12:01:36 .    12:01:37 ¬ª  All right.  Good afternoon.    12:01:41 Welcome and thank you all for being here our third digital staff forum 12:01:47  Q and A.  My name is Adam Howell. 12:01:51  I'm the chair for the 2019-2020 12:01:54  term as well as the -- on the employee assembly.   12:01:58 Now, I'm not going to take too much time this morning talking because I want us to get 12:02:03  to as many questions as we possibly can but really thrilled 12:02:07  we're able to have this forum today as you all know and experience, the 12:02:10  situation that we're all in is changing rapidly day-to-day.    12:02:14 In fact, I feel we're all living a lifetime every week 12:02:18  that goes by.  So it's so great that we're able to do this.  I want to thank 12:02:23  our panelists for giving us this time because I know how 12:02:27  busy university leadership is right now during this incredibly stressful time.  Again, 12:02:32  I also want to especially give a shout out and thank you to our incredible staff. 12:02:40  Throughout this entire situation I've seen nothing but a constant stream of positive 12:02:44  and inspiring stores about our staff pitching in, 12:02:49  helping out the community, doing things above and beyond and 12:02:57  it shows the measure of character around spirit that the staff and community at Cornell really 12:02:58  has.   12:03:02 And I just want to say to you all that -- that you are 12:03:03  --    12:03:07 you're doing so many great things out there and I want to thank you and that you are being thought of during 12:03:12  this trying time as well.  The employee 12:03:16  Assembly we're still fulfilling our roles we're here 12:03:20  to support the wider staff community in whatever which that we can.  And this 12:03:25  forum is a representation of that and I'm grateful that we have this 12:03:29  opportunity.  Thank you to the amazing staff community that is doing so much during this time.  I want to mention that, 12:03:33  again, we have our executive 12:03:38  vice chair who's going to be helping us moderate questions today as well as our 12:03:43  employee welfare committee chair who's going to be helping her out.  So thank you to both of you. 12:03:48  And at this time I'm just going to turn it over to our panel to introduce themselves, 12:03:54  do some brief introductions then we'll get started with questions.  So 12:03:59  Mary, if you want to go ahead, you have the floor. 12:04:03 ¬ª  Thank you so much Adam and thank you 12:04:09  to the EA for hosting these forums.  I hope that people are finding them helpful 12:04:13  and we're appreciative of the chance to hear from all of you 12:04:18  so thank you very much to the EA.  I'll echo Adam's thanks to all of you. 12:04:22  I know these are difficult times and what I've found in the last week is people are beginning 12:04:24  to find their way in their work that is remote.     12:04:28 And that's been extremely 12:04:33  helpful.  I think people are finding getting back to some of the things that they know they need to get done. 12:04:39  For our staff who are on campus we thank you so much.  We know that you're 12:04:40  --   12:04:44 your work is essential to us getting our students 12:04:49  fed and our online instruction started and keeping 12:04:53  the campus safe and functioning.  So thank you to all of you as well.  I'd 12:04:57  also like to thank my colleagues who have joined us here today.  It's very 12:05:02  helpful to have them answer a lot of the questions that I just can't answer. 12:05:07  I'll take just a minute before we get started.  I have 12:05:11  a few remarks and I'm going to turn 12:05:18  it over afterwards.  I think you although I'm the head 12:05:22  of human resources privileged to have that rolled and to support all of you. 12:05:27  It is here at my house, I don't know how it is at your house, the sun is out.  So if you 12:05:33  at the end of this if the sun is still out please go outside and put your face 12:05:37  in the sun and take a deep breath because there's nothing quite 12:05:42  as comforting as remembering that everything change 12:05:47 s weather changes as well.  And things progress and move forward. 12:05:52  So this is the third open forum we've had.  And I will 12:05:57  say I appreciate so many of you reaching out to me before and after these 12:06:01 forums.  And what I would say is one of the questions that I'm hearing are falling into 12:06:06  2 categories.  The first is about health and safety, how do I keep myself and my family 12:06:10  safe and protect ourselves from getting sick.     12:06:14 And the second one is what's going to happen to my job, 12:06:18  do I have security, what can I rely 12:06:22  on?  And these are both understandable broad questions.    12:06:26 It's also understandable that when our answers, 12:06:31  and we try very hard to be honest with all of you and tell you what we know and what 12:06:35  we don't know.  And when our answers are not absolute some of you are 12:06:37  just --   12:06:41 [inaudible] fact that you share that disappointment with me.  So today 12:06:46  we have health and safety experts with us to help provide additional 12:06:50  information about what is known about how this virus travels.  We also understand 12:06:55  that you're concerned about 12:07:01  workers on campus that are supporting our students.  We've gotten questions just about your 12:07:05  own movement going to the grocery store doing other things.  So we will try 12:07:09  as best we can to tell you what we know in those areas. 12:07:14  We also understand that you have questions about your own job security. 12:07:19  And a lot of questions have come up since the memo that was sent 12:07:26  by the provost and executive vice president came out on Monday and what it means 12:07:29  for all of of you inspect I'm grateful that our --   12:07:33 is able to be with us today.  To review 12:07:38  some of the actions we've taken.  We felt it was very important 12:07:43  to begin immediately to control costs through these measures.  I understand that seeing these 12:07:45  measures may create more anxiety for some of you.     12:07:49 However, the leadership team is doing everything we can at this time to control 12:07:55  costs that we can control.  So that we can continue to 12:07:59  employ as many of our staff as possible.  We simply cannot say that 12:08:03  these measures will be sufficient to stave off 12:08:08  any future changes and we need to be honest [inaudible]   12:08:12 situation will last but they're good solid measures and they will 12:08:16  go a long way in helping us address what we know to be a financial 12:08:21  stress intention in the future.  We do not know 12:08:25  how the virus -- the progression of this virus will impact our core missions 12:08:28  of teaching research and service in the near term.     12:08:32 But we do know that the sooner we reduce our future costs the more 12:08:37  resources we will have to protect our workforce and our students in the future. 12:08:41  We're also looking very carefully at the financial relief that may be available to 12:08:46  use through the federal government.  We have a committee that's 12:08:50  standing up to try to understand what the support may be out there. 12:08:55  I want to acknowledge that I recognize that this is a very unsettling time, 12:09:00  and it's normal and understandable to want concrete and reassuing answers. 12:09:05 We're giving you the information we have recognizng that saying 12:09:08  we don't have all the answers may not be fully reassuring.     12:09:12 But we have made a commitment to be as transparent 12:09:18  as we can be even when the information we are sharing is evolving.  So thank you, again 12:09:22  for being with us.  I hope you continue to tend to yourselves and those in your 12:09:24  family and friend circles.     12:09:28 Please use the support resources we're posting on our HR web page. 12:09:33  And also on the university's micro site. 12:09:37  The web page with HR support is 12:09:42  HR dot Cornell dot 12:09:46  edu slash Covid-19 workplace guidance.  We encourage you 12:09:51  to look at it and watch some of the videos 12:09:56  and take care of yourselves.  And continue to let me know if you have questions. 12:10:00  And now let me turn this over 12:10:04  to Joanne DeStefano.    12:10:08 ¬ª  Thank you, Mary and thank you 12:10:13  to the EA for allowing me to talk today.  This is my first time 12:10:17  attending one of these sessions.  I'm incredibly 12:10:20 impressed we've got over 100 people watching right now.     12:10:24 That's amazing.  I'm even more impressed with how well everyone has adjust 12:10:28 ed to the new mode of remote work.  It's just been amazing 12:10:33  that work has been able to continue as if we were in our offices.  What I want 12:10:37  to do today is just spend a few minutes talking about the Ithaca campus 12:10:41  budget.  To give you all some context, on why we made the decisions we made, 12:10:47  so if you start from what our budget is in 12:10:51  Ithaca we have a $2.5 billion budget. 12:10:56  Resources that support the 2.5 come from tuition, gifts, research, 12:11:03  state appropriations, housing, dinng and various other revenue 12:11:08  activities.  We're projecting right now 12:11:12  through the June 30th year end if we don't take any actions 12:11:16  at all we could see a $45 million loss to the Ithaca campus only. 12:11:22  About half of that loss is a result of the significant 12:11:27  reduction in our housing and dinng operations.     12:11:31 We've had to return revenue back to the students who left campus. 12:11:36 The rest of the loss is mainly due to lost 12:11:40  revenues across the rest of the university.  Right now we're assuing that well not 12:11:46  resume full operations for the summer.  We're hopeful 12:11:51  that maybe early July we could get 12:11:55  back and that other activities may be able to come back.  Also as we're watching 12:12:03  the job loses across America we're making assumptions 12:12:07  that our financial need for our students is going to increase significantly.  And right now 12:12:12  we're projecting about a $30 million increase in financial aid next fiscal year. 12:12:17 We also expect some state appropriation 12:12:22  cuts.  For the fall we're planning full operations, however, we are 12:12:28  expecting a decline in our international students.  So when you add everything together, and again, 12:12:33  with no actions taken, we could see 12:12:39  a hundred million dollars deficit for fiscal year 2021.  Which then brings 12:12:44  me to the memo 12:12:48  that the provost and I sent out to the campus community earlier this week. 12:12:52  As mentioned multiple times we really value our employees and as a result 12:12:57  we looked for actions that we could take to preserve as absolute many jobs as possible. 12:13:02  For instance, [inaudible] receivng 12:13:06  your salary increase every year but by freezng salary 12:13:10  we can save the university budget $20 million just by that one action alone. 12:13:15  And we've been watching over the past several years our head count growing, and it has 12:13:18  consistently grown.     12:13:22 And if we can hold vacant positions 12:13:27  and be smart about not hirng new staff and 12:13:31  finding new ways to repurpose as many people as possible, we will save jobs. 12:13:40 What's mind bogglng to me is we spend over $40 million a year in travel. 12:13:45  I know much of it can't be avoided, you know, we have our 12:13:49  campuses in New York City and there's sponsored research travel and others but even if we cut this number 12:13:53  in half that's a $20 million savings a year.  And again, if doesn't impact anybody's jobs. 12:14:00 We're asking everything to put a strict discipline in place to force each person to 12:14:05  think twice about their every day spend, even if you have 12:14:10  the money within your budgets, 12:14:14  our university dollars are very precious.  And we need to 12:14:19  always ask you know, one thing I always hear is we need food 12:14:23  for meetings otherwise nobody will come to the meetings, have we tried not 12:14:27  having any food?  If we reduced spending every dollar 12:14:32  that we reduce spending will help save a job.  And you know, people really need to eat maybe you can swap 12:14:36  who brings in the food for the meeting each day or you could cook.  I don't cook but somebody could cook for me. 12:14:42 We also spend hundreds of millions of dollars 12:14:46  on capital spending -- will be talking next will be reviewing every single project 12:14:51  to determine the necessity of the project.  We want to be smart.  I think that's the theme 12:14:55  that we're trying to say, is we want to be smart about every single 12:15:00  dollar we spend at the university.  And every wise dollar spent 12:15:04  will help us come out of this.  So to summarize, 12:15:10  the actions that were taken earlier this week are a way to cut costs 12:15:14  to help solve our projected budget issues with minimal staff disruption.  Thank you 12:15:19  for allowing me to at least share where I think our financials are 12:15:24  going and now I'd like to turn it over to Rick 12:15:25  Burgess.    12:15:29 ¬ª  Thanks, and greetings to all.  Appreciate you being here 12:15:34  and appreciated the EA for setting this up.  So just 12:15:38  as last time, our priorites are to maintain safety, security on campus 12:15:40  and to keep essentials --   12:15:44 essential functions going on campus.  So I want to really just give 12:15:49  a shout out to all the folks that are doing particularly folks on the FCS team.  We have 12:15:55  you know, there are still students that are living onboard campus 12:15:59  -- listen to me my Navy talk coming back out, still living on campus, not onboard, sorry. 12:16:05  We still have students living on campus.  We have some essential research that is continuing.  We have some 12:16:12  faculty who are still transitioning to get ready for the online 12:16:17  instruction.  So from FCS we have police officers that are -- that are still 12:16:21  patrolling we have building care personnel, maintenance personnel, we have folks 12:16:26  from utilites ensuring that we have heat and light and water.  And 12:16:27  maintain all that.     12:16:31 We have transportation personnel that are coming in. 12:16:36  Our people providing essential services have gotten appropriate training from 12:16:41  EH and S.  So my thanks for being very responsive on that making 12:16:45  sure we have the right procedures that's correct we know how to use the personal protective equipment 12:16:50  PPE properly and helped us develop appropriate protocols and procedures to follow.  So thank you for that. 12:16:58 Last time I touched base a little bit on there were some questions about the mail.  We have been 12:17:02  engaged with the local post master and made some changes to mail delivery.  So 12:17:08  pretty much all the letter mail is coming to transportation.  We have the east 12:17:12  campus service center that's out by the orchards out 12:17:17  that pay Palm Road and then our transportation folks are distribut 12:17:21 ng from there and in coordination with the various units on campus.  So if you have not 12:17:28  straightened out your mail delivery on the letter mail 12:17:32  -- transportation can help you with that.  And we'll make those adjustments. 12:17:38  So transportation while I'm talking about it has also been asked to develop the capability to move 12:17:46  students if there are 6 students that need to go to the clinic and back.  So 12:17:51  as we don't overoverburden 12:17:55  -- ambulance with those type transports and that keeps their capacity 12:17:59  for the higher priority emergency transports.  On the utility side last week we 12:18:05  -- we conducted or executed a limited 12:18:09  load shed on the steam system so we reduced the am of steam 12:18:14  that we're putting out to campus.  Many of the buildings are either not occupied or minimally 12:18:15 occupied.    12:18:19 And in order to save energy since we have fewer people on campus we've reduced the amount of steam 12:18:20  that we're pumping out.   12:18:24 So our estimates of energy 12:18:28  savings are somewhere about 30% mark already. 12:18:33  So it -- at least we're not heating empty buildings and presering our money there. 12:18:37  We've also done some fume hood hibernation.  So if a laboratory is not in use, 12:18:42  we go through some procedures to secure 12:18:46  those fume hoods.  We've done a number of them.  That really happens 12:18:51  on the request of building coordinators.  So if there are building coordinatrs out there in our 12:18:55  listening audience if you have labs as we sort things out of what's going to continue, 12:19:00  what's not going to continue and faculty, you know, finish out whatever they're doing to 12:19:06  be able to instruct online, if there are additional fume hoods that can be 12:19:10  placed in hibernation we want to continue to do that so we're not wasing energy. 12:19:17 Last Friday we got revised instruction from the governor's office and we've been 12:19:23  aBLIEJed now to pretty much wrap up all the construction we had 12:19:27  going on.  Has been previous considered an essential function and that guidance 12:19:33  was further refined.  So if the project is considered essential, work 12:19:37  can continue.  So that really has resulted 12:19:42  in us buttoning pretty much everything up.  We're going to try to get some permission 12:19:46  if we can to keep going.  We are already experiencng some supply 12:19:50  chain disruptions.  So we'll see how that goes.  We don't want 12:19:54  to put people at risk but at the same time we would 12:19:58  definitely prefer to keep some of these projects rolling.     12:20:02 And speaking of projects as Joanne, 12:20:07  mentioned we spend millions and millions of dollars on various capital projects. 12:20:11  So we are now going to conduct a comprehensive success am of 12:20:15  those projects.  The ones that makes sense that we absolutely should proceed on we're going 12:20:20  to once we can clear the work 12:20:24  stoppage that's been put out by the governor.  We're mindful and 12:20:28  continue to do things like make payroll and that kind of stuff.    12:20:32 We don't want to commit a bunch of money to capital projects that we may need 12:20:35  in the near term for operational reasons.     12:20:39 So although we are fairly limited in operatng status 12:20:44  in supporting essential functions only at this point, we really want to look down the road and 12:20:49  we're going to be standing up planning teams to think through and start planning out 12:20:54  how do we get back to full operation [inaudible] not 12:20:58  like we have a crystal ball here. 12:21:03  So it's more scenario-based planning but we can plan out what we will 12:21:07  do once we get that word.  So that's sort of the wrap up as I see it in 12:21:13  campus services.  Let me just close by saying that I am tremendously 12:21:17  impressed at the dedication of our Cornell community.  We've got all sort of folks on staff who have 12:21:22  come in, continued to provide the necessary 12:21:26  support for essential functions.  And many, many 12:21:31  others who are looking for ways to support our local community during a very trying time.  So 12:21:35  tremendously impressed by that and really proud to be part of organization.      12:21:41 With that I will pass the baton to my 12:21:47  colleague Ryan Lombardi.    12:21:51 ¬ª  Hi everyone.  It's great to be with you once again.  My 12:21:55 comments will be brief here first and most importantly just want to reiterate what everyone has 12:22:00  said which is a really resounding thank you and express my sincere 12:22:04 gratitude.  You're just incredible, doing incredible work supporting our campus, supporting our communities, 12:22:10 ing our students.  A number of students still remain here in Ithaca and on 12:22:15  campus and many of our teams are supporting those folks.  Most notably probably are din 12:22:19 ng employees as well as our health employees, some of 12:22:20  our housing folks.     12:22:22 Really appreciate all that you're doing to keep --    12:22:22 [inaudible].      12:22:45 If you didn't read yesterday the efforts that a number of the team in Cornell 12:22:49  dinng did to put together the food pantry in partnership with 12:22:55  the greater Ithaca activity center delivered 12:22:58  food yesterday to over 120 12:23:03  local citizens who otherwise would not have that that opportunity.  The spirit of community is incredible.  And again I thank you.  I appreciate you. 12:23:07  And sending lots of love to everyone.     12:23:10 Next up is my colleague Joe Malina.   12:23:14 ¬ª  Thank you very much, Ryan and let me add my thanks to all of you for the 12:23:19  enormous flexibility that you are all generaing during this 12:23:24  truy difficult time.  I just want to touch 12:23:29  on a few things and then I'll pass it over 12:23:34  to frank Cantone.  My division of university relations, a couple of main components just wanted to address 12:23:38  some of our core areas of focus and some of them address 12:23:43  specific questions that I know have come our way.  First on communications, I hope that 12:23:49  you're finding our dedicated website which is accessible 12:23:53  from the Cornell dot edu main page, 12:23:58  the big space up top that has an FAQ that's being update 12:24:02  multiple times each day.  It's also where you can find every communication 12:24:06  not just to our employees but to students as well just in case you're interested about 12:24:11  what's being said to whom.  And of course there will be as we've continued 12:24:15  to see each week a need for broad messages such as the one that went out 12:24:21  on Monday from the provost and 12:24:22 Joanne.     12:24:26 Talking a little bit about community relation and a few people have 12:24:30  asked what can I do to help?  We've seen enormous expressions of willingness to engage, 12:24:36  to help empathy, compassion, we are so thrilled with those 12:24:39  expressions.  There's a terrific website on the --    12:24:43 excuse me a web page on the HR website 12:24:49  it's the HR Covid-19 workforce guidelines.  And included there is a terrific 12:24:53  summary of community resources which has specific information of where you might be able to lend some time 12:24:57  or some support.    12:25:01 And of course, Gary Stuart who runs our office of community relations, 12:25:06  he's made clear that anyone can reach out to him. 12:25:10  As long as I guess it's not 2,500 12:25:15  people at once but please send Gary an email and he'd be able 12:25:19  to help direct you.  His ID is 12:25:20  GJS 28 at Cornell dot edu.     12:25:24 Finally, there have been some references to our efforts 12:25:28  in DC in Albany, just to reassure 12:25:33  everyone that we are very engaged with lawmakers not only throughout New York but thought the country 12:25:37  to make sure that Cornell's needs, needs of our employees, the needs of our students, 12:25:43  the needs of our community are being addressed in what's already been 12:25:48  3 aid packets out of DC.  We expect there will be a 4th one that will be developed over the coming 12:25:53  weeks.  There are working groups already focusing 12:25:57  on what's already been enacted to make sure that we are in a position to take full advantage. 12:26:01 A lot of the details admittedly still need 12:26:06  to be ironed out through regulations but we are very much focusing on this and working to make sure that clarity 12:26:13  is brought forward as soon as possible.  Stayed-wide 12:26:18  Rick mentioned the governor's orders.  I do recognize that in what originally was put out there didn't 12:26:23  mention with specificity higher education but 12:26:27  working with our Albany office as well as with our leadership of our state-wide 12:26:30  university private university association.    12:26:34 There have been very specific conversations with senior members of the 12:26:39  Cuomo administration where we have been able to build out specific guidance with regard to 12:26:45  universites and colleges and that has been reflected in the messages 12:26:49  that we've been putting forward.  So with that, just also a shout out to the EA, 12:26:55  to -- and our office of the Assemblies for all of this wonderful work.  These are 12:26:59  really times where it's clear that the work 12:27:04  that the EA does truly is of enormous value so thank you to all involved.  And with 12:27:08  that frank Cantone.    12:27:11 ¬ª  Hi, good afternoon everyone.   12:27:15 I think it's really important that we stay connect even if it's in our new normal 12:27:20  digital world.  But I just want to acknowledge that our small team here in 12:27:24  emergency management working with our many partners across campus including Cornell health, 12:27:28  [inaudible] services, student campus life, university relations, 12:27:33  HR and many others to help plan for where we are now 12:27:37  in the last couple months and also respond to keep people safe and healthy 12:27:43  as well as keep the campus operational.  And also shout out to many, many 12:27:47  staff and students who donated a lot of 12:27:51  personal protective equipment from the laboratoies on campus.   12:27:54 We've gotten feedback from --    12:27:59 that what we have provided has been a godsend 12:28:04  for the entire county.  Also we sent a lot of supplies down to our colleagues 12:28:09  and they're much appreciated for what we could provide.  So I'll turn it over 12:28:13  to Dr. Ann Jones.   12:28:17 ¬ª Thank you, frank.  And yes, 12:28:23  the partnership has been amazing.  And I too would add that the messages of gratitude coming to 12:28:27  the health center from 12:28:31  the students who are receiving care and from all of you sending messages in 12:28:38  support of our staff have been amazing.  So much thanks, 12:28:43  and much gratitude back to everyone.  I know that there have been 12:28:48  many questions coming in around a couple of health 12:28:52  topics.  So wanted to take an opportunity to cover them just 12:28:57 briefly.  In the health arena here.  And there's also been evoling literature 12:29:02  on the topics of -- of what we know about the virus, 12:29:07  what we know about Coronavirus.  And what is being learned in the sciences, 12:29:14  in the basic science literature as well as the public health and the medical 12:29:14 literature.     12:29:18 Probably the most common question that's coming up right now is this question of 12:29:23  transmission.  And how long is the virus 12:29:27  able to live on surfaces outside the human body.   12:29:31 So there was a -- there was a study that was done 12:29:36  in the national Institutes of Health that was 12:29:40  published which was the most recent literature on this topic.  And it 12:29:45  summarized as follows.  They did a very specification study that was looking under 12:29:51  very specific circumstances how long was this 12:29:55  novel Coronavirus living on particular surfaces, not every surface was studied in this 12:29:59  study, but particular ones were.   12:30:03 And the summary of the literature was that this novel 12:30:07  Coronavirus can live up to 4 hours on copper, 12:30:12  up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to 4 days on plastic and stainless steel, 12:30:18  but that the virus was much reduced after 72-hour window. 12:30:24  So this brings up a lot of questions we know about what does this mean for groceries, 12:30:28  should we clean our grocerys, what does this mean 12:30:32  for coming home if you do go outside?  What does this mean 12:30:38  for mail as has been mentioned.  And in general I think that what it means is that taking 12:30:43  precautions and taking reasonable 12:30:48  precautions of -- for yourselves are 12:30:50  the most reasonable thing to do.     12:30:54 What we still know is that the transmission is still person-to-person 12:30:58  via respiratory droplets.  And so it's about 12:31:02  the transmission of those respiratory droplets.  That's why social 12:31:07  distancng is still very important.  And why it's important to 12:31:11  continue to practice social distanceng as a public health 12:31:16  measure.  And also then to take -- to take the actions that we can of our own 12:31:21  selves to protect ourselves no matter what surfaces we may be 12:31:25  touching.  So for example, staying home if you're sick, 12:31:30  and thereby removing yourself from any possibling 12:31:35  -- possible exposure that other people could have.  Avoid 12:31:38 ing contact with people who are sick, so therefore protecting yourself.     12:31:42 Avoiding, if you do come in contact with anything then 12:31:46  avoiding touching your eyes or touching your face or touching 12:31:50  yourself in any way that hand hygiene is so important, so focussing on hand hygiene, 12:31:56  washing with soap and water, using an alcohol-based hand 12:32:01  sanitizer is so important.  And then -- and then 12:32:06  -- and then really focussing on again the social distancng measures.  The more that we can all stay home, 12:32:11  unless we absolutely need to go out, the better.  The last thing, 12:32:17  the last very common question that we've been getting is:  What is the difference between 12:32:22  social distanng quarentine and isolation?  Those are 12:32:27  terms that have in many ways 12:32:32  begun to be used interchangeably, but I'll just say briefly, social 12:32:36  distancng is the measure that we should all be doing right now regardless of whether we're sick or healthy, 12:32:41  that's the idea of staying 6 feet away from another person no matter where 12:32:46  you are around then staying home if you possibly can.  Quarentine is 12:32:50  something different.  Quarentine is the action of 12:32:54  -- of keeping people who are well away from 12:32:59  anybody else so that they don't get sick.  This is for people who may have been 12:33:03  exposed or come in contact with the virus.    12:33:07 That is different from isolation.  Isolation is used when 12:33:11  someone gets sick to separate from anyone else 12:33:12  who --   12:33:16 and avoid transmission of the virus.  Each of these 12:33:21  strateges are used with partnership with public health entities, 12:33:25  with medical practices.  And if you ever did have to come in 12:33:30  or become veil waited for Coronavirus one or more of these strateg 12:33:34 es may be used.  So any way, just those 12:33:38  common questions have been coming up.  Hopefully that helps with 12:33:39  [inaudible]    12:33:43 knowledge out there.  And with that, eye hand it back over to Mary. 12:33:53 ¬ª  I'm going to turn this back for question, I think 12:33:55  that's where we are now is that right?    12:33:55 ¬ª  Yes.    12:33:59 ¬ª  Thank you, Mary.  I'm going to begin with a question 12:34:04  that we received via the chat.  Can the provost email 12:34:09  on Monday indicated that the salary increases related to faculty 12:34:14  promotions are excluded from the freeze -- 12:34:20 ¬ª  I'll give that a shot.  So while we did -- while we did 12:34:25  basically exempt most salary changed there is a 12:34:32  -- a step agreement for most promotions from 12:34:36  assistant to tenured from associate to full.  Those are the 12:34:42  opportunities in line with the academic ladder.  And so 12:34:46  for now, it really 12:34:50  is important that we continue those because they are 12:34:57  long-standing understandings as people move through the ladder.  It's quite different than 12:35:02  the way we do changes in pay and promotion for staff which is much more 12:35:04  --    12:35:05 structural.      12:35:10 ¬ª  Thank you.  Given that normal parking 12:35:14  enforcement besides handicapped spots and fire lanes are not currently being enforce 12:35:18 d can the university suspend payroll deductions for employee parking passes until 12:35:23  the work from home orders are lifted while the transportation office currently allows for 12:35:27  users to mail back their passes to stop payroll 12:35:31  deductions which seems like an unnecessary burden on both staff and transportation 12:35:36  employees on a case by case rather than a blanket suspension? 12:35:42 ¬ª  This is Rick.  I'll take that one.  You know, 12:35:44  I will be frank that we've had higher priority issues to deal with.     12:35:48 Just in terms of 12:35:49  [inaudible]    12:35:53 with the duration of this remote work thing seeming 12:35:57  to stretch out.  We're going to have to pick this up. 12:36:01  So I'm -- I'm happy to take a look at it.  I don't know what the answer is right now.  We have part of the process, the whole 12:36:08  payroll piece gets done with others but we'll take a look at this thing and 12:36:10  figure out something that works.   12:36:14 I agree that it doesn't make sense to pay for something that you know, 12:36:18  we're not even using because you're sitting at home. 12:36:23 And this applies to pretty much everybody that's got a paid parking permit.  We'll take a look 12:36:24  at this one.    12:36:26 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:36:30 How much in savings have been realized in the past 3 weeks in reduction of utilites 12:36:35  demand and steam load shed have is there [indiscernible] retain 12:36:39  a portion of these cost savings? 12:36:46 ¬ª  It's about 30% in terms of usage.  It's kind of 12:36:50  complicated and I'm not going to try to do public math on that. 12:36:55  I think we could realize a little bit more if we do some more of the [inaudible] which, you know, 12:37:00  I don't initiate those.  Those are initiated out of the units.     12:37:04 Moving to a 4-day work week, you know, you start to get into space use, 12:37:09  constraints, and competition, you know, there are some 12:37:15  that I've heard say in gest that nobody wants to have classes except Tuesday, 12:37:19  Wednesday and Thursday, you know, so we'd have a 3-day work week. 12:37:23  I'm not in charge of that.  I'm trying to keep the facilities that we've got and 12:37:28  that really goes from the academic mission is where we start and then we figure out what 12:37:31  we need to do to support that.    12:37:34 ¬ª  Let me jump in here, Rick.     12:37:38 I'm going to take what I think is the question behind the question which is how are we thinking differently 12:37:42  about the efficient use of 12:37:46  energy and space.  And I do think we're learning some things about remote work. 12:37:53  That we may be able to leverage as we move back into full operations. 12:37:59  But keep in mind that as we do that, there are certain things we do 12:38:03  that are actually 24/7.  When the students are with us they're here all the time.  Around 12:38:07  --    12:38:11 and we have research that runs all the time.  So we -- I think this has -- this experience has taught us that we can 12:38:15  think differently about how we -- how 12:38:20  we operate and that may well include more conversation about 12:38:27  alternative or remote work.  But as is the case for absolutely 12:38:31  every organization that does this, we do it consistent with 12:38:32  our commitment to our core mission.      12:38:39 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:38:43 What is the likelihood that we're going to see staff cuts and lost jobs due to this? 12:38:49 ¬ª  Yep, I understand that question and so I'm going to --    12:38:53 I'll try to do a better job of saying what we know.  You know, what we know is 12:38:57  that we're working very hard right now.  To address what we need -- 12:39:02  believe will be the short falls.  We don't know how long this will last, 12:39:07  we don't know what the impact of the virus will be on our long-term financial situation. 12:39:13  So I appreciate the question, but it would be irresponsible 12:39:17  of anybody to tell you with certainty about what impact this 12:39:19  may have on jobs.     12:39:23 What I can say is what the executive vice president said, we are all working very, 12:39:28  very hard to -- in our commitment 12:39:32  to our workforce.  You all can participate in that by helping us look 12:39:35  at spend and giving --    12:39:39 and suggesting through your managers ways to do thing more efficiently.  And that is 12:39:46  an honest answer for where we are today.  And we'll continue to share information as we have it. 12:39:53 That's -- that's the best I can do.  And the question keeps coming up because I think people want 12:39:58  an absolute answer to the question which is completely understandable, 12:40:03  but I've made a promise to be as transparent as I can be to you.  And that includes 12:40:08  telling you what we know today even if it isn't the answer you were hoping for. 12:40:13 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:40:17 Will L tip rates change for fiscal year'21 12:40:21  or will there be a university-wide reduction in fiscal 12:40:26 '21 budgets?    12:40:30 ¬ª  I can try that one.  So we went to the board of trustees in January for our 12:40:35  endowment pay out rates which is I think what they're asking about.  And we have been 12:40:40  paying out more than we should.  And so we had a plan to continue to 12:40:45  reduce the pay out over the next several years down 12:40:50  to approximately a 5% pay out.  So that has already been 12:40:55  approved and units should mainly be aware of it.  What the implications are 12:41:01  of the investment portfolio where all our modelling or 12:41:05  pay out is at a 61/2% positive return, right now we're looking 12:41:10  at a potential 12:41:15 81/2% negative return for this next year.  So there will be an impact going forward.  Right now we're thinking 12:41:19  it might be -- it will -- we calculate on a 7-year average. 12:41:23  So we'll take a couple years before we actually see thethe -- 12:41:29  the reduction in the pay out piece and yes there will be budget adjustments. 12:41:31  We're trying to figure that out now.     12:41:35 ¬ª  Another question, I believe that you would be appropriate 12:41:40  to answer:  Could you kindly share the priority list of re coup 12:41:45 ing revenue?  [Indiscernible] fall in this 12:41:45  metric?    12:41:49 ¬ª  So I'm not sure I understand the question of 12:41:54  recouping revenues.  So you know, we have -- 12:42:00  we have our enrollment and as soon as NCRE is built we'll be able to add more students.  And 12:42:05  so that will increase our tuition 12:42:05 revenue.     12:42:09 Financial aid is an expense that will grow depending 12:42:13  on the economy.  And then you know, federal appropriations, research dollars, 12:42:19  gifts as soon as we're able to go back out and try to get as much as we can, we will be 12:42:23  -- we will be trying to maintain or revenue sources.      12:42:28 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:42:32 This feels a lot like if not worse than the resection of 2008, 12:42:37  is there talk of an early retirement incentive as there was 12:42:38  in 2009?    12:42:42 ¬ª  So I'll take that one.  TheThe -- there are some differencedifferences, it does feel 12:42:47  that way.  I think as individuals as we look at some -- at this, but there are differences. 12:42:52  One of the -- one of the differences that -- that we are 12:42:57  trying to employ is we're tying to make our 12:42:59  changes as soon as possible.   12:43:03 So that's why the Monday letter was so important.  As it relates to 12:43:08  early retirement incentives or other incentives 12:43:12  we're not talking anything off the table but I have to tell you those programs are very expensive.     12:43:16 And so when we look at a -- 12:43:23  at a  -- drop in revenue we need 12:43:28  to calculate and balance the cost of -- with the other pressures that we have on us. 12:43:33  So we're not saying no and we're not advancng it as a yes.  Right now we have everything 12:43:36  in the --   12:43:40 in the tool kit and we're weighing the pros and 12:43:42  cons of all of them.     12:43:46 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:43:50 If student enrollment is likely to decline then why not reduce financial aid 12:43:55  rather than increasing it by another 30 million? 12:43:59 ¬ª  So one of the core principles of Cornell University is 12:44:03  -- blinded mission.  So we don't know what the financial needs.  If we wanted 12:44:08  to reduce financial aid the only way we could do that is look at 12:44:13  people's ability to pay as they're applying and accept the people that can pay.  And that just goes against one of the 12:44:19  principles that we don't want to change at this point in time.      12:44:27 ¬ª  Thank you.    12:44:31 All of our funds are from grants which will expire within the next 2 years, how 12:44:36  do we reconcile reduced spending with funds that will be lost if not spent? 12:44:43 ¬ª  My recommendation is to spend your grant funds first, and 12:44:47  then your general -- as long as they're legitimate expenses 12:44:52  that can go against the grants we want all restricted funds dollars spent first 12:44:58  so that it frees up unrestrict dollars that can help with the university budget 12:44:59 problem.   12:45:00 ¬ª  Thank you.    12:45:04 What advice would you give to staff members who have been deemed essential 12:45:08  who have compromised immune systems 12:45:12  [indiscernible] assistance staff members can access?   12:45:16 ¬ª Thanks for asking the question.  If you are in a situation where 12:45:20  you are in a medically compromised situation and you and your doctor 12:45:25  do not feel that you should be working, there are -- there are programs to help you, please 12:45:27  contact the medical leave administration area.      12:45:32 ¬ª  Thank you.    12:45:35 Several units have discussed mental health and the need --    12:45:39 the need for RX.  There seems 12:45:44  to be a collective thought that getting outside is important [indiscernible] how are we addressing visitor safety? 12:45:52 ¬ª  Well, I could address that because we've made clear in as many 12:45:57  of our conversations -- I first want to echo the basic observation 12:46:01  that Mary touched on earlier which is absolutely we want everyone to get outside. 12:46:06 It's critical for wellness partnership went out for a walk earlier today and it made a big difference. 12:46:12  Certainly with regard to the botanic gardens with regard 12:46:17  to a lot of our wonderful areas for recreation and wellness around us, 12:46:23  it's really just incumbent on individuals to practice those 6 feet separations. 12:46:29  We have all experienced individuals that we encounter 12:46:34  who aren't but we as individuals have that opportunity to make 12:46:38  a detour making sure we look both ways if we're crossing streets at the time. 12:46:43  But it really comes down to our greatest tool 12:46:47  to get us back to normalcy as soon as possible which is to enable 12:46:51  the progression of the virus to happen 12:46:55  as swiftly as possible with an eye toward flattening that curve.  We try 12:46:58  to emphasize that in all of our communications.      12:47:02 ¬ª  Thank you.    12:47:06 It was helpful to know some of the thinking around summer planning given the recent mention 12:47:10  of July 12th as the earliest of oncampus classes I know we don't know 12:47:15  specifics of fall but can you share thoughts of what is being discussed for potential fall implications? 12:47:15   ¬ª    12:47:24  So I'll start and maybe others can jump in.  One of the 12:47:30  -- the deans meeting with the provost 12:47:35  and I on a regular basis to do contingency planning for the academic enterprise.  And 12:47:40  I think the person who asked the question acknowledges we just don't know.  And so 12:47:45  we don't want to not do planning and be caught 12:47:50  off guard.  On the other hand I think we're trying to weigh multiple 12:47:54  factors as we do those contingency plans.  So 12:47:59  the deans and the provost team are actually looking at ways we might 12:48:04  move forward if the summer comes and we're still not 12:48:09  in a position where we can offer things on campus.  Joel, did you want to add?    12:48:12 ¬ª  No, that's exactly what I would have touched on, Mary.     12:48:13 Thank you.      12:48:17 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:48:21 What do you know about the current confirmed cases of 12:48:28  Covid in [indiscernible]? 12:48:33 ¬ª  I can take that but 12:48:37  obviously deferring to Ann and 12:48:43  Frank the Thompkins County health 12:48:47  department has a website where they keep track of the county-wide confirmed cases.  We have 12:48:51  as part of that landing page on our Covid-19 website toward the bottom 12:48:56  we are keeping a tally of 12:49:01  Ithaca campus faculty students and staff by number that are 12:49:05  have tested positive.     12:49:10 Recognizng that this is not always an exact science, our goal is to try 12:49:15  to be as transparent as possible with the information that we have access to. 12:49:20  I do need to underscore there are significant and really critical privacy 12:49:24  concerns at play.  As a result, 12:49:29  we are not in a position to be communicatecommunicating specifics in terms of who, what, 12:49:33  where or when, but we do want to be sure the community is 12:49:38  able to see the progression.  I don't know, Ann, if there's more 12:49:38  you would add.   12:49:42 ¬ª Yeah, really to echo that 12:49:47  and emphasize the transparency on both of those web sites, and especially 12:49:57  on thompkins County health Department, there is a grade and I'm looking 12:49:59  at it right now that has [inaudible]    12:50:03 factors total number of people tested for Covid-19 of those how many are pending, 12:50:07  how many are positive, how many have been coming back negative, and 12:50:11  then how many people have recovered.    12:50:12 As well as a count of how many people who are hospitalized.     12:50:16 And so those are important 12:50:21 numbers.  To date on what's being reported on website now the number 12:50:25  of positive cases in the county is 76.  And so 12:50:28  the --   12:50:32 that website is actually wherewhere 12:50:36  -- where we are getting that information.  And that is being 12:50:39  placed on their transparently for the community.     12:50:45 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:50:49 Are current jobs posted on workday still moving forward or are they 12:50:51  also being frozen?   12:50:54 ¬ª Yep.  So we've asked each --    12:50:58 each unit college unit to look at the positions that they have posted.  And 12:51:02  to take down those that they feel temporarily 12:51:07  cancan -- can delay, or 12:51:12  they can reassign the work to someone else.  And so those are all being looked at and they are 12:51:13  --    12:51:17 they are most of them actually are come down.  So there are a few 12:51:22  positions that there's been an 12:51:27  agreement need to continue, but for the most part -- 12:51:31 [inaudible] down.  Last count I think something like 12:51:32  75 or 80% of them had been pulled down.      12:51:44 ¬ª  Now, that 12:51:49  provost or the executive vice president [indiscernible] obtain approval, is there a dollar threshold for 12:51:52  those purchases requiring approval?   ¬ª    12:51:59  Bill -- the university 12:52:04  comptroller is meeting with all the college business officers and administrative finance group on Monday and they're going 12:52:07  to work through a process so more information will be coming out on that.      12:52:13 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:52:18 Follow-up to the faculty promotion raise question could 12:52:22  faculty voluntarily give up a raise for time being to help out with costs while still obtaining appropriate promotions, 12:52:27  is that something that could be asked of faculty considering this issue?    12:52:31 ¬ª  So everyone has given if you look at the Monday letter, you'll see that 12:52:35  we have a --    12:52:39 some individuals have already voluntarily reduced their salaries for 6 months. 12:52:45  And we've made that option open to anyone who 12:52:46  would like to do so.    12:52:50 And that includes any faculty 12:52:54  as well.  So there's -- that's an open invitation to anyone who would like 12:52:58  to do that to help us with our operatng costs issues.     12:53:03 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:53:07 There are concerns and stress happening around our ability to be productive while dealing with the reality 12:53:12  of our current situation.  What would you say to folks who are struggling to balance 12:53:13  deadlines and mental health?    12:53:17 ¬ª  Yeah.  So thanks for asking that question.  I think there's actually a lot that goes into 12:53:21  that.  So some of it is as 12:53:27  simple but complicated as you're -- all of a sudden you're home and you don have the normal 12:53:33  way that you get things done, and you're trying to figure out how to do things in a different way. 12:53:38  And we did a -- we did a panel about that and we'll 12:53:43  do some more follow-up.  There's great resources, by the way about this 12:53:44  on the HR website.     12:53:48 But the other thing that was recognized there, and I just want to say 12:53:53  we're thinking about it as well as you know, people who have children, the 12:53:57  day care centers are for the most part closed the schools 12:54:02  are closed, they're feeling a great deal of pressure within their -- to balance 12:54:05  a whole lot of things that are kind of right in front of them now.  And we know that.    12:54:09 So what I would say is use good -- my 12:54:14  good practical advice is, talk to your supervisor about when 12:54:18  you can get your work done.  Make sure you understand the deliverables that are in front of you, 12:54:23  be open an honest about the struggles that you have in terms of what's happening in your home, 12:54:26  and develop a go forward plan that agreeable to you and your supervisor.      12:54:34 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:54:38 Which jobs are still going to be continued recruited for are the provost searchs 12:54:40  for college deans continuing?   12:54:44 ¬ª So there are certain jobs that we will continue.  So for example, 12:54:49  a great example is if we need a dean we need 12:54:51  to complete that dean search.     12:54:53 There are other jobs that --    12:54:57 that are quite unique in their skill sets. 12:55:01  We can't obviously move somebody into the role 12:55:04  and those will continue as well.     12:55:08 There's no single pathway to answer this question.  We're trying to go position by position.  And 12:55:13  have a conversation about all of them and figure out which ones to move forward. 12:55:17  I will say in this regard, and I do want to just go back to 12:55:22  my acknowledgment that when you ask an absolute question and I don't give you an absolute answer, 12:55:27  I want to acknowledge that that doesn't feel satisfying, but it's -- but I also feel that 12:55:33  I have a great deal of regard for all of you, and your ability to 12:55:38  manage what can sometimes feel like less than concrete answers.   12:55:42 And so I'm going to give you the honest answers that I have 12:55:46  them even if they're not in an absolute form.  So we're going through each 12:55:49 job.  We're trying to figure out which ones absolutely have to continue.     12:55:53 We're talking about whether there's other ways to continue them, but there's no single pathway 12:55:58  to say this type of job will be filled and this type of job won't be opinion 12:56:03  I sat in on a dean's meeting on Monday and every dean, every vice president, 12:56:09  and every vice provost on this campus is really being thoughtful about how to 12:56:14  take this guidance and do their part in figuring out how we can 12:56:17  capture some savings in these early days.      12:56:25 ¬ª  Thank you.     12:56:29 As we identified departmental funds that will no longer be used for fiscal year'20, 12:56:34  student recognition events what is the best way to let the university know how much 12:56:39  money we can roll back into the larger university budget? 12:56:43 ¬ª  Well, my suggestion would be to talk to the university budget office, 12:56:49  positivell happly take any call 12:56:51  that somebody's returning some funds to help the university budget.      12:56:55 ¬ª  Thank you.    12:56:59 The university has a 12:57:18  sizable [inaudible] the donors are understand the understanding that we will 12:57:22  never use their funds for anything else.  It would require 12:57:25  board approval.     12:57:28 It could be an option but it should be a very last option because that means 12:57:33  we have not been able to figure out problem solving for ourselves and that would 12:57:37  just be a stopgap.  And the more you take out of the endowment 12:57:42  the longer the pain will be for the university because so many of our funds 12:57:44  --    12:57:46 so many of our programs are funded from the endowment including financial aid.      12:57:58 ¬ª  Thank you. 12:58:03 All right.  Regarding budget specifically expenses will schools be required 12:58:07  to reduce or pair back the spend on major events like orientation first year family weekend, 12:58:12  et cetera, some of these events could produce a significant cost 12:58:13 savings?    12:58:16 ¬ª  So each -- I'm going to actually have Ryan talk about the Cornell 12:58:21  -- the student specific ones, but each of the colleges 12:58:26  and units are looking at exactly that, event that is we've always held, are 12:58:29  we still holding them, if we are holding them can we hold them in a different way.      12:58:35 ¬ª  And I'll just jump in there 12:58:39  we will be certainly at these kind of university-wide student type events 12:58:44  orientation, family weekend that we've mentioned we'll be taking a very close look at those and doing 12:58:48  everything we can to reduce or eliminate a lot of spend that does happen there. 12:59:09 ¬ª  I think that's going to have to be our last question.  We're at time but I just want 12:59:10  to --    12:59:15 just want to wrap up by saying thank you also much for being here 12:59:20  today.  We absolutely appreciate it.  We know how busy you are.  This is this is so helpful and 12:59:22  so useful for everybody who's able to join us.   12:59:26 So once again, thank you, thank you, 12:59:34  Hei Hei, thank you for helping settle this 12:59:38 up.  Again really pressure your time.  We hope everybody stays healthy, happy and able to weather this 12:59:40 , you know, as we move forward.     12:59:42 So --   12:59:44 ¬ª Can I just --   12:59:45 ¬ª [Multiple speakers].   12:59:49 ¬ª  Sorry.  Can I just say two things?  First of all I've been notic 12:59:53 ng as things come through questions that we've answered now multiple times coming 12:59:58  back through again.  So one strategy that you can use because I know sometimes 13:00:03  when either your joining late or maybe there's you know, maybe there's something that 13:00:08  you were thinking about when the question was answered, these are all recorded 13:00:12  and available and you might want to go back and watch these first to see 13:00:18  whether or not maybe the answer to your question is already there.  So that's one thing. 13:00:23  The other thing is that I didn't start with this, but I want to end with it, please keep our 13:00:27  health care 13:00:30  workers and --    13:00:34 while Cornell medicine and all across New York in your heart and 13:00:38  in your thoughts.  They're getting to a very difficult time.  They're working 13:00:43  without you know, just constant 13:00:48 ly they're really in the thick of it.  And it's 13:00:50  -- we couldn't be prouder of them, but they --    13:00:54 they're also really, really 13:00:55  on the front lines of all of this.    13:00:59 And they're remarkable people and so 13:01:04  how ever do you that whether it's a wish or a prayer or a thought keep them all in your 13:01:05  hearts and in your thoughts.  Thank you.      13:01:10 ¬ª  Thank you, everybody.      13:01:11 Take care.      13:01:13 ¬ª  Thank you, good afternoon.