CIRES Members Council Meeting April

Attendance

• Mistia Zuckerman, CMC chair (NSIDC)
• Jonathan Kofler, CMC Secretary (GML)
• Eric James (GSL)
• Antonietta Capotondi (PSL)
• Andrew Badger (Main Campus)
• Carrie Bell (NCEI)
• Nathan Campbell (CIRES Admin)
• Mimi Hughes (PSL)
• Gaby Petron (GML)
• Joseph Katich (CSL)
• Michael Toy (GSL)
• Molly Hardeman (NSIDC-new member)
• Eric Adamson (SWPC)

4/9/2019:  Location: NOAA-DSRC 3C405.

Meeting called to order at 12:36 pm

Rendezvous

Dawn Umplebly:  Posters are due by Friday.  There has been good participation on sign up sheet for volunteers, but we still need 2-3 more for tear down, registration table 1 more, setting up easels 1 more person, a few more to hand out name tags.  Then, some discussion ensues about the acknowledgements of years of service and other awards being available for pick up at the registration desk.  Lucia points out that people don’t pick them up at the start, because they don’t want to carry them around with them during the Rendezvous.  Also, there are scenarios that have happened where people don’t get their awards at the Rendezvous because they have retired.  She suggests that the best solution may be to send the awards out in the interoffice mail prior to the Rendezvous.  Action item (Dawn): look into mailing out Rendezvous awards. Mistia motion: should we send out awards before Rendezvous?  Unanimous yes.

Outstanding Performance Awards 

OPA Chair:  The committee met on 14 April, and sent recommendations to Waleed.  He approved them on the 24th with no appeals.  The OPA committee was all men and there is some discussion about whether some level of diversity on the committee should be required.  The committee is only 6 people, so it’s possible that this year was just a statistical anomaly.  There tends to be a shortage of volunteers and emails go out to everyone in all clusters.  This year several emails had to go out before enough recruits were found, so it is not possible to be selective for diversity if we don’t have a surplus of volunteers.  How do you insure that recruitment is balanced?  Dawn says maybe Susan should be a permanent part of the OPA committee.

Questions for Susan Sullivan at next meeting:

• Have her on the OPA committee? Or ask her about how to insure OPA committee diversity.
• Graduate and early career housing 
• Discuss ways to insure diversity of CMC members
• Lucia: foreign nationals access 
• CMC diversity, should it be part of the by-laws.

Foreign nationals building access

Lucia: Some foreign nationals were not being escorted in the DSRC.  They are escorted so that they cannot steal or damage federal equipment or information.  There has been a memo in place since 2006, and this memo is no longer considered adequate.  There has been a lack of guidance from the security office about guidelines and consistency.  For example, are foreign nationals to be walked to and from the bathroom, and should they be accompanied in conference rooms, etc.  Nothing has been formally communicated.  There is a meeting happening today with laboratory managers to discuss this issue.  Currently, its somewhat open.  Foreign nationals get escorted for the first few days, then they essentially have the same access as other CIRES employees.  Lucia thinks that may change.  It is possible there will be escort requirements.  SWPC and NCEI are managed separately, so they don't have the same restrictions.  Possibilities for access allowances might be to recognize everything as public space.  Unescorted federal access is not allowed according to the actual documentation.  Be aware of it.  Ultimately you have to refer to your federal manager.  Eric A.: Will this include cell phone usage too?  Lucia: the new requirements are about physical access.  There are more than 50 and less than 100 foreign nationals in DSRC.  Visitors are supposed to be escorted all the time.  Only feds can escort. 

Salary Equity

Mistia reports that Ale has been trying to get salary range information for different positions.  He went to BJ Thompson to get salary ranges and was astounded at the spread.  Eric A. referred to David Stone for salary within position.  It is well known that each division will have different salary ranges.  For example SWPC will have a different salary range than NCEI.  Dawn: a few post docs moved to RS1 positions.  All of the group leads have salary ranges in a spreadsheet.  When inequity is identified they are rehired at higher level.  It is up to the employee and group leads to identify.  CIRES human resources gives group leads a roster.  Gaby thinks that there should be oversight of the CIRES leads.  Lucia explains that Christine does this; specific issues can be brought to Christine.  Gaby feels that 2 people should be keeping an eye on this.

Lucia:  Supervisor training is on our wish list.  CU managers academy exists, but has lots of material that is not relevant for CIRES.  ASA trainings have been conducted in the past.  Lucia: people need to attend these things.  The information is there, but it is not ingested.  Jon - this could be part of onboarding. 

Lucia is the trainer for ASA and career track.  She is looking for suggestions on what training is needed and where the deficits are. 

Wish List for New Human Resource Hire

Mistia:  Make the onboarding process a priority for HR.  Hopes that the HR person will come and sit for one day a week at DSRC and other clusters.  Historically, some representatives have sat one day a week at the DSRC.  John Rush, etc, but BJ did not.  Rebecca sits in Earth Lab

Eric J.:  Maybe there should be a quick mandatory meeting at the 6 month point after on-boarding.  Sort of an onboarding part 2.  Dawn had no onboarding.  Lucia: On-boarding is not mandatory, but she gets near 100% response on initial onboarding.  For later trainings, people don’t show up.  Waleed stopped attending new hire meetings because they were poorly attended. Adamson: Supervising training is critical because many supervisors show no supervisory skills.  Lucia points out though that some supervisors don't work with their supervisee's but merely sign their timesheets.

- Lucia, 6-month meeting would be a good opportunity

Action item: Mistia will draft an email to send out to clusters, asking for feedback on what would have been useful to know during the first few months of starting.

BJ Thompson is managing HR now, and BJs replacement is being recruited right now.

Mentoring Program Update:

Mimi:. The mentoring committee met with the student Nate hired and is planning to continue to meet with him to iron out details of the website and program.  Currently they are doing mock ups of the website.  There was some discussion of how to include gender and other information in the meetings, but it was determined that those types of details cannot be asked for on the application website. 

CMC Membership

Mistia:  We are working on our membership form for CMC and turning it in to Eric J.  Aaron Sweeney taking over for Carrie Wall and today is his first day as a CMC representative.  Prior to coming to the meeting he was reading and preparing and did not find mention of a Charter for the CMC.  Mimi:  The mission statement is the charter.   Some question arises about representation numbers; Eric J. says that there is somewhere between 2 and 4 percent representation for each cluster.  However, the cluster populations change and it would be good to review the representation numbers.  Action item: Eric to send out spreadsheet with representation of different clusters on the CMC. 

Old CMC notes and google drive.

Mistia reports that Rob Shubert offered her some notes from old CMC meetings (hard copies).  Aaron Sweeney volunteers to go through google drive.  Lucia:  Would it make sense to hire a student to go through google drive?  We can have them sign non-disclosure agreements in case there is any sensitive material.  

Meeting adjourned 1:39pm.