NAU President John Haeger recapped some of the discussions that took place last week during the Arizona Board of Regents meeting in Flagstaff. Highlights included an extended discussion on research metrics; a conversation about performance funding during which the board adopted performance metrics for each of the universities; and a presentation on the framework for developing the FY14 state operating budget request. Haeger also shared highlights from his presentation to the board of the university’s business plan that illustrates how NAU intends to meet metrics defined in the board’s Arizona Higher Education Enterprise plan. A detailed summary of the Regents meeting with links to presentation materials was distributed in the June 15 issue of Inside NAU.
The president announced the latest news coming out of Athletics is the hiring of Sue Darling, assistant coach at the University of Arizona, as the new head coach for NAU women’s basketball.
President Haeger also reported that the issue of the “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo at the University of North Dakota has been resolved by voters in the recent primary election. The state’s Board of Higher Education is expected to retire the moniker and logo after voters rejected the latest attempt to force the university to retain it.
Diane Verkest, associate vice president for Human Resources, made a presentation on the newly approved changes in the university’s Compassionate Transfer of Leave policy that allows NAU benefit-eligible employees to transfer a portion of their accrued vacation leave hours to eligible employees who are unable to work due to catastrophic illness or injury. The changes clarify the definition of what qualifies under compassionate transfer of leave; remove the six-month probationary status criteria eligibility and insert a one-year service requirement for eligibility to receive donated hours; change the language that allows for up to 1,040 hours of extra unpaid leave donated hours to a maximum of 480 hours in a 12-month rolling calendar year; and allow for light duty, part-time return to work while still receiving the remainder of donated leave for up to the maximum allowed. The updated policy can be accessed at the HR Policy Change website.
Fred Estrella, chief information technology officer, shared the results of the ITS annual user satisfaction survey. Overall, ITS was rated high or very high in all major areas of responsibility, with the Solution Center and Telecomm areas getting extremely high satisfaction ratings. The complete results can be found online.
Laura Jones, a director in Planning and Institutional Research, shared a breakdown of advancement data, grants and contracts and student data. Pat Haeuser, vice president for Planning, Budget and Institutional Effectiveness, reviewed an analysis of the university’s education and related costs relative to its peer institutions using the Delta Costs Project database. She said the findings “confirm we are being very productive. We are doing a lot for less.” Click here for the full cabinet report.
David Bousquet, senior vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, distributed a memo that was sent to deans, directors and department heads detailing changes regarding parking on campus this fall. Among the changes, commuters should note that free weekday parking after 4:30 p.m. has been eliminated, as have parking meters at P16 and P45, where hourly “pay and display” parking will be available instead. Read all the changes that will take effect this fall.