Best Practices Committee

University has launched a task force that is working on launching a community forum pilot for the fall.

At the present time we do not plan on adding an online reservation system for the DFC. Please feel free to let people know that they are welcome to email Michael Strumpf mstrumpf@wesleyan.edu or Philip Abraham pabraham@wesleyan.edu and we will take care of their reservations. If there are any questions feel free to contact me or Michael Strumpf

Create a standardized format for email signatures to be used by all. This would help with branding efforts and eliminate some questionable and not-so-professional choices.

Great idea. The university as created that standard please go here:  http://wesleyan.edu/communications/styleguide/Email-Signatures.docx

Install hand dryer in the bathroom to replace paper towels

We have been replacing the hand towel dispensers in our large public buildings on campus. To this point we have completed the public bathrooms in Freeman Athletic Center, 1^st and 2^nd floor bathrooms of Usdan and the 1^st and 2^nd floor bathrooms of Fayerweather building.

There are electric hand dryers in Boger Hall which were installed when we renovated the building. What we learned from this building is that the noise from the dryers does carry when the doors are open and Professors have complained that it disturbs their classes. For this reason we have discontinued expanding the use in academic facilities.

I have six units in our storage that will be installed this summer in more bathrooms at Freeman as well as the Macomber Boathouse. Once the new fiscal year starts I will be looking for other opportunities on campus.

Faculty should have the option to download the raw data from student evaluations in machine-readable format (eg SQL or CSV), not just in PDF format. This would make it easier for faculty to their own statistical analysis of their evaluation data.

We are now able to release CSV files and will send out a note shortly letting faculty know that the CSV files are available.  Going forward they will be automatically generated, though likely with a slight lag relative to when the overall reports are available.

Please create a faculty or faculty-staff lounge where people can bring lunch, have coffee, and talk at any time of day. This would facilitate the kinds of spontaneous cross-disciplinary conversations that can spawn productive collaborations. While some departments or buildings have such spaces for their own faculty to use, others having nothing of the sort, and we currently have no such general space on campus which seems like a surprising and unusual omission.

After some investigation and discussion of this issue, here are three suggestions as to how to address this very constructive idea:

1) right now the lounge area on the third floor of Usdan, outside DFC, is seldom used during the day but always open (this includes the outside area when weather is good).  It is completely acceptable for faculty and staff to bring their own food and drinks in from home or from other vendors, or bring food and drinks purchased from the first floor up to there, and eat in this area at any time during the day. Those buying DFC food can also choose to sit in this area to eat their DFC lunch.  This thus makes this lounge area a nice place where both those bringing their own lunch and those buying their lunch at DFC could meet together to socialize or work.  The suggester may thus want to propose on faculty forum that people begin to treat this area in exactly this way and also point out that it is open basically all day for use, except for rare special occasions when the area is closed off for a special event (generally only nights and weekends).  Then hopefully this will gain momentum over time.

2) Pi Cafe and Exley Lobby (and in good weather, the outdoor patio) are of course available at the same times and also near (or at) a food source, but understandably less private and quiet than the upstairs lounge, although good for meetings involving student-faculty-staff interactions and also more convenient and noticeable.  These are certainly not areas designated solely for student use, and faculty and staff should feel that they can use them as well.

3) The first floor of Usdan is subject to the same comments as point (2).

Maternity leave is not equitable. Faculty get 3 months paid leave, but staff has to use short-term disability and FMLA; and if they use FMLA they have to use vacation time concurrently in order to get paid. That is very problematic.

Yes, Maternity leave for faculty and staff is different, however both employee groups have a very rich maternity benefit.

Faculty are responsible to teach two classes per semester, along with other scholarly work, research, writing and committee involvement. If a faculty member has to take time off for any medical reason, classes need to be canceled or a visiting faculty member has to be brought in to teach the class.  In light of this, faculty are given the semester to be off without having to teach, however still may work on research/writing, etc. while out.   There is no formal sick time or accrued vacation time for faculty, however FMLA & short term disability does apply to faculty leaves and runs concurrently.

Staff get nine weeks of maternity (one elimination week using sick time and 8 weeks of maternity).  After this, accrued vacation and floating holiday time may be used to extend paid leave.  Full time staff accrue 1.667 days of vacation per year and are allowed to carry over one years’ worth (20 days) of vacation time per year. If an employee uses 20 days of vacation, this will give them 13 weeks of paid maternity leave. Staff are allowed to take up to 16 weeks (per State of CT FMLA).  If no vacation time is available, the option is available to take the time unpaid.

The lighting of most pedestrian crossings around campus is poor. When I drive past/through campus at night it's in most cases very difficult to see students crossing the road. It doesn't help that most pedestrians wear dark-colored clothing, but the main problem that seems solvable is that, if there are lights close to the crossings, they seldom shine light directly onto pedestrians in or approaching crossings to effectively-enough highlight pedestrians for approaching motorists.

Public street lighting and crossings are the responsibility of the city. Recommendations for repairs and enhancements may be referred to Middletown Public Works at pwadmin@middletownct.gov.  However, Wesleyan and the city both discourage midblock crossings for safety reasons. The suggestion below for a crossing in front of Eclectic is not advisable as it falls midblock. Pedestrians are encouraged to cross at intersections where traffic controls provide an added degree of safety.  Over time Wesleyan will eliminate these short sections of sidewalk that encourage pedestrians to cross midblock, including the one in front of Eclectic.

Each year a group of Facilities Staff and students conducts a lighting tour of campus to identify and address opportunities to enhance safety. The city has made significant progress on Church Street and Wesleyan will continue to advocate for improved lighting on campus streets. I will share the feedback below with the Middletown Director of Public Works for his attention.  

Could we ask the city of Middletown to put a painted crosswalk with a sign between the sidewalk ending in front of Eclectic spilling out to High Street and the sidewalk that continues on the other side of High just northeast of the Star & Crecent? The configuration of the sidewalks signals and encourages crossing the street there, and it is the shortest route for faculty and staff parked in the B lot and students living in Eclectic who are heading to Olin, PAC, Judd, Allbritton or the Star & Crecent. I have seen near misses with students, staff and faculty dodging speeding cars to cross the street, and it’s probably just a matter of time before someone is injured or (God forbid) killed on that stretch of High Street. There’s quite a bit of speeding on that part of High with people trying to make a green light on the intersection with Church. The model might be what we now have on Church Street between Allbritton and Shanklin.

Public street lighting and crossings are the responsibility of the city. Recommendations for repairs and enhancements may be referred to Middletown Public Works at pwadmin@middletownct.gov.  However, Wesleyan and the city both discourage midblock crossings for safety reasons. The suggestion below for a crossing in front of Eclectic is not advisable as it falls midblock. Pedestrians are encouraged to cross at intersections where traffic controls provide an added degree of safety.  Over time Wesleyan will eliminate these short sections of sidewalk that encourage pedestrians to cross midblock, including the one in front of Eclectic.

Each year a group of Facilities Staff and students conducts a lighting tour of campus to identify and address opportunities to enhance safety. The city has made significant progress on Church Street and Wesleyan will continue to advocate for improved lighting on campus streets. I will share the feedback below with the Middletown Director of Public Works for his attention.  

Make photos available of students who have submitted enrollment requests during drop/add. Do this like the photo gallery of students enrolled in a course.

From Paul Turenne: While there is utility in providing the photos of requesting students, we cannot make this programming change.

Suppressing the photos was a conscious decision to stop/prevent approvals based on appearance.

• The Data Governance Committee is working to respond to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulationswhich impact storage of and access to student data. Therefore, we are unable to make changes until completing our compliance measures.

Supply high quality 2 ply toilet paper to all campus bathrooms.

From Jeff Sweet. I have been working on a project with our paper distributor as well as manufacturer to change out all of our paper towel and toilet paper dispensers on campus. The goal of the change is to utilize paper that has a more sustainable manufacturing process and at the same time maintain a higher quality performance. With the paper towels it means we will be getting rid of the brown roll towel and replace it with a more absorbent towel that has increased sustainability qualities. For the toilet paper it will result in a paper with increased sustainability qualities but the only way to improve the performance is to have 2 ply paper everywhere.

We have been testing two types of paper (toilet and roll towel) over the past year and have received positive feedback. Unfortunately the toilet paper manufacturer discontinued production on this style paper due to lack of interest throughout the market. I am working on finalizing a replacement paper and expect within the next month to decide whether it is worth changing over the entire campus.

If we do decide to change the entire process will occur over the summer. We have 900+ toilet paper dispensers along with 400+ paper towel dispenser locations so it will take a time when the university is in slow down to accomplish the change effectively. I’ll let you know if the change will occur once the evaluation is completed.

Providing one daily shuttle for faculty between the New Haven train station and campus. I have been visiting faculty on campus now for four semesters. I have found securing and dealing with the cost of commuting from New York City the greatest strain of teaching in this capacity at Wesleyan. Having self-organized solutions to this each semester with a large handful of other commuters, I believe this is a challenge shared by a good number of faculty. I imagine this is not a new concern, so perhaps there have been similar ideas raised before. I would be happy to be a part of further discussion, if that would be helpful.

We (as in Academic Affairs) have now spent some time in figuring out how this could work, including costing out running a once-a-day shuttle to and from Union Station.  One problem is coordinating times as not all faculty would want to arrive and/or leave at the same time and demand would differ across days.  After some time working on figuring out whether this would be feasible at a reasonable cost (so as to break even on the shuttle service, given the estimates we were given re the cost of running a once-a-day round trip with certain van sizes, ahd figuring out what weeks during the year we might offer it), we have concluded that this is unlikely to dominate in terms of cost and personal flexibility the other possible options:

1) uber rides to and from campus/New Haven, particularly if people can self-coordinate into groups of two or three to share costs.  This self-coordination may be most easily done by some interested party sending around a note on faculty forum or to all faculty (Academic Affairs will be happy to forward such a note to all faculty) at the beginning of each semester, or self-coordination might include a group of interested people signing into a google spreadsheet to organize on a weekly or longer basis.

2) carpooling (along similar lines to that suggested above, either from NYC and/or from New Haven)

3) CT Rail is supposed to go live in May and cost $4.75 one way from Meriden to New Haven with a planned 17 round trips per day between New Haven and Hartford.  We have not yet seen the schedule to see how the times will align with Metro North and Amtrak schedules, but assume that the planners are taking that into consideration in setting the times.  It may then be possible for Wesleyan to offer a shuttle service to the Meriden train station, and that trip should also be cheaper re use of uber or carpooling.

4) There is a current proposal by a student (Noah Kahan) to have an M-Link express bus that would complement the existing M-Link bus between Meriden and Middletown.  If this proposal pans out it is likely to be more cost-effective and flexible than our running a shuttle service.

Academic Affairs will continue to monitor this situation in conjunction with the Sustainability Director and post updates re CT Rail and M-LInk as they become available.

When you call Human Resources Benefits, the answering machine replies your phone call will be returned within 24 to 48 hours. Then, you may not even get a return phone call. When you e-mail, the response is to wait until next week as your question can wait. Not all questions or inquiry are clear on the website and it is helpful to have someone available. Thank you.

The benefits team receives a very high number of telephone calls and emails regularly.  We do our best to return messages as quickly as possible.   As we transitioned to a new staff member on the team last year, the response time was slower than normal.   However, response time should be back to within 24 to 48 hours.  If you continue to have difficulty receiving an answer to your question please contact Julia Hicks, Chief Human Resources Officer. 

How can it be that Wesleyan only employs 3 full time athletic trainers to cover 29 varsity sports and over 700 athletes? There is a 4th "intern" athletic trainer who works just as much, if not more, as the other 3 but does not make a full time wage and is not offered any other benefits by the university. All other NESCAC schools have at least 4 full time athletic trainers, and the ones with only 4 don't have football, and as many varsity sports, in general, as Wesleyan. We like to "strive for excellence" in athletics but we cant even employ a reasonable and prudent number of athletic trainers to be able to properly take care of our athletes. Will it take a catastrophic incident to occur before the university wakes up and realizes how important athlete health and safety is, and what a risk is being taken but not having the correct ratio of athletic trainers to cover all in season sports? Not to mention out of season sports that practice during off hours without any medical coverage...

From Mike Whalen: Wesleyan has 3 centrally funded, full-time, benefitted, Athletic Trainers and 1 department funded, renewable, 9-month Athletic Trainer.

Direct comparisons to peers (other NESCACs) are confounded by many factors but we can’t argue with the statement that Wesleyan is grossly understaffed in the Athletic Injury Care area. The institution has failed to keep pace in terms of adding staff throughout the past 30 years.

To give historical perspective, Wesleyan had 2 full time, faculty-benefitted ATs (serving 14 men’s sports) before we co-educated. Despite adding 8 women’s programs (1972-87), Wesleyan continued employing only 2 full time ATs until 2000 when a third full time permanent position was added. Wesleyan was also the last NESCAC school to add the third full time AT.

I have tried to be creative in filling this need. I applied for and received a grant-funded AT position from the NCAA for FY14 and FY15. After the grant expired, I negotiated permission to hire and self-fund a 9-month position in FY16 and this remains is our current structure: 3 budgeted FTEs and one annual renewable 9-month position. We also use some per diem ATs to provide coverage across 29 sport programs.

I annually request, with the Provost’s support, for a fourth full-time AT.  I realize staffing requests are coming from every area of campus and budgets for new money is extremely competitive.

Below is a breakdown on the number of Athletic Trainers by schools in the NESCAC.

Amherst College: 6 full-time ATs, one intern AT

Bates College: 4 full-time ATs, no ice hockey or wrestling

Bowdoin College: 6 full-time ATs, 2part time (fall season only)

Colby College:  5 full-time ATs, plus 1 temp for Rugby

Connecticut College: 4 full-time ATs, no football, wrestling, baseball or softball

Hamilton College: 5 full-time ATs

Middlebury College: 7 full-time ATs

Trinity College: 6 full-time ATs and they are working on permanent per diem for Rugby

Tufts University: 5 full-time ATs, 2 part-time

Wesleyan University: 3 full-time ATs, one 9-month annual

Williams College: 6 full-time ATs, one 30-week permanent

We need a committee made up of campus community to help/assist new members of the professional staff community as they start to transition to campus. A "Welcome Wagon" so to speak. When someone is hired they get a very sterile outline of moving options, housing options, etc. but no one to really help them feel welcomed and who they can turn to with questions. They don't know their department colleagues yet so someone calling to say Hi, welcome what questions do you have would be great. Someone other than their new supervisor or HR. Where to shop, pros and cons to living on and off, good restaurants, kid care questions, etc. I would happily volunteer to work on something like this and based on conversations with my colleagues I know others would as well!

HR appreciates this suggestion and will try to incorporate this idea in our onboarding experience for new employees.

The handicap door button in Allbritton building most of time is not working. The door won't open automatically after press the button.

Please notify us when this happens, you can either call 860-685-3400 or email work_order@wesleyan.edu or enter a WesFix through your WesPortal when you see this is happening.

Each department web page should have a clear phone number to make it easy to contact them. Not to pick on Admissions, but tor example, I wanted to give someone the general Admissions Dept. phone number and couldn't find one after spending quite a lot of time looking through their sub pages. (I'm sorry if it's there and I just missed it.) I finally went to the staff directory and wasn't sure what the best number would be, so picked one from the list. Other depts. have same problem, although I see that many now do have a box in the lower left hand column.

The Wesleyan website is decentralized, which means that each department is responsible for their own content. Speaking to the department is the best way to get the information added to the website.  University Communications is responsible for the templates that the departments are using to format their webpages.  As part of the template UComm offers a section in the lower left column where the department can put contact information. As UComm works with departments on managing their websites they can continue to encourage departments to take advantage of that section by putting in their contact information.

On September 27 Karen Warren sent an ITS announcement warning of a rise in the number of phishing emails and encouraging members of the Wesleyan community to forward such emails to security@wesleyan.edu This was a great idea because previously I had been clogging Karen's email box with forwarded phishing emails. I wonder if now ITS could create an analogous email box (e.g., "spam@wesleyan.edu" where we could send spam emails from senders who regularly send them. For example, some guy who takes aerial photos has sent me over the past few years about 20 emails that have gotten through. I try to block his email domain name but he changes it periodically. ITS, but not I, has the resources to figure out what the true path of these emails is, which is a precondition for blocking the spammer effectively at the university level. The worst spammers by far are Chinese and Indian predatory publishers and predatory conference organizers who send emails inviting faculty (and possibly others) to send our publications to spam journals or to sign up for spam conferences. It would be great to be able to forward these to a website. An ITS colleague could then go through these emails periodically and try to figure out their true senders. If repeat offenders are identified their emails could then be blocked at the university level.

From Karen Warren: Spam is actually a highly complex and very subjective issue.  What is spam for one may not be spam for someone else.   We currently use Spam Assassin in our environment and users have a great deal of control over how dthey manage their spam.   Many of the products have improved over the years and often it is not necessary to do much individual manipulation. 

Forwarding messages does not actually provide the level of header data needed to create the blocks described.  Even if they did, it would be a case of trying to plug a million holes and not sustainable or scalable. 

There are choices for managing spam and Desktop Support are able to help individuals make decisions about how aggressive they want to be (keeping in mind that aggressive stances can result in false positives as well).  At Wesleyan, we have found the appetite for false positives to be much lower than extra unwanted email in the inbox.

As we are finalizing our migration to Office365, we are learning about the effective use of the tools that are included with that product which continue to improve.  At the same time, we are looking at improvements to blocking phishing that are less manual as well.  The reason we encourage the forwards of suspicious phishing emails is so that we can verify if accounts have been compromised.  Those emails represent a threat to our data.

I propose that the University be open on every day that classes are in session, including Labor Day. All employees would receive a 'floating holiday' day that can be used on Labor Day or any other day with approval from their supervisor. Having the university open on the first day of classes would ensure that all university resources are available for students, faculty and staff. Thank you.

The new academic calendar beginning with fall 2019 has not been approved by the faculty so this may or not be an issue. We will have to review union contracts for potential impacts and costs. We will also discuss with administrative staff to ensure there are no unintended consequences and how it may impact them.   We will provide an update on this suggestion as discussions progress. 

Please publish salary ranges with job postings - this would save a tremendous amount of time and effort on the part of both job applicants and hiring managers.

Our positions are posted with the wording that salary is commensurate with experience as there are many factors other than salary that are taken into consideration when candidates apply to our positions.  We have an excellent total compensation and benefits package that candidates would lose out learning more about if they only considered salary.  Additionally, when candidates see ranges they think that the salary they should be offered should be at the top of the range.  When they aren’t offered the top of the range it creates a negative impact even before they person has started working.

Add additional electric vehicle charging stations somewhere more central to campus, possibly by admissions. This would serve as a sign of Wesleyan's commitment to sustainability for visitors and potential students, and would encourage more faculty/staff to purchase hybrid and electric vehicles. The two chargers located by athletics are almost always in use, so clearly there is a demand for this on campus. I believe there is also still state money available to subsidize the project.

From Bill Nelligan: Currently we are exploring EV chargers for L lot.  Vine street does not have electrical service big enough for generators without adding a very expensive transformer, Cady has 6, level 1 charging stations already in place.

Highly encourage arranging to have the Muslim Chaplain at classes on or related to Islam, Middle East, and Muslim Culture. Statistically most students know very little on Islam and have never met a Muslim. Also encourage inviting the Muslim Chaplain to all related departments to give a lecture on Islam.

From Rick Culliton: Imam Sami Aziz has visited numerous classes and partnered with faculty in speaking about The Muslim faith and current issues related to Islam during his time on campus.   He is a .5 FTE and as such is limited in how many classes he can participate in but has responded to numerous requests over the past two years.  

From Paul Turenne:

Creating a ‘drop explanation’ field within the electronic Drop/Add system has now been added to the Academic Affairs-ITS project list. Based on our preliminary discussions: 

• the field will be optional for students
• the results will be kept confidential
• a commitment from the academic community to take action on based on results will be necessary
• the task will need to have a lower priority status than other existing/competing tasks

 Once this enhancement is ready to be worked on, we will consult with students, faculty and staff to determine all of the final details. Thank you for the suggestion.

From Jen Kleindienst: 

I think the person might have been referring to the non-MAT lines (9 Town Transit, CT Transit, etc.).  I think it would be very hard for them to justify changing routes unless a lot of Wesleyan folks could commit to riding regularly. 

Noah Kahan (nkahan) and Rosanne Ng (lng) are the students working now on expanding public transit.  Hopefully they can point you in the right direction and let you know the status of getting MAT routes on Google Maps.

From Joyce Topshe: Here is the link to the MAT web page. A student from Wesleyan (same student who designed Wes Fix ap) was working with the Middletown Area Transit on an ap to increase ridership. He may have a contact person. I agree that there is much room for improvement.

http://middletownareatransit.org/contact.php

What, people don’t enjoy the Proustian, Clarissa-like elongated genus of bootless tumefied prose that signals the experiencing of an excellently representative version of the department report genre?  

The ever-diligent anti-bloat crusader, Division II Dean Marc Eisner, has taken a first crack at tightening the Department Report format and Academic Affairs will work on this some more before inflicting the next round of department report requests on suspecting Chairs.  We will report back to the Best Practices committee when we have this year’s attempt at encouraging tight, smart, easy-to-fill-in forms and invite additional feedback, probably at a spring Chairs meeting, before coming out with this year’s final version of the form that will hopefully encourage a low ratio of bloviation relative to enlightenment.

From Mike Whalen: 

We have played several mid-week games this season on both of our turf fields.  The primary reason is so that we can limit missed class time by our students.  Adding lights on additional fields is quite expensive and provides no real naming opportunities for donors.  

From Scott Rohde:

Dear Faculty and Staff,

Based on feedback from the Wesleyan community, we are making some adjustments to the new parking regulations. 

While we will continue to encourage employees to park in lots assigned through the new zoning process, for the time being tickets will not be issued for employee vehicles parked in an unassigned lot. Public Safety officers will make note of vehicles parked in unassigned spaces for the purposes of better understanding traffic patterns in campus lots. Vehicles without a hangtag will be ticketed, so it remains important that employees register their vehicles with Public Safety and display the hangtag as instructed. We will revisit the current zone assignments in tandem with data we collect over the course of the current semester. It remains the case that any student vehicle parked in staff and faculty lots will be ticketed.

As a reminder, the goals of our new parking strategy are to better allocate parking resources across the campus, alleviate serious congestion in some lots, provide for better visitor parking near the Admission building, and collect data to help us make further improvements. We are also anticipating that the City of Middletown will install metered parking on High Street and possibly other campus streets in the future.

If you haven’t already, please register your vehicle with Public Safety and be sure to display the hangtag when you park in campus lots. Please note that we will be expanding designated visitor parking in E lot and will ticket cars in visitor spots that do not display visitor tags.

Thank you for your help as we work to improve parking for our community.

ITS is working on a solution for this with Jan Naegele.

Academic Affairs is working on a plan to do this or something similar to this.  It might instead be that we set up a calendar or a set of calendars that people can subscribe to as a set or individually, given that the dates do change on some of these meetings and that the set of people interested in a meeting varies (we are currently thinking we might have, as separate channels, Faculty Meeting, Academic Council, Faculty Executive Committee, RAB, Chairs, and Academic Affairs-sponsored social events--which would include happy hours as well as receptions in honor of various persons).  Staff would be able to subscribe to any of these as well.  We will report back to the Best Practices committee as next steps occur on this project.

A comprehensive, searchable guide to the Room Request system is available on the Room Request landing page, accessible to all from WesPortal. (In the top right hand corner there is an icon with a question mark ; click on that icon and choose User Manual for detailed, step-by-step information.) Additional information is available on the EMS FAQ in WesPortal, and Allison Grella-Soden offers frequent group and individual training for staff with more discrete or intensive requirements (including campus administrative assistants who utilize EMS on behalf of the faculty they support). For both undergraduate and graduate students, extensive resources are provided on the SALD website - http://wesleyan.edu/sald/event_planning_resources/index.html. It is not practicable to devote limited orientation time toward a platform that most users find self-explanatory per their needs and for which the above resources are available.

Should the CFA have any requests or concerns based on their particular requirements, they are of course welcome to contact Events & Conferences or the Orientation team directly. 

We do still use some pesticides in certain areas of the campus.  We use an IPM approach that has evolved over the recent years.  The main goal of this program is to make the campus attractive as possible, as sustainably as possible.  Overall, we have greatly reduced the amount of chemicals used, by breaking the campus down into areas of priority.  As we continue to actively build the health of our lawns through; aeration, overseeding, and good daily practices, our use of pesticides will continue to decrease.

We recently tried out a line of battery powered lawn tools, in hopes of beginning to phase out our gas powered leaf blowers.  We found that the technology still seems to be more suitable for the residential application.  We are moving into the time of year in which our team will be collecting leaves 8-10 hours a day.  We found that the battery powered blowers would not be feasible for the amount of leaf collection needed.  As the technology continues to improve, we will continue to consider this as an option.  All Grounds employees are provided hearing protection, and safety inspections are executed routinely.  

From Mike Whalen: 

I know the President and Board of Trustees recently did a full review on whether or not it was in Wesleyan’s best interest to continue playing both football and baseball on Andrus Field and concluded that it was.  As far as the night games are concerned, on both occasions when we hosted a night game on Andrus Field, the lights were paid for by a donor. 

It’s worth mentioning that both Amherst and Williams have recently build new football stadiums.  The costs at Amherst were 16 million and at Williams it was 22 million.  Since that is a road we are not looking to go down, we have determined that keeping both football and baseball in the center of campus provides a unique experience which can’t be duplicated by multi-million dollar stadiums. 

I would also point out that women’s soccer plays their games on Jackson Field and women’s lacrosse prefers to play over at Smith but could also play at Jackson Field if they wanted to.

From Mike Whalen: 

I know the President and Board of Trustees recently did a full review on whether or not it was in Wesleyan’s best interest to continue playing both football and baseball on Andrus Field and concluded that it was.  As far as the night games are concerned, on both occasions when we hosted a night game on Andrus Field, the lights were paid for by a donor. 

It’s worth mentioning that both Amherst and Williams have recently build new football stadiums.  The costs at Amherst were 16 million and at Williams it was 22 million.  Since that is a road we are not looking to go down, we have determined that keeping both football and baseball in the center of campus provides a unique experience which can’t be duplicated by multi-million dollar stadiums. 

I would also point out that women’s soccer plays their games on Jackson Field and women’s lacrosse prefers to play over at Smith but could also play at Jackson Field if they wanted to.

Please provide more information. It is recommended that you contact HR confidentially, so they can take action. 

Conditions change by the minute so it is not feasible to portray minute by minute updates on campus snowfall or parking lot conditions.  It is best for employees to get weather and traffic conditions from the local news and weather stations.  

Physical Plant improved the east entrance to Fisk Hall with a new patio. The DKE house is private property (owned by DKE) and walking through that property would be trespassing on private property.  The property is not owned by Wesleyan and we have no rights or responsibilities to clean or maintain it. No one at Wesleyan should be walking through the private property for any reason. They should remain on the sidewalk on High Street. It’s only a tiny bit farther to walk the correct route. 

Public Safety will distribute parking tags this fall.

From Bill Holder: The calendar managers committee has discussed this issue at some length over the past year. The good news is that the redesigned calendar is getting much more use than the old one. For the first six months of 2016, there were 2,764 events posted, compared to 1,216 for the comparable period in 2015. There are still omissions, including very notable ones, as you cite below. We have discussed the need for continuing education about use of the calendar, and we will pursue this.

From Nate Lerner: The campus’ reservation process requires users to indicate a calendar preference during their request process – they can choose “none” (many events are not public and therefore this option is necessary), but they are required to make a choice in order to proceed with securing a space. When an event appears to be public in nature and a user has not requested calendaring, event coordinators verify this choice before confirming the reservation.

The particular event mentioned was facilitated by the CFA and not through my office. As such, Andy Chatfield would have been responsible for publicizing that event and perhaps can provide more insight. It did indeed appear on the calendar for April 16, and I recall seeing promotional signage for this in Usdan and elsewhere, and perhaps also a mention on the Wesleyan homepage. 

New Mats are on order and will have Weslayan logo on them per Drew Black. 

From Jen Kleindienst: Agreed, Keurigs generate insane amounts of waste.  Some cities around the world have started banning the use of K-Cups because of their environmental impact.  Brewing bulk ground coffee is hands down the most cost-effective and environmentally-friendly option.  Pods would be a feasible alternative that’s more middle-of-the-road in terms of waste and convenience.  For either bulk/Pods, it’s best if departments compost that waste, but that option currently relies on the individual departments to empty, not custodians.  

Wesleyan currently allows work from home on a project basis. At this time, the University is not considering a work from home policy on a regular basis for employees. However, human resources will continue to look into this policy in the future.

Explore the long-term feasibility of gated employee parking lots with card access. 

Having gated parking would incur a cost. Wesleyan does not have pay parking. Public Safety has been working on parking issues here on campus.

In the faculty portfolio there is a link called Classroom Improvement Request.  This link is available to all faculty at the beginning of each semester. Once the link is removed from the faculty portfolio it is still available in the Academic AA  and Academic Department Chair portfolios.   This link is a tool for asking for improvements to a particular classroom.   While it can be used to ask for a portable blackboard the best way to make that request is either putting in a work order to Physical Plant (work_order@wesleyan.edu) or calling Kari van Blarcom in the Registrar's Office at x3684

There are Electronic Bulletin Boards located in Usdan Center.  You can have your content added to those screens through a webform on the Usdan website.  There have been some preliminary discussion to add Electronic Bulletin Boards elsewhere on campus but there is no budget allocated for it at this time.

We are actively looking into a new phone system but right now there is no budget allocated for it.  We are looking to see if this project can be done with no capital.

Our Information Technology Services department continues to work on securing a program that would allow MAC users to access panic buttons on their computers.  There is still no solid date for a MAC implementation.  It may happen in the fall of 2016.  However, there is a new movement to IOS/mobile device support that will integrate into the same console/web portal that may launch in the spring of 2016.  ITS will continue to monitor these programs and keep us informed. 

We are researching the possibility of adding a class at 5:30 p.m.  All rooms at Freeman are booked at that time for student athletes.  Once we locate a room and an instructor, we will let you know.  This would be a pilot program for Spring, 2016.  It will continue if the attendance is consistent.  

Public Safety has been working on parking issues here on campus.  This semester we have reviewed the 2011 parking study completed by an outside consultant.  We compared the priorities outlined in that report to our own observations.  We have also conducted lot counts and met with various constituents.    Parking and parking enforcement on campus is the main topic at our upcoming Public Safety Advisory committee meeting.

Specific to the E lot we have worked with the food service vendor to reduce improper parking by their staff, and I have seen a great improvement.  We also provide routine Public Safety presence at that lot early mornings and during the noon hour to provide visibility and enforcement.  Compared to last fall semester the complaints regarding that lot have gone down considerably. 

We will continue to discuss this lot in our overall work.  I anticipate Public Safety will complete a list of recommendations regarding parking availability and enforcement strategies about mid second semester.  I will add the suggestion of a student monitor to our overall list of suggestions.  

Public Safety continues to work on completely updating the campus emergency plan and business continuity plan.  Completed updates have been shared with the cabinet.  Cabinet members are currently involved in preparing for two exercises that will be completed this academic year.  Major portions of the emergency plan are public in nature and provide guidance on how to respond to emergencies.  This information will be available on the web.  Additionally, public safety is working on a “guidebook” for employees that provides specific information on how to react to emergency situations.  

Emergency planning at Wesleyan is based on an “all hazards approach”.  That means we do not have individual plans for each building or every conceivable circumstance but rather a general guideline that is easy to follow given the information available at the time of a crisis.  This allows maximum flexibility both in stabilization and recovery.  The guidebook described above will address a number of issues raised by the person making the suggestion including sheltering options, and communication procedures.  Training and building familiarity are the keys to successfully working through an emergency.  Each department should take responsibility for this; Public Safety can assist with this endeavor.  In fact we often join staff meetings to have these types of discussions.

Each year we upgrade several buildings to improve accessibility. The criteria used to select a building include volume of users and reasonable accommodations that are available for that program. The CFA is particularly challenging since so much of the space is below grade. In the short term please feel free to contact Roseann Sillasen rsillasen@wesleyan.edu regarding a specific accessibility need. The CFA Theater is accessible providing a ramp to the presentation venue with seating on the landing and a ramp to the lower level with ADA restroom. The CFA Theater (previous dance building is not accessible.)  Assessment of this building and the Design Studio will be scheduled.  

This suggestion will be taken into consideration. Each year we hope to improve the landscape on campus to create more outdoor seating areas. Facilities staff are focusing next summer on landscape enhancements around the Butterfield complex. A suggestion from the Sasaki campus planning team was to add seating on the north side of the connector between Olin and PAC. Although, this has not been budgeted yet. 

Suggestions like these should be submitted to major maintenance for consideration on an ongoing basis. Maintenance issues, including mold should be reported to physical plant immediately at work_order@wesleyan.edu. CFA Music Studio practice rooms 008, 019, 022, 025, 026, 028, and 030 were renovated over the past three years; new carpet, acoustic doors, paint and restoration of the acoustic sound boards.  Another practice room will be renovated summer 2016. 

Specific suggestions should be directed to Public Works at

pwadmin@middletownct.gov.

Academic Affairs now puts deadlines for usage of startup funds in offer letters.   The second part of the proposal is an excellent idea, and Academic Affairs will implement it by automatically extending deadlines for startup funds when the tenure clock is extended before the deadline has been reached.

Wesleyan will consult with the city director of parking, Geen Thazhampallath. It should be noted that striping of parking spaces requires annual maintenance and expenditures of city tax dollars. Striped parking spaces do not necessarily increase parking capacity and do have a negative impact on the aesthetics of a streetscape.  Striped parking spaces are generally utilized when parking meters and/or parking time limits are in effect. The city may elect, at its discretion to add metered and/or time limited parking if they are being asked to spend money on striping and enforcement.

A project proposal to add an outdoor classroom at Fisk Hall may enhance some of this area. The remainder of the work will be done in priority order. The street trees are in the public right of way and owned by the city. In time, they will likely be removed completely by Eversource and/or the city. 

The administrators of the teaching evaluation system have the ability to connect evaluations to the writer, but all evaluations are delivered to the faculty anonymously.  

Faculty can respond to student evaluations in the annual merit report, and as part of the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes.  Those responses are the appropriate venue in which to discuss events specific to a given class, including honor board cases.

Wesleyan will consult with the city director of parking, Geen Thazhampallath. It should be noted that striping of parking spaces requires annual maintenance and expenditures of city tax dollars. Striped parking spaces do not necessarily increase parking capacity and do have a negative impact on the aesthetics of a streetscape.  Striped parking spaces are generally utilized when parking meters and/or parking time limits are in effect. The city may elect, at its discretion to add metered and/or time limited parking if they are being asked to spend money on striping and enforcement. 

Fire exit signs are designed to meet code.  Green exit signs are installed based on venue and fire marshal approval. Areas where they are located are Zilkha Gallery, CFA Theater, CFA Design Studio, Crowell Concert Hall, and ESC058 to name a few. There are 100's of red exit signs installed on campus and no immediate plans to replace them with green unless directed by the fire marshal. 

Working with consultants to implement this change. 

This issue was directed to the City of Middletown Director of Public Works, Bill Russo. The crosswalks were restriped and new, LED street lights were installed by the city. 

Most classrooms have motion sensors. Regarding the projectors. This is being addressed. With our summer upgrades, we networked ~80 projectors and this semester a server was configured that enables remote control/scheduling of power to the unit. Initiative is underway to monitor the projectors. 

The human resources department in collaboration with other departments on campus engage professional training consultants to conduct supervisory workshops for managers on a regular basis.  This training provides new as well as experienced managers with tools to understand the complexities of supervising others in order to enhance their skills and develop in their careers.  These workshops have been well received by managers and supervisors that have attended.

Wesleyan should get some pizza vending machines.  These would be particularly helpful for students on campus during off times (over break, summer session, etc), and might also be nice for faculty and staff.  I've heard that the machines make a fresh pizza in just a few minutes and many other campuses have them. [Spring 2015]

Pizza vending machines are not in the US yet. We will continue to research this in the future. 

I feel the Athletic Center and locker rooms need maintenance and a weekly cleaning. [Spring 2015]

Lockers rooms are cleaned daily and we should report any deficiencies to physical plant by way of work order. [Fall 2015]

I also would like to make a couple of comments about the fitness center in Freeman.  The treadmills are very outdated and the majority of them lack compartments to hold water bottles/phones.

We will look into adding fans to improve circulation. There is a small replacement budget that athletics is using to update the equipment on a rotating basis. [Fall 2015]

Facility hours can be found at: www.wesleyan.edu/athletics/deptinfo/fachours.html.  Space and funding are not available for to creat a faculty/staff only gym. We are looking into increasing the hours that the gym is open. [Fall 2015]

University comfort policy states that the temperature should be 68 degrees plus or minus two degrees. Temperature should be between 66-70. They offer room thermometers if necessary. If the temperature goes below 66 they will make an adjustment.  Policy can be found at: www.wesleyan.edu/sustainability/energy/policy.html. [Fall 2015}

We plan to do this either during or after the WFS upgrade scheduled for January 2016. [Fall 2015]

The Parlance system is an old system and currently not scheduled for an upgrade. There was a problem with data about new employees being updated in the system. That has been corrected. ITS is also currently looking into an issue with employees who have had name changes to increase the likelihood of these employees being recognized by the system under either name.

Briefly tested and the system was correct about 85% of the time – it struggled with name changes (could be because of the data issues and that could be solved). [Spring 2015]

Over the past year changes have been made to the portfolio — new buckets have been made to help compartmentalize similar links.  For example the the Event Scheduling & Calendaring bucket now holds links that were scattered throughout the portfolio.  Also, ITS is in the process of changing the technology used to manage the portfolios.  This change will make the system easier to manage behind the scenes and present the users with a new look and feel.  [Fall 2014]

This proposal is being reviewed by the transportation subcommittee of the sustainability task force. [Fall 2014]

This proposal is being reviewed by the transportation subcommittee of the sustainability task force. [Fall 2014]

This proposal is being reviewed by the transportation subcommittee of the sustainability task force. [Fall 2014]

This proposal is being reviewed by the transportation subcommittee of the sustainability task force. [Fall 2014]

This proposal is being reviewed by the facilities committee. [Fall 2014]

ITS will create an address book that contains a list of generic email addresses and make it available to users. 

Most committees are by election or by appointment.  We do not currently have a specific forum where groups can advertise when they are seeking new members for an open committee.  If a committee is seeking members from the community, the chair of the committee could send an email with information about the vacancy out to the community through Joy Vodak in Academic Affairs.  Individuals who are interested in joining a particular committee should contact the chair of the committee for more information.

The Parlance system is an old system and currently not scheduled for an upgrade. There was a problem with data about new employees being updated in the system. That has been corrected. ITS is also currently looking into an issue with employees who have had name changes to increase the likelihood of these employees being recognized by the system under either name.

Briefly tested and the system was correct about 85% of the time – it struggled with name changes (could be because of the data issues and that could be solved). [Spring 2015]

Improvements have been made to the system to fix data issue. 

Several years ago we asked faculty and staff to eliminate trash cans inside their private offices and to hand carry their trash and recycling to the bin in the corridor. We piloted the project in several departments including physical plant and ITS before expanding this to the entire campus. After several years we've had varying degrees of compliance. Recently we discussed eliminating waste bins in private offices campus wide as this person suggested. In addition to the sustainable benefits it would help with pest control and odors. Bill Nelligan and Jen Kleindeinst may be able to provide an update on that idea. I'm a consistent recycler myself and carry my own trash and recycling to the corridor at the end of the day. However, I find it more convenient to have both containers by my desk.

Response from Jen Kleindienst:

I’ve talked with my counterpart at Hamilton, where they tried a similar program a few years ago. Brian had several cautions we should take into mind:
• If we forcibly change cans in someone’s office, we’re “invading” personal space and will likely get backlash. A voluntary program might work better to start us off.
• He (and I) recommend not removing trash cans entirely, but replacing large trash cans with something like this: http://www.recyclingiscool.com/Recycle-Bowl-Mini-Trash-Can_p_306.html. I have one of these in my office that I got as a promo item and have been very happy with it. It accommodates tissues, gum wrappers, and other small trash; individuals can take large trash items to the nearest hallway bin. Brian suggested not getting trash cans that hook onto recycling bins (which I’d originally suggested) because of cost. [Spring 2015]

I hope this helps answer your question but if not let me know and I will be happy to provide any additional information. [Spring 2015]

RESPONSE FROM PUBLIC SAFETY: During the next semester parking practices will be examined with consideration being given to the recommendations made by a parking consultant. Specific lot assignments will be reviewed and considered. [Spring 2015]

RESPONSE FROM PUBLIC SAFETY: Parking in this lot has been problematic.  A memorandum was sent to the campus community requesting compliance.  Further Public Safety has increased supervision of this area.  It is my intention to meet with the BA supervisors and make certain that BA employees have permits and are parking in their designated lots.  Increased enforcement earlier in the day will also take place to ensure compliance.  Cars parked without permits, or permits for another lot will be cited. [Spring 2015]

Beginning in December 2014, HR will be hosting a semi-annual new employee orientation where employees hired within the last 6 months can get together to meet each other and learn more about Wesleyan.

The Center for Faculty Career Development holds a New Faculty Luncheon twice a semester to which all new faculty and junior faculty are invited to just check in and see how everyone is doing and discuss issues with senior faculty.  The director of CFCD is always there and invites some other senior faculty as well.  Right now the spring semester dates are Wednesday, February 4th  and Tuesday, March 3 both at 12:00 in Allbritton 206.  I have already sent out an email to everyone and will do so again once the spring semester starts.  Lunch is provided by CFCD.  [Fall 2014]

http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/wellbeing/medicalleave.html

To help focus the information three different styles of homepages were created for use by communications.  Note: other methods of communication have been identified and are currently being investigated [Fall 2012]

Lyris email lists have been made for each building that will be used by Physical Plant and Public Safety to notify building occupants of issues in their office building. [Fall 2012]