PAnorama: December 2001
From the President's Desk
by Ellis Gage Searles
Semester's end is just days away and no one needs a calendar to confirm it. Just glance around at all the tired faces everywhere on campus. Still, troupers that we all are, we'll finish strong. And, after a break for holidays and hopefully a little "down" time, we will begin again, renewed and refreshed.
Because, despite the countless demands that this time of year inevitably brings, there are days and moments that keep us energized and focused. Last week's Executive Board meeting was such a moment. Surely each of us has attended at least a few meetings that were anything but exhilarating. This was not one of them.
As lively discussion circulated around the table about the work of each PA committee, I was struck by the truly collegial atmosphere everywhere in evidence. Committee chairs shared the activities and projects their committees had already begun and outlined their plans for the upcoming weeks and months. It was obvious: our union is on the move. Full details will of course appear in the meeting minutes that PA Secretary Marie Czarnecki will make sure you receive once they're approved (You do read those, don't you?), but here's a quick overview of what we talked about that day.
Community Outreach, under the leadership of new Chair Luther Riedel, organized our first-ever curling extravaganza where a great time was had by all and $400. was raised for Utica's St. Francis Outreach. Still underway is a holiday food and toy collection, and plans are being made for PA team participation in February's Heart Run and Walk. We'll be there--PA shirts and all!
As always, the Grievance Committee has been keeping a close watch on contract issues, as you'll see when you read Dennis Rahn's report elsewhere in this issue. (You do read the whole issue, don't you?)
Internal Communications is developing a constitutional amendment to be presented shortly to the membership. It will propose a change in the leadership transition time frame. You'll be hearing more about that from Arthur Friedberg, who also worked with our PAnorama editor extraordinaire, Cynthia Villanti, to create the new member profiles you see here. And speaking of Cynthia and PAnorama, at this meeting, as at every other one, she shared her ideas for putting together our newsletter and offered to help with a variety of other PA initiatives. Talk about energy!
The annual PA luncheon scheduled for January 18th was another agenda item. Details forthcoming, thanks to Gene Militello and the Member Services Committee.
Before, during, and after that luncheon you'll be invited to join in the ongoing efforts of our Political Action Committee, as Chair Mike Sewall organizes an array of activities on our collective behalf. Bill Perrotti has plans of that sort, too, for a big kickoff of this year's VOTE/COPE drive.
Negotiations have already been "kicked off," with many team hours devoted to crafting the language of the PA's contract proposal. Chair Sam Drogo reported that the committee expects to have the package ready to exchange with the Administration within the next few weeks.
Both political action and negotiations will be benefiting in the coming months from the efforts of the Research and Records Committee. At this meeting, Rich Henry shared the work he has done with our new Web-based membership database, including creating password protection and making it possible to mail-merge letters to the whole membership with just a couple of key strokes. With Rich's leadership, Research and Records will be working closely with other committees, providing the information they need to get their jobs done.
Next, culminating many months of work, the Executive Board unanimously approved the final draft of our application for a NYSUT Local Action Project grant. I'll be submitting it this month in an effort to get funding for even greater forward momentum.
In short, it was a great meeting--positive, productive, promising. It made me proud to be part of it. But that wasn't the only day that PA work energized me.
During the last month I've had two opportunities to see our union as part of a state and national effort to address issues affecting all of us in higher education.
Having been invited to participate in AFT's Higher Education Special Leadership Conference, I was in Washington, D.C. from November 16th to 18th. There, I met colleagues from all over the country, and I saw that in our own ways we're all struggling with the same issues and focused on the same goals. Workshops on collective bargaining, legislative action, and educational reform included animated small group discussions about how each one affects union members whether they're organized on a large-scale statewide level or as smaller, individual campus locals such as ours.
Then, in Albany last Friday, NYSUT's Community College Caucus held its annual meeting for NYSUT Local Presidents and SUNY Community College Presidents. President Schafer and I were both there as representatives of MVCC. The discussion revolved around how we can work together to promote the interests of our colleges, especially in the areas of funding and legislation. One outcome of this meeting will be that our two groups will embark on a cooperative lobbying effort in the spring, with organizational assistance from NYSUT.
With the plans and ideas of that meeting still fresh in our minds, the union presidents moved on to a meeting of the NYSUT Higher Education Council, which had been scheduled to coincide with the Community College Caucus meeting. Two topics of special interest to locals around the state and to us in the MVCC PA occupied our attention: dual credit and distance education. Further discussions--at the state and national levels and right here at home--are essential because in the coming months and years these issues are likely to grow in importance. Both are considered priorities of the Higher Education Council, as they are sure to be on our campus as well, with the implementation of the Millennium Project and the increase in Web-based instruction.
Such chances to interact with respected colleagues from all over the state and the country will continue to be invaluable as we go forward. And go forward we will. So, as we try to figure out how to deal with end-of-semester pressures and deadlines, we can draw on the vitality of those around us, and on the energetic good work being done on our common behalf.
As a matter of fact, doing so seems especially appropriate as we enter this season of fellowship and good cheer.
Happy holidays to you and to those you love!
Annoucing the NYSUT Community Service Award
PA Seeking Nominations!
NYSUT
Community Service
Award
Nominate PA members or retirees
whom you feel have rendered
outstanding volunteer service
to the community.
Application forms available
from Cynthia Villanti
and due to NYSUT by
January 25, 2002.
New Members Feature: Deborah Boyce and Patricia Cummings
For this month's New Member feature, Arthur Friedberg, Chair of the Internal Communications Committee, graciously offered to obtain profiles of two recent hires in the Business/Management Systems Department. And thus we present Deborah Boyce and Patricia Cummings....
Debbie Boyce
An instructor in Business/Management Systems, Debbie Boyce began teaching accounting and financial management courses at MVCC as an adjunct in 1999, while also teaching advertising and marketing courses at SUNY Institute of Technology.
Her education began at SUNY Canton where she received an AAS degree in Accounting, and she finished her bachelor's degree at SUNY Institute of Technology in Finance. She completed her MBA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and began her doctoral studies in Leadership there as well.
Debbie has held many management positions before her career as an educator. She has served as Chief Financial Officer for several public and closely held corporations; she also has held an administrative position at Hamilton College and a VP of Finance and Administration position at SUNY College of Technology at Alfred. Debbie currently remains active as a financial professional in her own business, a management consulting firm.
Debbie lives in Whitesboro with her husband Richard and son Spencer. In her free time, she enjoys travel, cars, reading, and cooking. Finally, Debbie indicates that she joined the PA after other members explained the value and merits of being part of a professional group that works toward positive change in our college community.
Patricia Cummings
Pat Cummings is the tutor/mentor for the Business/Management Systems Department. She began her college education as a returning adult at MVCC in 1993. After receiving her A.A.S. in Accounting, Pat continued on to SUNY Institute of Technology and earned a B.S. in Accounting and a Master's in Accountancy. She previously worked for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) in Rome.
Pat resides in Rome with her husband, Mick, a self-employed upholster and a part-time student at MVCC. She has two children. Jessica, 21, is a full-time student at SUNY Albany, majoring in Chemistry. Michael, 20, is a full-time student at MVCC, majoring in Liberal Arts & Sciences: General Studies.
When Pat returned to school, she had neither a high school diploma nor a GED. Her educational experience with MVCC gave her the confidence and skills to continue on. If not for the great start she had at MVCC, Pat says, she does not think she could have gone as far academically as she has. She now wants to help MVCC continue to provide students with a positive, encouraging, and rewarding educational experience.
Just the kind of Positive Attitude we like to see in the PA!
Holiday donations sought by AFL-CIO CNY Labor Council
The Central New York Labor Council, of which the PA is a member, has adopted a family for Christmas. It is a family of seven:
- a boy, 2, size 2
- a girl, 6, size 12 chubby
- a girl, 12, size 16
- twin boys, 13, sizes 14 or 16 slender
- Mom, size 22
- Dad, size XL
Clothing, gift certificates, or educational toys would be most welcome. They are also collecting for the Food Bank. Donations will be delivered on December 20th. For more information, or to drop off items, see Ellis.
PA well represented at NYSUT Regional Conference
PA Psychology, Human Services and Education Department Representative Carm Lomeo attended the NYSUT Regional Educational Conference that was held at the Radisson Hotel in Utica on November 16th. It included workshops, a reception, and dinner. The keynote speaker was Ron Clark, who was a Disney Teacher of the Year in 2000.
Community Outreach Committee update: We have curled, and our holiday fundraising donation efforts continue
by Luther Riedel
The members of all four teams wanted nothing more than to be able to say, "We have curled." And they did.
On Saturday, December 1, PA members gathered at the Utica Curling Club for an orientation to the sport of curling and a couple of friendly matches. After dividing ourselves into four teams of five players, we received lessons from the kind and patient representatives of the Curling Club, then retreated from the invigoratingly chilly air to refresh ourselves with merry eat and drink.
Then off came the kid gloves as we descended to the ice sheets again for a fiercely competitive curling match. It will come as no surprise to you that PA member Julie Lewis with friend Nicole Prumo (of the Utica Teachers Association) and PA member Cynthia Villanti with her husband Anthony emerged victorious. Other participants included:
- Luther Riedel
- Caroline Lewis
- Gregory Lawler
- Kezia Lawler
- George Searles
- Arthur Friedberg
- Mona Perrotti
- Bill Perrotti
- Sam Drogo
- Linda Drogo
- Mike Drogo
- Molly Drogo
Participants raised sponsorship donations for St. Francis Outreach, an agency that supports area families through a soup kitchen and a thrift shop.
We're continuing to accept donations for St. Francis Outreach until Friday, Dec. 14, at noon. Direct financial contributions to me or to Mike Donaruma in the Business Office. Direct Wish List items to the boxes (near the circulation desks) in the Utica and Rome campus libraries.
Finally, I'd like to thank the Utica Curling Club, which graciously donated their sheets of ice, equipment, and time and expertise for this holiday fundraising event. For more information about curling, contact Carol Jones of the Utica Curling Club at 736-1724.
Then you, too, can say "I have curled."
Political Action: Making our presence felt in local politics
by
Mike Sewall
As Chair of the Political Action Committee, I am arranging to have PA members attend upcoming Oneida County Board of Legislator meetings.
As you know, the Oneida County Board of Legislators acts as our funding agent. After the MVCC Board of Trustees sets the budget, the Oneida County Board of Legislators reviews and either passes or revises it. Therefore, it's incumbent upon us to make sure that the Oneida County Board of Legislators is educated on issues concerning the College and to make sure that they feel our presence in the community.
To this end, I'm asking each of you to consider attending a Board of Legislators meeting during the upcoming year and beyond. I'd like to see a number of PA members attend each session not only to make our presence felt but also to help the PA become more involved in the local government processes that directly shape the conditions of our employment here at Oneida County's community college.
To do so your share for Political Action, contact me for a schedule of upcoming Board of Legislators meetings.
It just keeps getting better
by Moe Rale
It just keeps getting better and better. I don't pretend to know much about economics, accounting, or for that matter mathematics; all I do is watch and listen and then try to figure out the truth. It appears to me that our administrators were students of the new math. This has become "fuzzy math" in recent years and explains how the universe of MVCC is held together with duct tape and string.
The theory is this: Even though enrollment is up over last year, we are hurting as a result of the "fun balance" being depleted. I don't know about anyone but me, but it has been a very long time since anyone has contributed to my "fun balance." The last time was when I was in graduate school. I used to have a lot of fun and in the process usually lost my balance. If someone has been taking money from the College and using it for fun with out me--well, now I'm really mad. The wonder of the "fun balance" is it seems to take money and make it disappear. It must operate like a black hole in deep space. It takes in more and more and makes it less and less.
I asked a colleague in the Math Department to tell me how this new and fuzzy math works. How does more turn into less? He assured me that such was possible and began to tell me about how things operate at the edges of the universe where infinity runs into infinity. This is an area where normal logic fades into the irrational. And so it must be with understanding "fun balances": logic fades into illogic. To help me understand more equaling less, he gave me the following problem, which I got lost on after the first supposition. In its simplicity it is more confusing than E=mc2. Here goes. Maybe you can understand it better than me.
Suppose: A + B = C
This can also be written as:
4A-3A+4B-3B = 4C-3C
After reorganizing:
4A+4B-4C = 3A+3B-3C
Take the constants and place in brackets:
4x (A+B-C) = 3x (A+B-C)
Remove the same term
left and right: 4 = 3
Thus, more equals less at the edges of the universe and with MVCC's "fun balance"! There is something hidden in this equation. I believe it has to do with where you "park" the factors. Instead of factors, think of them as vehicles to move numbers around. Parking your factors in the right spot is very important. In fact, it is so important that a good mathematician will factor these correctly parked numbers/vehicles by a value of 10.
Thus, after finding a quantity-- pick 200 +/- for the sake of argument and remember we're in fuzzy math land--multiply by 10 twice, we get 4,000. If we add the 4,000 to the 3, we still get less! And the "fun balance" (at least $20 of my fun) is still depleted. Go figure.
So much for black holes, the fringes of the universe, and "fun balances."
Annual Spring PA Luncheon
Friday, Jan. 18
11:30 to 1:30
@ The Commons (ACC)
All PA members encouraged to attend!
Retirees please RSVP
with Gene Militello
by email (emilitello@mvcc.edu)
or phone (792.5481).
- VOTE on the by-laws of the PA constitution!
- LEARN who is your Oneida County legislator!
- HELP kick off this year'sVOTE/COPE campaign!
- JOIN the PA team for America's Greatest Heart Run/Walk!
- MEET your NYSUT regional representatives!
- EAT delicious victuals with your esteemed colleagues!
Practical Advice: Effective Problem Reporting 101
by Rich Henry
Introducing another new PAnorama feature! Periodically we will include articles that offer advice, hints, tips, & tricks useful in your professional or personal lives. In this inaugural article, Rich Henry of our IT department shows how to help troubleshoot computer-related problems.
Here are a couple of tips you can use when reporting a problem to the Information Systems Helpdesk. Following these simple guidelines will help us more effectively meet your needs when a problem arises.
1) Don't install third party software.
A third party screen saver and other "fun" programs often cause problems. Such programs include the ever-popular Bonzi Buddy and AOL Instant Messenger. These programs tend to slow down startup time and cause other programs, such as Microsoft Word, to be less stable. If you do install one of these programs and you begin to receive errors in the same period of time, you can be fairly certain of the cause of your problem. Be sure to share this with the individual taking your helpdesk call.
These programs do not receive the same scrutiny that the "professional" applications do when they are developed and are certainly more prone to error. They often use components of the Windows environment that other programs cannot do without. Thus, these components often crash or become unstable with the third party software. These instabilities, in turn, are often realized as program errors or "segmentation faults" in other programs that try to use the shared components.
2) Know the software you are using.
Trying to track down intermittent problems can be an insurmountable task at times. A software program may run perfectly by itself but will crash when combined with one or more other titles with which it was not meant to operate. By being aware of which programs are open when a crash occurs, you can reduce the amount of time it takes for our computer professionals to recreate and solve the problem.
3) External resources count.
Printers and networked resources are common contributors to trouble. These resources include printers, shared network folders, and programs that are run from a server.
The reason depends on the resource. Network downtimes, lack of network privileges, or incorrect network configurations are some of the more common causes of problems with network resources. Printers, on the other hand, depend on a number of external resources to do their job. The printers require what is called a driver to print properly. If you have a version of the driver installed with programming errors, you may see those problems surface when you try to print a web page or a document. It appears that the application is crashing, but in reality the printer's driver is failing.
Be sure to note which printer or network folder you were trying to use at the time of the trouble, if any.
4) Look for patterns.
Often, the toughest problems to fix are the intermittent ones. These problems seem to have no rhyme or reason. Defining the problem is the first step towards fixing it; without completing this step the chances of failure in repairing it are high.
Some times the only way to attack these problems is to record what was going on when the error occurred. What software were you running? To which printer were you printing? What documents were you accessing? If you record this information at each failure, patterns may emerge that can point Information Systems to the root of the issue.
5) Write down that error message.
Since we rarely can be present when problems occur, it is up to you to notice and record these details for later reference. As cryptic as these things tend to be, detailed system error messages can prove very useful to us in solving your computer-related problems. We can match those problems against knowledge bases supplied by the software manufacturer and, with this information, we can identify programs and shared components that may need to be replaced.
Thus, it's best to write down as much of the message as possible. References to files and specific code numbers are especially important.
If you follow these steps when encountering and reporting a computer-related problem, you are guaranteed to get better results from your visits from the members of the Information Systems department.
Grievance
Report
by Dennis Rahn
Here is the latest update on activities of the Grievance Committee:
- The Association and management reached a proposed settlement just prior to arbitration involving the failure of the College to promote a unit member. In short, the College did not honor the settlement and a new proposal is being negotiated.
- We are still pursuing the assignment of which retirement tier a unit member should be in.
- The matter of coordinator agreements and inaccurate loads being assigned (for this academic year) is nearly resolved.
- Several concerns have been regarding on-line evaluations and department head access to web-based courses. These issues are at the informal stage of the grievance process.
Buy union now for the holidays
source: NYSUT's The Bottom Line
It's been hard to find American-made flags--let alone union-made. American-made, 3x5-foot flags ($21.99) with union labels are now available through the first of its kind Web site devoted to union-made products: www.buyunionnow.com.
Launched last spring, the site is a "one-stop shopping mall of union-made products and services for union families," said Chris Kuban, who started the project on "credit cards and student loans." It's the first and only company that guarantees that all products sold on its Web site are American-made and union-made.
The Internet startup firm is organized by UNITE Local 2698. Initially, the [site] listed about 200 union-made items that could be shipped to a consumer by the manufacturer. Today, the site sells about 1,000 products and lists the name of the union that organized the production facility.
The firm takes orders via a toll-free phone number (866-289-8646). Union members are invited to notify Kuban of union-made products that should be on the Web site by e-mailing products@ buyunionnow.com and the name and telephone number of a contact.
Kuban said that companies will be able to see--in dollars and cents--how valuable union families' buying power is. "This will get their attention, which can't hurt during negotiations," he said. "The more we demonstrate union workers' buying power, the more job security we provide for union workers everywhere."
