Meeting Minutes

Monday, 02/11/19     //     2:30pm-4:00pm     //     Room 219

Note Taker: Haley Johnson

Attending: Anya Petersen-Frey, Jodi Emery, Korrin Ebira, Elliott Fraughton, Andrew Stone (1st half), Katina Sifantonakis, Nate Friedman, Andrea Miller, Christoph Dressler, Anne E. O'Brien, Mandy Self, Lisa Fuller, James Elder, Merilee Anderson, Lynne Bennett, Lauren Andersen, Dolores Heaton

Agenda:

Action Items

Alumni Meeting Update - Leadership

• Earlier today, 2/11/19, Anne and Lauren went to the alumni house and signed an MOU that makes Continuing Educations one of the service providers of the Alumni Association.
• Positive outcomes of this partnership:
  • GoLearn will be alumni's official travel program (The Alumni Association is ceasing all other travel partnerships).
  • The Alumni Association has completely restructured so that anyone who's ever been affiliated with the U is an alumnus, making the pool of people considerable larger (there are no more dues to be part of the alumni association).
  • The Alumni Association is developing an app that alumni can download; we will be promoted on that app as well as through other possible outlets.
• Our contribution:
  • ProEd (excluding certain classes), Test Prep, and Osher will give a 10% discount to alumni
    • For Test Prep, this is actually lower than the 20% discount we used to give alumni! Making it the same figure across the board is just easier for everyone.
• Next steps:
  • We need to establish a baseline for how many alumni are currently engaging with us and see how that changes in the future thanks to the partnership.
  • We'll have conversations about how to market this partnership.
    • Alumni already sent an email out a short while ago and ProEd has received some calls because of it.
• The new director of the Alumni Association, Todd Andrews, was really complimentary of how we are as a Continuing Education unit and impressed with how collaborative we are. 
• Sidebar regarding TA scholarships:
  • We have 5 different scholarship codes currently that we can use. Anya is working on these and making it so that things are easier to track. (i.e. the alumni discount will have its own code so we can look specifically at those discounts, so will ELI, etc. etc.) 

U of U/USHE/Utah University Agreements - Anne/Anya

• Context: we haven't always done the best job of keeping track of our contracts, which is troublesome when we need to track one down and reference it. We'll be making a renewed effort to keep both hard copy records of contracts (those should go to Haley; if you want to keep your own filing system of contracts, just make a copy and give one to her) and a digital copy that is accessible by all management.
• Anya created a box folder called CECE Contracts for the digital storage component. (There is currently a TCM - total contract management - folder, but that's for vendor-related contracts with external entities; this new one is for internal contracts).
• The Process: when you have a new contract, file a hard copy in your own records if desired, make a copy and give it to Haley so she can store it in her contracts folder, and scan it so you have a digital copy to then put in the box folder. 
  • For contracts already signed, see action item above.

Data Governance Updates - James

• The Data Governance Group met for the first time last month.
• The goal is to see what data we are currently using, who we are sending data to (and what that data is comprised of), and the best practices for keeping that information. We want to standardize practices across the board.
• The next meeting is at the end of this month and we're hoping to have a good feel for all the different ways we use data by the end of that.

Best Practices for Digital Engagement - Andrew

• In the interest of transparency and creating a better experience for everyone, Andrew explained his process in handling web updates.
  • Ideally, Andrew works on updates in the order they arrive. However, some updates are larger and require significantly more work and others are small and relatively easy to accomplish. If Andrew receives a lot of little projects, he'll work on all of them at once to get them finished so that he can then dive into a big project that may take a few days. He does his best to communicate that to Ben and Kate (the marketing leads) so that they can in turn communicate to the relevant teams. 
    • Project size: it really depends on multiple factors. If you want a whole new page, that can be a day or two depending on how complicated it is. The content of the page also affects timeline; a bunch of bulleted lists will take more time.
  • Lately, Andrew has been getting a lot of large projects that people want done right away, which makes things difficult. Inevitably, someone's project will have to be delayed.
• The Ask: more advanced planning and inclusion of deadlines in requests.
  • If Andrew could get a month's notice, that will help him balance multiple projects and get everything completed in a timely manner. This is especially relevant for updates that happen on a regular basis (yearly, by semester, etc). 
    • This is something you can bring up during the marketing meetings!
  • A hard deadline included in the request helps Andrew prioritize. Your project may be no rush, but if it absolutely needs to be done by May 2nd, for example, that's something he needs to be aware of. 

Office Vibe - Andrew

• Andrew has been working with the Employee Engagement Committee on alternate ways to gauge employee satisfaction at CECE without having to burden staff with a lengthy survey each year.
• Office Vibe is a tool that we've been trialing in the engagement group as an alternative option. It asks basically the same questions as the surveys we've used in the past, but asks them over a period of time by asking only 5 at a time. 
• Features:
  • Asks questions in a really friendly manner.
  • Custom polls can be created for any specific items we may want employee feedback on.
  • Answers are 100% anonymous (unless someone wants their name attached to their feedback).
  • Frequency can be adjusted. (Engagement first tested it at once a week but that seemed too often, so they moved to once every two weeks and that seems to be going well.)
  • It is completely free! (the only reason it would cost us money is if we wanted to break staff down into multiple groups, which then threatens the integrity of the anonymity).
  • Ability to give feedback quickly:
    • Anyone who has admin status and is thus able to see the backend responses can mark them as something to follow up on. They can also reply to any comments they'd like to; in these cases, the person who posted that comment will be notified via slack that they have received a response.
  • All of the data can be exported as .csv or .pdf files. 
  • Feedback:
    • Feedback is labeled as positive, constructive, or negative.
      • So we could easily search specifically for negative feedback that we want to address right away.
    • Feedback has reliability ratings connected to them so that we can see how trustworthy the data is.
      • i.e. a question that has only received two employee responses will have a low reliability rating because not enough data has been gathered whereas a question that most of the staff has answered will have a high reliability rating
      • Over time, all of our feedback will become highly reliable so long as staff is participating in the process.
    • Feedback can be viewed in a number of different reports. We can also compare ourselves to other organizations like ours (and thus see what percentile we fall in). 
• How it works:
  • Office Vibe works with slack, so employees will receive a slack notification when their survey is available. Staff goes in and answers the first question, which then redirects them to the web browser to finish the rest of the questions.
  • Bob_bot (the name of the Office Vibe integration in slack) will automatically push out to everyone, so individual employees don't need to worry about installing it themselves.
• Throughout the discussion, everyone expressed interest in using Office Vibe, so we will be moving forward with it. The plan is for Andrew to take any relevant feedback to the Engagement Committee. Jodi will then take that feedback to the leadership/management teams so that we can provide timely responses. If something really urgent comes up, Andrew will bypass this chain and bring it to attention right away.
• Andrew will give a brief introduction/overview of Office Vibe (5 minutes) to everyone at the Town Hall meeting. 

Portfolio Training - Anya

• Project Portfolio Submissions are now available on the KnowledgeBase home page.
• The idea of the project portfolio form is to give all levels of staff a way to pitch an idea they may have for a program CECE can offer. The form helps them put together the basics and then gets sent off to the leadership team, where it will be evaluated and scored according to a set a predetermined criteria (which are made available at the bottom of the form). Essentially, staff will be making a mini business case so that leadership can determine if it's a viable idea to move forward with or not.
  • This is meant for higher level projects that would heavily impact CECE as an organization and potentially take us in a new direction. There is potential for units to use the form themselves for proposals for new classes and the likes, but those would not be sent on to the Leadership Team. 
• How it works: click the Project Portfolio Submission button on the KnowledgeBase home page and a word document will download to your computer. (In the future, hopefully it will be a form you can fill-in right there). Once you've filled out the form, save it, and email it to Anya.
• Key components to think about:
  • Who is your audience? 
  • How is your project filling a need?
  • What makes it different from current things we're already doing?
  • We are just looking to open the discussion. Your responses do not need to go super in-depth. If your proposal passes this phase, we'll get into more detail later. 

Registration System Update - James

• Context: James has been working on finding a third party vendor to take over CECE's registrations. We cannot keep maintaining our current system and it would cost us more money to hire a programmer to build a system (especially considering that software needs to be rewritten every three years) than the fees associated with third party vendors. Currently, we have all of our paperwork in line and are working on our price now. 
  • This is where we've had difficulty in past RFPs. This time, we are being a lot more specific in terms of what we ask third party vendors to price out for us so that we have all the information we need to make a decision (and hopefully avoid hidden fees). 
• A heads up to all: we will likely be looking at a $5-$10 fee per enrollment with this new system.
  • We need to be clear in the RFP process what counts as an enrollment and what doesn't - this is a work in progress. Currently, an enrollment is any time a student adds a class. So one student with five classes would be five enrollments. 
    • From what James has seen, memberships and certificates would not count as enrollments. 
  • We will be looking at options for how to best cover this cost. Not all programs will be able to simply increase the costs of their classes to cover this (though others certainly will be able to). This is something we'll figure out together.
• Time-frame: We're looking at Spring 2020 as the implementation point. There are some groups that might be able to migrate sooner, but we're not sure on that yet. 

CE Student and Instructor Data Privacy Concerns - Mandy

• Background: Mandy had a student who, after registering for a class, got a text message that looked suspicious. He did some research and discovered that his information had been obtained from the campus directory, which he didn't even realize he was on. He then contacted UIT, who told him to contact the Registrar's office. They then informed him that the directory is in fact public access and anyone associated with the University of Utah is automatically added to it (as opposed to being an opt-in system). 
  
  • This is a persistent problem: we've had a few instructors who were contacted by outside entities. Last year, a scam targeted Osher members. ELI students have received scam phone calls regarding their status in the country. 
• Given this problem, what can we do to protect our students and instructors? 
  • Those wishing to view the University of Utah directory will now have to login to CIS before gaining access - this will go a long way in helping as it prevents bots from scanning and mining information. 
  • James is looking into categorizing our students and instructors differently in PeopleSoft so that they aren't lumped into the same group as matriculated students and full-time faculty. 
    • It doesn't make sense for non-matriculated students to be in the directory in the first place.
    • James is working on obtaining the criteria for classifications in PeopleSoft so we can see why this is the way it works.
• We will have an update on this at the next management meeting.

All Hands Policy - Anne

• Sidebar regarding Town Hall: We have a Town Hall meeting tomorrow at 3pm! Anne has received a few questions, but we should remind all staff that they can submit any questions they have via the Ask Anne Anything button on the KnowledgeBase home page. Managers are expected to be at the Town Hall and all staff are highly encouraged.
• Reminder that the All Hands Policy is that the meeting is mandatory.
  • It's frustrating when we spend a lot of time and effort to get this scheduled at the best time for everyone and then people don't show up. If you have staff that can't make it, we really need to understand the reason why. 
  • That being said, we do understand how frustrating it is when the meeting time keeps moving. All Hands is scheduled for Friday 6/7 in the morning. We try extremely hard not to move it and will do our best to keep this date concrete. (Haley promises that she really doesn't want to fuss with it any more!)

BBQ Social - Haley/Anne

• Per Andrea's idea in the last leadership meeting, we are going to do monthly BBQ socials May-September (excluding July) in lieu of our annual picnic (considering that that is also extremely hard to schedule). The idea is to create times for everyone in CECE to get together and enjoy each other's company if they can make it. If they can't make it, hopefully they'll be available for the next month's social. 
• How it will work:
  • CECE will provide hotdogs, burgers (veggie and meat), condiments, and buns. Different programs will be assigned to specific socials and they'll be responsible for coordinating a potluck for any additional side dishes. 
  • Haley will schedule the BBQs and they will not move! (except for disastrous weather) Leadership is going to run the first social in May and Haley will let other departments know their assignments. 

Sharing Time

Jodi

• We got approval to hire another graphic designer! This will be a huge help for Katie, who rocks and does A LOT of work for us and UGS. We're really excited that UGS is supporting is in this way (this position won't cost us a dime; UGS will be paying for it). It will lighten Katie's load so that we can get more done within CECE. It also allows us to start talking about bringing the catalog in-house. 

Korrin

• We've got 52 confirmed new students for ELI next session. We're excited for this huge intake. It's a move in the right direction as the trajectory moves up. Utah Global is also trending up.

Mandy

• Lifelong Learning students have really loved this new building. It has made such a big difference in our customer service with both students and instructors. Big thank you to everyone who helped make this happen!

Nate

• Hailey will be giving her PATHS pitch at the Gould auditorium very shortly, so good luck to her! This is an exciting opportunity for PATHS to get more exposure and potentially net some funding. 

Elliott

• Thanks so much to everyone across the CECE department who help made the parent's club and overall youth enrollments a very smooth process. Club U is pretty much filled up and varsity is bursting at the seams. Elliott will make sure Youth does a better job coordinating with Andrew for web updates in the future to make sure that it doesn't delay other unit's requests.

Anne/Lauren

• Thanks to everyone for parking across the street to make more room for our Osher students. They have been really happy with being able to park right by the building. Next week is the last week and then class will start again in March.

Katina

• Katina has requested that we have a pass in the median shoveled for us to be able to walk more easily. She also discovered that the REA crew has a LOT of work to do in Research Park and they understandably have to prioritize the hospital and clinics. To help things out on our end, Katina purchases two snow shovels for use; they are in the storage unit downstairs with the bike and BBQ. 
• We will be having our first applause drawing of the new year at the Town Hall tomorrow.

Anne

• Thank you to Elliott, Garner, Polly, Ben, and Jim who all helped shovel the car out of the snow last weekend.