Meeting Summary

Date
December 9, 2008

 Meeting Summary (pdf)

Members Present:, Katrina Doolittle, , Connie DeBlieck, John Balog, Mike O’Larey, Randey Bamford, Ida Baca, Lorin Gobble, Nancy Baptiste, Alfred Valdez, Ronald Fisher, Mary Simmons, Stephen Lopez, Albert Parra

Members Absent: Teresa Burgin, Anne Hubbell, Joe Plamer; Lori McKee; Benjamin Diven; Leigh DeRoos, Darrell Smith;;  Jeff Witte; Angela Arvizo; Hugo Vilchis; Manuela Quezada-Aragon; Carmen Gonzales; Dario Silva; Julie Weber; Rene Yoder; Maureen Howard;; Tammy Anthony; Michael Abernethy; Sara Miller, Amy Collins (for D. Pearse)

The meeting began at 3:05 PM.

1.      K. Doolittle thanked everyone for attending.

2.      There were no comments or corrections to the October meeting summary and the document was unanimously accepted.

3.      Draft HR Policies were reviewed. R. Yoder stated that changes submitted by the committee were incorporated into the draft policy documents.  She will accept comments until January 5, 2009 and the committee would vote on the draft policies at the February 10, 2009 meeting. She also said the draft policies would then be submitted to D. Stuart, Associate VP for HR, L. Warren, D. Weir and Sr VP J. Taylor for comment prior to submission to ACAP and Admin Council for ultimate approval by the Board of Regents.  The review and approval process is expected to be completed in July 2009.

a.       State of Emergency
K. Doolittle said that training personnel to the plan would enhance understanding. S. Lopez asked how volunteers would be accounted for in the plan.  For example, will persons who volunteer to perform tasks outside of their routine duties be eligible for compensation?  R. Yoder asked that he forward an email on this matter. 

b.      Social Distancing:  The committee agreed that the practice of Social Distancing is more appropriately written as a guideline than policy.  R. Yoder said that the NMSU Policy manual is being revised and the resulting manual will separate policies from procedures.  S. Lopez suggested that Social Distancing being described in an appendix to the All Hazards Plan.  There were no additional comments on social distancing.  The committee unanimously voted to accept the draft social distancing policy. 

c.       Telecommuting: S. Lopez asked if the home would be subject to an inspection? R. Yoder said telecommuting should be invoked for brief periods in response to specific emergency situations and not a protracted event.  Supervisors should be empowered to authorize telecommuting and be able to validate and monitor worker productivity.

4.      Continuity of Operation Plans: K. Doolittle said 7 plans were submitted and reminded those who have yet to submit a plan of the need to do so.  She also clarified that the signature of the Dean or Vice President is intended to ensure their awareness of the plans for their respective area of responsibility.  She also commented that senior leadership “see value” to the plans.  K. Doolittle said that obtaining/generating an electronic version of COoP is in process.  She provided the following details;

a.       The cost to use Banner for this purpose is prohibitively expensive.

b.      The $10, 000.00 allocated for the purpose revising hardware, so it will take time to re-classify this funding to be used for software.

c.       UC Berkeley makes a “Freeware” software program available for planning purposes, and the software was successfully customized by the U Indiana.

d.      Freeware is user-friendly and has query and report capability.

5.      K. Doolittle discussed the scope of CDPC planning with Sr VP Woods and identified two areas of concern 1) loss of human resources and 2) loss of physical resources.  She asked if the committee had any interest in expanding the scope of planning to include “All Hazards” and Emergency Planning.  She proposed building the plan using appendices for specific emergent cases for dissemination and review by faculty senate and administrative departments.  She stated that the committee would need to expand the scope of planning and also be re-named to reflect the expanded scope of planning.

6.      K. Doolittle described 3N 0n Line, the new emergency notification system that provides simultaneous phone, voicemail, and email notification.  Participation in at least one point of contact will be mandatory for all NMSU students, staff, and faculty.  Contact information can be revised as needed.  The notification process is in development.

7.      New Business:

a.       S. Lopez introduced the Modified Emergency Medical System (MEMS) that Las Cruces and Dona Ana County have jointly agreed to use.  He stated an exercise is planned for June of 2009.  NMSU Health Centers will be designated as a point of distribution (POD) of anti-viral medications for faculty, staff and students.  The expectation is to serve 10,000 persons in 24 hours.  He went on to say that is a rather modest figure, and that based on the NMSU experience with crowd management and control practices at Memorial Stadium and the Pan American Center he feels as many as 80,000 persons can be served in a 24 hour period.  This number is approximately 50% of the population of Dona Ana County.

b.      K. Doolittle reminded everyone that the next meeting would be on Tuesday February 10, 2009.

The meeting adjourned at 3:34 pm 

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