinet, and university community for review. They will solicit any additional questions and thoughts. The review has been slightly stalled out due to COVID-19. Nickole shared that she has bucketed the feedback that has been received so far into pros and cons. A summary of the pros and cons will be released. Nickole shared that the advisory board will be used to provide feedback on the shared services to make sure we are meeting all of the units needs that we will be serving. VCAS Queen shared that one of the baseline goals is to look at processes, look for best practices, and try to adopt practices that work for the largest group of constituents or to meet constituents needs. Another goal is to reduce the single point across campus and build a network of people that do similar work so that there is better backup. Metrics will be used to see how well the shared services center is doing.
UA past president Johnsen was a finalist for the University of Wisconsin. He withdrew from that. There was a faculty union letter calling for his resignation. He ended up resigning and VP Michelle Rizk became acting president. As part of the process for finding an interim president, Board Chair Burretta interviewed Mathew, and they went overthe characteristics they want to see in an interim president. Those characteristics were aligned with what was presented by CHRO Patin at the Board of Regents' meeting last week. On July 15, Pat Pitney was approved as the interim president.
Margo Grifith will be attending the August Staff Council meeting to talk about the new Title IX regulations and her new Chief Diversity Officer role on campus.
UAF IMT and resumption plans/building opening updates: Mathew is serving on the Statewide IMT group and UAF IMT group. He is serving on both groups as a staff governance representative. One opportunity they are looking at for departments is bulk ordering. If your department is looking at ordering supplies, check with your supervisor about contacting the UAF IMT group to see what options are available for bulk ordering. Other institutions have already shared their fall resumption plans, while UAF has moved more slowly due to not enough resources. In light of this, the chancellor is planning to hire a business continuity position to try and keep the COVID plan moving faster. For more information, check out the COVID-19 FAQ’s.
UA HR is discussing and developing resources, policies and procedures for telework.
Health care update: The Joint Health Care Committee approved extending the TeleHealth $0 Co-Pay to December 31, 2020. There has been a large increase in the use of telehealth. It is also more cost effective in our health plan.
The Executive Board is planning to have a retreat during the month of July to discuss the Council's Mission, Vision, Values and Strategic Goals.
The second phase of the market compensation increase has been delayed until FY22 due to the budget situation. The Board of Regents' did approve a 1% pay increase for all employees, effective July 5th. CHRO Patin shared with Mathew that he is encouraging and helping supervisors walk through the process of compensating employees. Employees should be encouraged to have conversations with their supervisors of what options there are. While the University System is not doing the market compensation increase this fiscal year, departments may have funds to do that.
The UA System is working on modernizing the student experience. Efforts towards modernizing including a digital transformation readiness assessment. UAF's eCampus is also piloting Canvas as a potential replacement of Blackboard.