Issues In Progress

Employee Council

Provost Billy Frye asked Council members at their March 19 meeting to share ideas with him that could assist in his effort to compile a strategic plan for the University. Frye has been leading the strategic planning effort for nearly a year at the request of the Board of Trustees.

Ideas offered by Council members include:

• Increase interaction between staff and students so that each can better understand the other's role.
• Identify a unifying focal point to foster pride in Emory and improve morale.
• Advocate for a MARTA rail station at Emory to ease traffic congestion and parking problems.
• Ensure continuing educational opportunities for all staff by creating an environment in which the entire Emory community is expected to continue learning on an ongoing basis.
• Find ways to encourage faculty and staff who deal with people outside their departments to be more courteous in their interactions.
• Consider creating an online University to allow staff to take Emory courses during nonworking hours.
• Focus on internal job promotions as opposed to bringing in staff from outside the University.
• Allow staff to have flexible work schedules.
• Replace the existing financial accounting system with a better system.
• Improve campus signage.
• Build a large community gathering space.
• Ensure that "star" faculty members who are used to attract students actually teach those students once they arrive.
• Increase faculty communication with staff and students.
• Educate students in a realistic way that prepares them to live in a society with difficult problems.
• Follow the example of Oxford College, with its focus on teaching, as a way to improve the quality of Emory's academic programs.
• Foster more interdisciplinary/collaborative scholarship by publishing a faculty directory that lists faculty members' scholarly interests.

Following the session with Frye, Council President Joy Burnette distributed service awards to Council members whose terms end this month. Burnette also turned over leadership of the Council to Erik Oliver, who begins serving as president on April 1.

President's Commission

on the Status of Minorities

The issue of what projects are appropriate for the Commission to help fund was discussed at the March 24 meeting.

The discussion was prompted by a presentation from Melissa Trifiletti, assistant director of student activities in Campus Life. Trifiletti said she is seeking funding for a program on diversity conducted by SST Communications to be presented this fall as part of freshman orientation. She said the program has been used by Human Resources, and the campus response has been extremely positive.

Although Commission members expressed strong support for including such a program in freshman orientation, several objected to the Commission providing funding for it. Vera Rorie said that funding for orientation programs is the responsibility of Emory College and Campus Life, not the Commission.

Pat Marsteller suggested that instead of the Commission providing funding from its very limited budget, a better course would be for the Commission to write a strong letter of endorsement for including the program in orientation to the deans of the College and Campus Life, as well as the Freshman Seminar Steering Committee.

Trifiletti said such a letter would be extremely helpful in her efforts to increase participation in freshman orientation events by Freshman Seminar faculty and staff leaders. She also said the Commission is the first group she has approached to seek funding for the $1,500 project and that she fully expects to be able to identify other funding sources within the University.

In other business, various Commission members reported on their recent meetings with deans to discuss minority issues in the colleges and schools. Bob Lee said that in his meeting with Public Health Dean James Curran, topics of discussion included the difficulty senior faculty have in finding time to mentor junior faculty because their salaries and programs are contingent upon sustaining external funding and the limited pool of junior minority faculty receiving too many committee assignments.

Pat Marsteller and Ron Braithwaite met with Thomas Lawley, medical school dean. Marsteller said the discussion focused on recruiting and retaining significant numbers of faculty of color. She said that one strategy Lawley has used is appointing a well-known minority faculty member to a senior position, which tends to attract top-notch minority junior faculty to the program.

In his discussion with David Patton, Emory College Dean David Bright said more energy could be focused on tracking Emory undergraduates from the 1980s who are preparing to enter academic careers and recruiting them to the University

-Dan Treadaway

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