Essential Personnel Memo

Dear Campus Community:

As I discussed in my last general update memo, the meaning of the words "essential employee" is rapidly shifting. We traditionally designate around 200 employees, mainly in facilities and security, as essential, and ask that they come into to work in order to maintain the safety of our campus during moments like snow storms.  The vast majority of the campus--faculty, most staff and students--stay away from the campus and don't work during those "normal" emergencies.

The COVID-19 virus imposes new conditions on us, and forces us to revise the meaning of that term.  We are now seeking to maintain the functioning of our campus--we are all expected to work, to teach and to learn.  At the same time, we are trying to limit the exposure of our community to the virus by practicing social distancing, working and learning from home, and in some cases, deciding which functions of a normal college campus, such as large-scale public events, can be placed into hiatus.

We are now, that is, redefining essential personnel to mean people whose presence on campus is essential for the college to continue to execute its functions. During a blizzard, we would close the financial aid office; currently we need to figure out who in that office, if anyone, needs to be on campus, and how the remainder of the staff can execute their work responsibilities from home.  Because we are not closed, we must define essential personnelas those whose presence on campus is essential to the continued functioning of an open college.

At the same time, we will work to innovate--to develop new modes of working at distance that will allow more and more of our community to work from home.  We are also putting in place flexible work arrangements so that people who must come to campus can reduce their risk of exposure by reducing their contact with others.

Allow me to emphasize this point: now is not the time to think about who is essential staff and who is not; it is, rather a time to be radically creative in discovering how we can work in new ways, and then think about who must be retained on campus.  But the goal is to move more and more people off campus.  If you are designated as a non-essential employee, you should stay away from the campus.

As you have read, the modes of our telecommuting will be determined by explicit agreements between you and your supervisor, and must make explicit provisions for how your work can be done from home.  These arrangements must be reviewed on a weekly basis, to make sure that we are continuing to deliver on our work responsibilities.  But they also need the creative contributions of our entire community, both in their original design, their subsequent expansion, and their periodic assessment. 

I know that we will all work together to make this happen, and to help in the general social effort by depopulating the campus.

The following is a preliminary list of essential personnel for the current conditions.  We have generated this list by asking supervisors to think about who can work from home, and how, and then aggregating those assessments up through the ranks to the college level.  This is, perforce, an initial and rough assessment. Initially, we are populating this list with job descriptions and numbers, for the most part,  we may move to designate specific individuals by name, if that becomes useful.  Over time, I expect us to refine and expand these lists, always being careful to make sure that the movement of new people to a telecommuting posture is accompanied by a work design that allows the work to get done at distance.

Essential Personnel for the college are as follows:

The College Senior Leadership Team:

Vince Boudreau, President

Tony Liss, Provost

Celia Lloyd, Vice President of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management

Felix Lam, Vice President of Finance and Administration

Ken Ihrer, Vice President of Facilities Operations

Dee Dee Mozeleski, Senior Advisor and Executive Director Foundation and Communications (will also support Benny's in collaboration with Public Safety)

Essential Positions in the Office of Institutional Advancement and communication include all members of the writing, digital content, marketing, web design, creative design, finance/data administration and Benny's Food Pantry support, however as of 3/18/2020, all staff are set up to work remotely.

Essential Positions in the Facilities Department

Essential Positions in the Office of Information Technology

Academic Divisions and Departments

CWE (All staff telecommuting)

• Juan Carlos Mercado
• Carlos Aguasaco (Chair)
• Robert Hernandez (IT)
• Javier Arroyo (Security)
• Front Desk staff (Front Desk)
• Tony and Curtis (Facility)
• Ninive Gomez (Study Abroad)

Powell School (All staff telecommuting)

• Ashif Hassan, Finance Assistant, Colin Powell School
• Greysi Peralta, Accounts and Grants Coordinator, CUNY Dominican Studies Institute
• Andrew Rich, Dean, Colin Powell School
• Kendra Wright, Finance Associate, Colin Powell School

H&A (All staff telecommuting)

• Moe Liu-d'Albero
• Nicole Parilla
• Erec R. Koch

Education (All staff telecommuting)

• Yvel Crevecoeur (Interim Associate Dean)
• Stacia Pusey (Assistant Dean of Enrollment and Admissions)
• Henny Wong (IT Specialist)
• Aelicia Yeates (Finances and Operations Director)

Science (8 on campus)

CUNY School of Medicine (8 on campus)

GSOE (2 on campus)

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management

Public Safety: Hours of operation and number of security personnel:

(no remote but reduced shifts)

7:00 am to 3PM:  31 

3:00 to 11:00 PM:  25

11:00 PM to 7:00 AM : 8

The City College of New York
Office of the VP and CFO
Business, Finance and Human Services Functions COVID19 Staffing Plan

Sincerely,

Vince Boudreau
President