Cheryl
Reardon, special assistant to the vice president
for research, is the 2004-05 Staff Council president.
She has been employed at the University since 1990,
moving from Residence Services to the Department
of Physics and Astronomy to her current position.
This is her fourth year serving on Staff Council.Reardon
recently sat down with fyi to share some
of her thoughts and concerns for the year ahead.
Why did you get involved with Staff Council?
Throughout my whole career I’ve aspired to
leadership positions on campus, so I felt Staff Council
was a natural spot for me. I really think that staff
members have a duty, similar to faculty, to serve
on campus committees, and that we have as much to
do with carrying out the three missions of the University—teaching,
service, and research—as the faculty do. Our
contributions are different, but we’re critical
to the success of the big enterprise.
What new council initiatives are planned this year?
And is there unfinished business that will carry
forward?
We’d like to communicate more with campus.
We are sending an e-mail to our constituents to find
out what kinds of things we should be looking at.
That’s a new approach. We’d also like
to create another staff award that recognizes staff
for service contributions to campus.
For the past year, the council has been working
on ways to fund classes through tuition scholarships.
We’re trying to be creative, such as working
with UI Learning & Development in Human Resources
to see how to bring about several tuition programs
to benefit more staff. Many of our peer institutions
have tuition-waiver programs for staff, and we’d
like to work toward that. Although it may not work
out, at least we’ll start the conversation.
What are some of the issues people have brought
to you as president, and how do you plan to address
them?
We hear a little about early retirement as well
as rising health care costs. Some staff members have
written me about the General Education Fund Task
Force, concerned about how the recommendations will
impact staff. Another big issue is salaries. We are
not keeping pace with the merit system, and there
is an overlap between the pay scales. I think we’re
seeing lower morale because we’ve eliminated
positions—so people are doing more with less.
We need to bring up these concerns to central administration
and continue to work toward solutions.
Are UI salaries comparable to our peer Big Ten institutions?
Human Resources just completed a salary study of
P&S jobs, and that study shows that we are doing
a pretty good job with salaries. Most positions were
within 2 percent of the average. Although those numbers
indicate that maybe we’re on the right track,
it probably doesn’t feel that way to very many
people on campus due to the discrepancies in salary
increases. We’ve had merit staff getting 6
percent increases and P&S staff maybe getting
2 percent on a good year. And faculty have been at
that low rate, too.
However, we’re in a budget crisis. As our
current system is set up, we need to make sure that
we have a consistent message and that we try to do
what we can to continue to increase salaries. This
can’t continue to fall on the shoulders of
P&S and faculty. But if there’s no new
money, departments have to reallocate funds and that
could mean job losses. It’s a vicious circle.
Would you rather get $100 more in your paycheck or
see your coworker laid off?
You were a member of the General Education Fund
Task Force that suggested cuts that would help make
up a shortfall in the budget. What was it like to
serve on the task force?
Facing a $12 million budget cut was not the most
exciting task. Salaries make up 76 percent of the
General Education Fund, so that doesn’t leave
very much to cut that doesn’t impact people.
I’m glad that Staff Council was invited to
sit at the table. That shows President Skorton’s
commitment to shared governance. We were there as
a voice for staff. Our goal was to make recommendations
and then let others analyze those recommendations
to see if they made sense. We weren’t in the
position to set policy. I think we did a good job
of fulfilling our mission.
How will that experience frame your work on Staff
Council this year?
I think it’s made me really sensitive to the
issues, and not just to staff issues but to campus
issues. For example, if we made a decision on fringe
benefits that impacted not only the staff we represent
but also faculty, we thought about the big picture
for recruiting both faculty and staff. I’ve
learned to appreciate the issues in a broader context.
And I think the faculty members on the committee
were clearly comfortable talking about how decisions
were going to impact staff. We really tried to be
collaborative on what we were recommending and to
be as equal as we could be so that the report didn’t
impact just one group.
Do you have ideas on how staff might continue to
contribute to the budgeting process?
We have a monthly meeting with President Skorton,
so folks can e-mail me, and as I start to see themes,
I will add them to our agenda. Even though the time
line limits what can be done with the initial $2
million in cuts, there’s still a lot in the
task force report where we could gather more input.
Staff Council also has representatives on the Faculty
Staff Budget Committee. The past presidents of Staff
Council and Faculty Senate cochair the committee,
which meets monthly with Doug True, vice president
for finance and operations and University treasurer,
and Pat Cain, interim provost. So that’s another
opportunity for us to give input. I’m sure
we’ll continue to talk about task force recommendations.
Some say they like working for the University because
of the benefits. How are those benefits holding up
due to budget woes, and is it still a great place
to work?
The University of Iowa has a great benefit plan
and it’s one of the best places to work in
the state of Iowa. The academic environment is a
unique workplace that people fall in love with. Where
we really can benefit from working in a learning
community is being able to participate in staff development
activities, carrying out research, and being in an
environment that values academic freedom. These are
opportunities we might not get in a different setting,
and that’s a hard thing to measure.
Why was Staff Appreciation Day handled differently
this year?
We’ve had low attendance the last few years
and I’m not sure we were reaching as many people
as we could. With the change—fruit basket deliveries
on site—we hope to see more people participate.
Instead of being a carnival down at the Iowa Memorial
Union, it’ll be at the work site, appreciating
people for what they’re doing on site. If we
can reach out with fruit baskets to 5,000 people,
that will be more beneficial than 500 to 1,000 people
coming to the Union. We’ll certainly reassess
it, but we hope that more people will have a chance
to participate this way.
by Sara Epstein Moninger
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