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President, VPs talk about Rocket Solution Central, Banner at town hall meeting |
| By
Jim Winkler |
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Sep 2, 2008
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| President Lloyd Jacobs spoke during the first town hall meeting of the academic year. |
Answering tough questions on topics that ranged from long lines on the first day of classes at Rocket Solution Central to recycling efforts on Health Science Campus, UT President Lloyd Jacobs held his first town hall meeting of the school year last week.
Some 75 faculty and staff and students attended the program on Health Science Campus, where the president often called on his vice presidents to provide additional details to answers.
Jacobs agreed with one student who complained about long lines at Rocket Solution Central on the first day of classes.
“Yesterday’s lines were long, but it was the first day that people were back,” Jacobs acknowledged. “But I don’t like to see students or patients standing in line.”
Kevin Kucera, associate vice president for enrollment services, said a project team is examining how to streamline Rocket Solution Central operations and make things easier for students, including perhaps offering different tuition payment schedules and putting more forms like parking passes online so students can fill them out during the summer before returning to classes.
Jacobs rejected the idea of halting implementation of SCT’s Banner student information management computer system despite complaints he has heard about the system’s shortcomings. He expressed confidence that the problems soon will be ironed out as employees become more comfortable with the system.
“Implementing big, university-wide systems is rocky,” the president said, and “we are not where we want to be. It will probably be another year before the system is fully implemented.”
In response to a question about different vacation benefit packages for employees on Main and Health Science campuses, Jacobs reminded the audience that two years ago he warned that it would take five years to merge employees’ benefits and salary packages and hundreds of other widely divergent personnel policies that were in place when UT and the former Medical University of Ohio merged in 2006.
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| William Logie, vice president for human resources and campus safety, fielded a question about benefit packages during the town hall meeting. |
William Logie, vice president for human resources and campus safety, noted that work has started to review more than 600 human resources policies and pledged to complete the process as quickly and equitably as possible.
He also said the recent consolidation of Human Resources offices in preparation for their move to Scott Park Campus brings the division’s employees closer together, which will help improve efficiency and service. There are no plans to establish a satellite office on Health Science Campus, he added.
Jacobs strongly disagreed with a questioner’s assertion that UT Medical Center has abandoned its value-driven mission.
“I believe we have kept our eye on the ball,” he said, noting that the hospital has maintained its commitment to the city’s poor, continues to attract mission-driven physicians and nurses, is making discoveries that will save lives, and is addressing some of the region’s thorniest health issues like AIDS. “Our mission is to improve the human condition. Our jobs are a higher calling, a life commitment.”
Dr. Jeffrey P. Gold, Health Campus provost, executive vice president for health affairs and College of Medicine dean, stressed that the hospital’s heart services are busy and the kidney transplant program in recent years has logged record numbers of transplants. He added that the heart-transplant program, which operated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, may resume if a surgical team can be recruited. The hospital’s market share increased by 1 percent last year when most hospitals in the city lost market share, and both inpatient admissions and outpatient clinic visits increased last year over the previous year.
“There are areas where we want to grow,” Gold said, “but remember that excellence is a journey, not a destination.”
In response to a question about UT’s sustainability efforts and ways it is reducing its use of nonrenewable resources, Chuck Lehnert, vice president for facilities and construction, said that five UT buildings have earned LEED certification from the United States Green Building Council. Two years ago, the University had no LEED-certified buildings.
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a nationally recognized benchmark assessing the energy-saving measures in building designs. The standard was set in 1998 by the council, a nonprofit group of building industry leaders.
In addition, the Health Science Campus steam plant has been fitted with a coal gasification unit that converts petroleum coke into synthetic gas that can be burned cleanly in gas turbines, helping reduce pollution.
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