Transcript of the August 26, 2020 Opening Meeting Follow-up Q&A Session. This transcript was auto-generated by YouTube and lightly edited to indicate speakers and correct obvious transcription errors.
Key points have been emphasized in bold to aid skimming.
In order of appearance in video image, left to right, then top to bottom
Sue Helwig, VP of Advancement
Jim Roberts, Chief of Staff
Pam Parsnik, Director of HR
Barbara Samuels, VP of Planning and External Relations
Glenn Bozinski, VP of Enrollment Management
Amy Lahart, VP of Mission Integration
Kit Foley, VP of Student Life
Kathleen Owens, University President
Mark VanEtten, VP of Finance and Administration
David Rehm, VP of Academic Affairs
Well hello uh to the Misericordia community. I see our audience is starting to build. Welcome to the uh follow up to our opening meeting. uh it's an unusual format for an opening meeting to break it up into uh into two parts. We'd like to welcome everybody to the opening meeting follow-up and Q&A with the President and with President's Cabinet. uh we're all pleased to be with you today. uh we've received a few questions submitted from the Misericordia community in advance of today's session and we'll be taking questions live in the Q&A feature. We'll do our best to get to them all in the 45 minutes have been allotted for uh today's session. So we appreciate everyone joining us today for this. It will be recorded for for colleagues who are unable to make it and be posted on MyMU in the University Information section where we have other opening meeting content. So um without further delay I'd like to turn it over to our President Dr Kathy Owens for opening uh remarks as we get into our Q&A.
Thanks, Jim, and good afternoon, colleagues. Along with members of the cabinet, I am pleased to uh be with you once again in this virtual uh environment and really to have the opportunity to uh respond to the various questions and comments and criticisms and critiques that followed our opening meeting. I do really wish that we could have answered your questions following the opening meeting, however, it does seem pretty clear that it'll be some time before we have the opportunity to gather as a group. On the other hand an observation for some that email format did provide an opportunity for several of you to send very lengthy and much more detailed messages and hope that provided a good opportunity to say what you wanted to say, and I once again want to say there is a time for everything, and that this is a difficult time for all of us. We are clearly a strong mercy-influenced community that cares for one another and some of your comments clearly speak or spoke to me about your care and concern for one another and on that note I do wish to give a shout out at this time to our Cougar Care team for their valued leadership and insist in assisting all of us to navigate the pandemic landscape. Not only are they staying on top of all of the latest requirements and recommendations from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Center for Disease Control and adjusting our own protocols as needed, but they're also initiating health and well-being practices for all members of our university community that are really intended to allow us to sustain our mission and purpose now and going forward.
As I reviewed the questions that came in and received, I grouped them according to common themes and I will respond to some of the questions and then ask my colleagues here uh to to chime in, and as Jim said, uh following our response to the questions that we uh receive, please feel free to add your your own questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of the screen.
Several of the questions uh dealt with employee morale and what might be done to boost morale, and on the morale issue there were really two general themes: one theme had to do with the furloughs and the layoffs that occurred this past summer, and the other theme went along the lines of strategic planning for the future of uh the university - a sense of wanting to have a voice in the planning now for the future of the University. Maybe a sense of being a little bit rudderless uh right now so we'll look at at those two topics first.
With regard to the issues of furloughs and layoffs, that was uppermost in the minds of everyone who made a a comment, including acknowledgement of the disproportionate impact on our staff colleagues. Names of several valued colleagues were mentioned with the suggestion that I rehire these valued colleagues and I am well aware of the deep sadness impacting our community as the result of the departure of so many, and at the same time I am very grateful to all of you for the manner in which so many of you stepped up to do so much to get us ready to open our doors at the beginning of the fall semester which uh is getting off to a good start. I was also chastised by one or two of you in not mentioning the names of people who did so much uh for us over the summer and I do regret not being able uh to do that but as I said in my opening uh remarks that could have taken the whole meeting, there are so many people to thank, and knowing that I surely would have uh unintentionally left someone out I did intentionally choose not to go down the line of trying to mention everyone's name.
With regard to rehiring individuals at this time I wish I could wave a magic wand and make our circumstances different, however right now the university is not in a position to make rehiring decisions, and as I mentioned in my opening remarks, about two-thirds of our budget is expended on human resources and as a tuition-driven university our primary source of revenue is enrollment, tuition dollars, and the various related auxiliary services, so to add a little meat to the bones of those two topics, I'm going to first ask Glenn to speak a little bit about enrollment numbers and as they stand today in relation to our revised budget, knowing that we don't have our uh drop-dead date numbers, uh and then Mark, and maybe Kit and Mark, will speak a little bit about the budgeting impact of um auxiliary revenues things like the the residence hall or the larger number of students taking classes online and the impact of that or canceling athletics. So Glenn, let me turn it over to you, and then Mark and Kit can follow up after.
Thank you, Dr. Owens. As of this morning, overall institutional enrollment stands at slightly over 2,400 students, which is a down about 5 in total students from last year. The majority of the difference in this is the full-time undergraduate population, which stands at 1,474. We did meet the revised budget number for first-year students at 353, and for overall full-time students, part-time on campus, full-time graduate students, and ABS and Pittsburgh programs all have shown growth over last year. We expect the overall number to hold somewhere around that 2,400. Mark?
Yeah, the uh from a revenue standpoint, tuition and fees seems to be really holding up to where we had thought it would be at when we did pass our budget. We're not quite yet to the point that we can start counting yet as we're not on our lock-in date but the uh nevertheless the tuition and fees uh revenue seems to be exactly right around where we expected it to be coming in at.
I think that when we look at- at- residentially, we've had some interesting impacts in that we have about 38 students who have left the residence halls because of their classes are mainly online. We've also had some other students who have chosen- who have used COVID as a reason- for not feeling comfortable to live in the residence halls, but um overall um we're holding our own. We've made some decisions to uh lessen the density within the residence hall, so we created more single options for students, uh things like that, so those are some of the things that have happened residentially.
Athletically, the athletic department has worked very hard to maintain the percentage of student athletes on campus. You know we have many student athletes, we're very proud of our student athletes, and they have done a great job of- of working with students since March to keep them connected to the university uh and feeling a part of of athletics, although we cannot hold athletics as we normally would. uh there are plans in place on how to still connect them to teams, etc. so we look forward to to keeping students connected in those ways.
If if I can just add on to Kit's comment about residence halls: our normal resident student percentage is about 83% of the first year class is residential. This year that fell by about 6%, with more students either shifting uh toward commuter or even some students who were are further afield who normally would live on campus that requested a fully online schedule
Yeah, and I'd add that the combination of both the- the online programming and fear of probit has certainly shrunk the number in the residence hall in total and that's where we're seeing our biggest challenges on on on the budget. That's down, we're down under 700 students in the residence halls. Last year we were probably around 925 or so in in the residence halls, so from where we expected the budget to be, we do have some some shortfalls of in the $800,000 range to uh to deal with, but, you know, again, we're not at lock-in yet, and, you know, there, the plan that we put forward as a budget was was back in May, and we're a very different campus now than we were planning on being in May. There's a- we were still planning on athletics, so uh and a lot of travel, we were you know we were thinking there would still be some travel, all of those things are changing, so we're going to be have to spend some time on going through this budget to see what the real impact is. So when I say that we're you know we're in the $800,000 range under budget in auxiliary that's not a reason to get nervous, we we will be able to make up a lot of these expenses, and that we're going to be marginally on budget provided that the year continues the way that that we expect it to.
Okay, thank you. Then there was also a question about using the endowment as a revenue source due to enrollment challenges and academic expenses, so kind of, can we take money out of our endowment and use that for uh expenses?
The majority of our endowment is restricted to purposes that have been specified by the donors. We cannot use the money for anything else than what was intended by the donor who gave us the money, and, for the most part, those dollars go towards uh scholarship, and that's well over 50% of our uh endowment. The remaining portion of the endowment is called board designated endowment or quasi-endowment. It's under the auspices of our uh Trustees uh and that the relation the uh trustees um it acknowledges that the Board members, the Trustees their first commitment is to hold Misericordia University in trust for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and for all members of the University community: past, present, and future. And to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities, Board members are committed to working to see that the university thrives into in perpetuity, and to really to ensure that the future of the University is well planned, and plans are effectively um initiated in support of the mission, and so there's a commitment on the part of the Board of Trustees to not support the present at the expense of the future. That is their fiduciary responsibility, to carry the University forward, and that is the- what the endowment- what they're committed to doing in looking at the endowment. So it is not um for us to take the money now to when we we need also to protect the future and Mark did you want to add anything to that?
I- I would. We- we had talked about several different uh possibilities as we were looking at how we were going to balance our budget this year, and the endowment really is is not something that we would even have considered. uh the the conversation was- was- we did have a small conversation on it because because of these questions were coming up. There were some schools who were changing their spending policy for example, right, to move money out of the endowment for student scholarships in the current year because of cash shortfalls they were having. We don't have a cash shortfall on this campus. That hasn't been an issue. So if we were to simply- so it- we really didn't need to do that. If we were to try to fund the projected revenue shortfall with money out of the endowment we would have needed a significant value each year withdrawn for several years, while we kind of pulled back out of this thing and a plan like that would have come up at the expense of future students, and that- We never would have got the board to agree to a plan that included balancing our budget with the endowment for multiple years
Thanks uh one initiative that we did on- undertake, or that Advancement undertook, had to do with um raising funds for our COVID relief effort and Sue, do you want to say anything about that?
Certainly, thank you. I just wanted to mention that we do have a COVID-19 emergency relief fund that we began back in mid-April realizing that there were going to be students who were impacted when they came back to campus in ways that we would were not even able to project. So any student who has some type of an emergency where where they feel the need to have funding, they can go and get money out of this fund. They are- if you are aware of a student who has a need please have them contact either Kit Foley or Sylvia Moss because they are the ones who are allocating funds. I will tell you that we have identified a number of students already who are in need and we've been able to keep them in school as a result of this fund. And, you know, I'm going to say this: if you have interest in helping with this, please make sure to let someone in our area know, maybe Leilani Augustine or Lisa Malcolm. You can just reach out to by email and we'll get back in touch with you. But that fund is available for our students, and we're certainly grateful to all our friends and benefactors uh who have recognized the needs of our students and families and made contributions in in that area.
Okay, then moving on to the issue of employee morale as it relates to strategic planning. Some of the questions received were: when is there going to be any communication to the community at large concerning strategic planning? what will you do to ensure that faculty concerns receive a genuine hearing? With regard to strategic planning, one of the primary responsibilities of the Board of Trustees is engagement and strategic planning and oversight of the strategic planning. They don't do the planning, they are engaged, and they oversee uh the plan such that it is implemented. So recognizing the importance of strategic planning for Misericordia University at this particular time, and hearing um the sense of this issue being raised, not only in the questions here, but a few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to meet with the members of the Faculty Senate who also raised the issue of what are we doing about uh strategic planning. Um Along with uh Dr Barbara Samuels, she and I talked to the Board Chair about uh strategic planning and what we might be able uh to do in a more timely fashion. So I did have that conversation with the Board Chair, knowing full well that the new president is going to have to be deeply involved and immersed in the strategic planning process. However, in order not to lose a year's time we did discuss the possibility of starting something uh this year and so, Barbara, if I can ask you to say a word or two about what we're uh thinking about there and then after that maybe David you can say a word or two about um concerns of faculty uh uh concerns.
But before I ask either of you to speak, um I do uh want to emphasize that there is a significant opportunity coming for faculty staff all members of our uh community to express your voice as it relates to the university's future given the um the the start of the presidential search committee, which is going to be uh forthcoming in the very near uh future. You're going to receive information about the presidential search, and there's going to be several listening sessions um and there'll be organized opportunities for you to have input to the members of the search committee, and to the search consultants who are going to be helping with this process, and you will be able to share your thoughts about the plans for the future, to specify the qualifications, and the experience, and uh the attributes that you believe are essential for the next president. So I hope you won't forego that opportunity uh to participate in the presidential search process. So, okay, Barbara, back to strategic planning.
Thank you. As Dr. Owens has just mentioned, uh this opportunity in early September for the campus community to have listening open sessions uh for the presidential search process really has provided an opportunity for us to create a complementary early planning process - we could call it discovery, we could call it early planning - but it really does give us, again, that chance to extend the open campus sessions throughout the fall semester for all voices to be heard. All voices: faculty, staff, students, alumni, Board members. So we'll use this current academic year, as Dr. Owens has mentioned, for foundational work to help us to clarify Misericordia's strengths in offering our student experience. This will set the stage then for our next president to take that foundational work and establish mission-centered goals and objectives during the next academic year, the 21-22 academic year. So armed with that, a formal communication to the campus with a much more detailed timeline will follow in September directly after those open sessions of presidential search process. Thank you.
Thanks, Barbara.
I'll just pick up on what uh both Barbara and President Owens have said. The context of of the beginning of the presidential search requires the development of a presidential prospectus, and the two main goals of that prospectus are first: to identify qualities sought in the next leader of the University, and and second: to identify the needs of the University itself moving forward. It's the match or fit between the person and those needs that best sort of situates the search that will take place. All members of the community, and faculty in particular - since uh AGB [the presidential search consultants] proposed two sessions and I argued that there should be three - faculty in particular will have an opportunity to contribute to those discussions and to set out collectively what we see as the needs and direction of the University moving forward. That kind of information can then become the basis for the preliminary planning that Barbara is talking about.
Great. Okay, so. uh With regard to the the morale issue, whether it's, you know, strategic planning, you know, the question was, as I read it to me: so what can you do to boost morale? What can I do? So I'm in trying to uh push the uh schedule for the strategic plan, an opportunity for your input, um, you know, for the future direction, encouraging your participation in the presidential search process, and there'll be an opportunity for you to send - if you're not happy with what's going on at the um listening sessions you can send emails to people on the committee - uh, you know, lengthy emails like the ones you sent to me for this session - that will provide input to the community. Additionally, I do, um, you know, recognizing the impact of the furloughs and the layoffs especially on staff - I do look forward, uh I will be part of a meeting with Staff Council um to listen uh to them on about about this issue so I'm looking forward to the opportunity to hear what Staff Council may have to say.
Also, hopefully, I can ask for your help, and I want to ask your help, in keeping our campus community safe and healthy uh so that we can stay open and be fully staffed, and so if you're not already using the daily health app, I encourage you to download the daily health app and participate in that. If you have not signed the pledge, I invite you to sign the pledge and I express uh gratitude to those who have signed the pledge, and I encourage you to follow the three W's: wear your mask - [holds up face mask] I've got mine right here, handy all the time - wear your mask, wash your hands, and watch your social distancing. In addition to all of us signing the pledge, we're asking the students to participate in the pledge and Amy can you say something about the student involvement in the pledge and maybe the three W's and-?
Sure, Kathy. Thank you. Um yes, so we had the opportunity to roll out the pledge to faculty and staff, as you know, and we had a very nice response, but also wanted to focus on getting the message out to our students and for them to join with all of us, understand with all of us, that with each adherence to the CDC guidelines - wearing our masks, social distancing - that with all of our help, we can do this all together. So focused through different conversations and different collaborations with Student Life and some other offices - the Student Success Center, first and foremost - we have combined a module that all first-year students will complete. It is specifically centered around the idea of campus community, civility, and res- and personal responsibility. So they will view a message from the Mission office in addition to the leaders that they have on campus, so Nicole Joers, who is our President of the Student Government Association, has provided a very pointed, encouraging message to her fellow fellow students. It is CDC guideline compliant in terms of all of the PPE requirements, as well as our commitment as a university to our- uh to our extended campus in the Back Mountain and surrounding areas, about adhering to guidelines not only when they are on campus, but also when they are on off campus as well. An exercise during this freshman year experience module will also encourage students to reflect on their responsibility: their personal responsibility as well as their community responsibility, and they will be reflecting through a reflection exercise to ponder how they plan to keep our community safe and how they will be a community member throughout the course of the time that they're with us and we're going through COVID. Uh in addition to that, all students have received the message both from the Mission Office and from Student Government, and we will continue to ask for their participation in signing the pledge as we move forward. So very intentionalized conversation to bond us as a university, and having a full understanding of how we can all keep each other safe.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thanks, Amy. Okay, we had uh another uh question uh was asked about 'if the university intends to furlough staff positions in the interim period after students leave at Thanksgiving and before the Spring semester begins, and, if yes, would people be asked to volunteer, what would be the impact on vacation days, in uh sick leave,' and so I'm going to ask Mark, and maybe Pam, to- Mark start and uh in response to that that question and-?
Yeah, sure. Thank you, uh Dr. Owens. The the current plan is not to have any additional layoffs or furloughs. We're not- we we hope that we don't need to do any additional uh layoffs of staff, however this year has so much uncertainty, you know, we will, you know, have to respond in many ways, and make changes as the year goes on. So that that speaks two ways, and I I don't want to give false hope that- that we're- there's not a possibility of another layoff, if, in the event we had to send all the students home for the rest of the year, it would have a significant impact and we'd have to figure that out. But, if- as things are going according to plan - things look real good today - that we uh students seem to be doing what they're supposed to, um the budget looks like it's going to support the whole year and there was never a plan to uh start the semester early finish early and do it and do a furlough or layoff. That's that's never been part of the plan so- and that hasn't changed at this point. uh So I think we can rest assured that uh we expect you're going to continue as as we started, and those who are working are going to continue to work. It's unfortunate that we had to furlough folks over the summer. A lot of that, however, was due to lack of work and due to just not being here on campus for so long, so we're beyond that now. We're motoring. There's many offices, the people are working feverishly trying to catch up. The the shortened summer break for many, uh coming back to campus late, and and then starting the semester early has caused an enormous backlog across my division. I can say that all of what my areas, the facilities folks, uh in addition to trying to get all the extra things for COVID ready, the normal summer activities period has been shortened for us and, you know, that there's enough work for that crew for uh for months, so, anyway, I don't expect any of those changes.
Great. Pam, did you want to add anything?
No. um Mark, you want to talk a little bit about the vacation piece? Right? Um In terms of the COVID monies and where we are?
Yeah, that'd be great. um Thanks for reminding me. uh We did- as everyone recalls, we we were assigning schedule work schedules for people because of lack of work from starting in March uh or April and there were a lot of individuals because of that that were going uh in into arrears on vacation time sick time.
Right.
And and I think Dr. Botzman was pretty clear as we were going through that that, we were doing in anticipation of in the event that the federal government came through and it was some type of relief that we would be positioned to recoup some dollars, so I'm happy to report today that we did receive our first check just short of $400,000. There is another another payment coming for time uh time used after July, so the plan did work, uh we did- we did recoup those dollars and Human Resources is in the process of uh- anyone who is in arrears will have their time put back, so if you roll over this year with a negative balance, you will see that time coming back on to your uh onto your available time off. So you you'll be getting vacation time back uh as for those hours that we used for what we're calling COVID days uh during that period.
Just to add to that, give us a little bit of time because that is a manual process for each entry that we need to work on, so- we're happy to do it though-
And that'll be vacation and sick, so whichever pool of of a bucket that we were pulling time from, uh that that will be restored.
Great. Thanks for sharing that good news. Okay, we had uh one uh final question before moving on uh to the online Q&A's. It's about uh phased retirement plans for faculty and incentives for retirement. The question was about the ability uh for someone to work out a negotiated plan outside the framework offered by the University, and while I was not involved in designing the recent retirement options, I will say that, in my experience, it's never prudent to customize agreements that are outside the bounds of what the Board of Trustees has offered and directed. This can lead to allegations of unequal treatment among members of the university community, and given that the phased retirement plan that was offered did include options, the end result is the administration must live within the bounds of those defined options. The Board gave- did give a window for its most recent retirement and that window was closed at this particular time, and to my knowledge there is no intent at the present time to go back to the drawing board on uh those options.
So those were the primary uh grouped questions and all the themes that came to the President's office on online, so we can perhaps spend a minute or two on- we have a few minutes left- with some of the uh questions that have come in online.
We do have several questions that have come in live during during the session. Uh there is one on the COVID-19 emergency fund. Uh, Sue, can can you take that question? It's uh whether it applies to both graduate and undergraduate students?
Your mic, Sue.
You're muted.
There we go. Sorry about that. Our goal is to get all students to graduation, so yes both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to apply for these funds if they find themselves in an emergency situation that would put their education in jeopardy. So both could apply.
Thank you, Sue. Um we had a question uh come in earlier in the in the discussion regarding our public relations efforts, and there's been some changes in those areas, and our our coverage and um, Barbara is that something you can handle? Regarding our current status in public relations and media relations, uh, is that the question uh that I can direct to you?
Yes, absolutely, thank you. Uh the question had to do with uh uh dealing with uh some of the shortfalls in in public relations and the concerns that we hadn't had the appropriate level of coverage in regard to returning back to campus. Uh we have utilized our area, our division, Amy Bachmann, Dave Pasquini returned from furlough. Steve Filippiak and of course Blake Brown have assisted us in those efforts. I must tell you that while we have relied heavily on social media to push the message about what was going on on campus and encouraging all to go to the COVID-19 area of our webpage, we also, reassuringly, had emails that went to both our incoming first year students as well as our sophomores, juniors, and seniors - very specific emails, individually addressed to them about when move in details for coming back to campus start, uh college campus beginning, uh classes in session, as well as remote and online. I do want to emphasize that while we have sent press releases directly to Citizens Voice and Times Leader locally, we have not received the coverage that we would have hoped for in the Scranton area, but more importantly WNEP was here on our campus and interviewed our own Jim Roberts, admittedly masked up, but uh Jim was offering a great spokesperson to us.
[holds mask over face]
That's exactly right. It was great uh in providing spokesperson and and support to uh our entire media presence. uh We continue to evaluate that and I appreciate the feedback that's given about that. Thank you
Thank you, Barbara. Another question, Mark, to you regarding the layoffs. uh you'd indicated that there's no additional plan for layoffs or furloughs, but uh does that apply to faculty as well?
Um, well we didn't have any faculty layoffs so my comment really was regarding the staff furloughs and layoffs and future layoffs this year. We did however- and as we've discussed- is planning on a reduction, reduced number of faculty for next year. So, in the current year, we have budgeted the operations, we've taken many items away to fund faculty positions this year and then faculty and administration are working through a process to see what the staffing model will look like for the next fiscal year.
Got it. There was an additional question regarding the the replenishment of of time for those who had deficits in their vacation or their sick, um so if a person if an employee was not negative on their time, would that time be uh reimbursed?
Uh well, technically yes, it is, but then it goes to zero because we had no rollover allowed. So those that are really impacted that there was a lot of people who had negative numbers and the negative values were rolling over, so, for example, there was an individual had three weeks of negative time that rolled over into the current calendar year or fiscal year and so they had a negative three weeks vacation to start with after they were awarded, so they had like no time this year. For that individual those three weeks are going back on, they roll over as a zero, and then anything that they earned that would have posted for July 1st will be shown on on their timesheet.
Thank you, Mark. As we have uh all of our attendees today, just to just to know we we uh have a few minutes left in today's uh in today's session. So um appreciate you being with us and we'll be attending to that time as we try to wrap up for the end of the day. We do have a question coming in on in the Q&A regarding our finances again, uh, Mark, probably in your in your corner, uh regarding our surplus for last year and and sort of a breakdown of of that surplus um so I have to uh I have to send that over to you.
Uh yeah, so the surplus number that is being referred to as being a surplus of 1.9 uh $1.9 million was what was presented to the last Board as a projection we are- we still- we- our audit hasn't begun yet. We're still closing out the our books so that $1.9 million number may be higher, uh we're not certain. So i'm not sure certain what kind of breakdown I would give you. Uh we certainly will look at what caused the surplus, but it was deliberate I can tell you that. Part of the surplus was in the furlough and layoffs, for example, created about- well I don't want to talk on top of my head- it was over a million dollars worth of surplus, the savings from those salaries and those who were then laid off came off of our payroll went on to an unemployment payroll, so there is a lot- there's a- there'll be a lot of discussions on breaking down how that occurred, but it was- it was deliberate and it's not- the amount's not known yet. We won't have that until beginning of October uh the audit begins next week.
Okay. I uh would like to take the last minute that uh we have to uh again uh express appreciation uh to everyone who has worked so hard uh to get our academic uh year off to the the start that we have uh achieved, and to once again uh encourage everyone to uh pay attention to uh their own health and well-being and that of our university community so we can uh be here for the next many months in service to our students and to the mission of Misericordia University. And um given that for now this seems to be the manner in which we're going to have to gather and communicate, I do hope that there will be a time for me to cross paths with many of you, in a socially distanced, appropriate way, uh on campus, or in uh another venue. So thank you all uh for for uh being here today, and thank you colleagues for participating.
Okay, I think we're done.