Oral History Program Cherrie Nelson Interviewed by Kandice Harris 23 May 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Cherrie Nelson Interviewed by Kandice Harris 23 May 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Nelson, Cherrie, an oral history by Kandice Harris, 23 May 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Cherrie Nelson 23 May 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Cherrie Nelson, conducted on May 23, 2019 in the Stewart Library Archives Conference Room, by Kandice Harris. Cherrie discusses her life, her memories at Weber State University, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Alexis Stokes, the video technician, is also present during this interview. KH: Today is May 23, 2019. My name is Kandice Harris. I’m the interviewer and we are meeting with Cherrie Nelson. Alexis Stokes is our videographer. When and where were you born? CN: I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on December 14, 1954. My parents are Harry C. and Harriet F. Greguhn. I grew up at 2322 Park Street in the lower Sugarhouse area. KH: Would you talk a little bit about your early life and some historical background? CN: I have a really interesting history when it comes to attending schools. I went to Columbus Elementary School, which was on 5th east and about 27th south, and it was closed down because a lot of families were moving to the suburbs. Now it’s a senior center and a community center for South Salt Lake City. Then I went to Irving Junior High School which is in Sugarhouse. That school was also closed down and was renovated into condominiums. Finally, I went to South High School, which is now part of Salt Lake Community College. It’s unusual to have ones public education buildings serving different purposes. It’s interesting to note that a lot of families are moving back to the city and I’m curious to see how that affects school attendance since those three schools are no longer in use. 2 KH: Were you encouraged to pursue an education? CN: I was. My father, Harry Carl Greguhn, Sr., always told me I was going to go to college. That’s memorable because I’m a first generation college graduate and I’m thankful for his encouragement. KH: What did your parents do? CN: My father was a brick contractor and my mother was a nurse’s aide. She just passed away on the second of March at 97 years of age. Mother was a surgical technician in the W.A.C. (Women Army Corp.) during World War II. KH: Oh, that’s so cool. CN: During her last years of life, I inherited all of my mother’s pictures and memorabilia. From that information, I created a book about her and used it as a reference to talk about her at her funeral. Mother was in the W.A.C. During the last year of the war. She was stationed in Atlanta, Georgia, and thus was a vet. Mother thought being a W.A.C. wasn’t important. I disagreed. Someone had to take care of all of those wounded and I was very proud of her and her service. . My father, as I mentioned, was a brick contractor. He built our house before I was born, and as he drove us around Salt Lake, he would say, “I built that house,” or, “I helped build that house.” When I was about 12 or 13 years old, he had an accident on the job. He fell off the scaffold because the hod carriers— those who carry the concrete to the job site in a wheel barrel—put up the scaffolding incorrectly. Luckily he recovered. Less than a month later, he fell off of the scaffold again and He was disabled from that time forward. 3 In my family, we had six children. We were not poor; we always had plenty of food to eat but we certainly didn’t have a lot of money for extra things. In fact, the big thing for New Year’s Eve was potato chips and dill pickle dip. Once a year, we would go to Saratoga. That was when Saratoga was a mini Lagoon, I guess you could say, where we would go swimming in indoor and outdoor pools. My mother always packed a great lunch for us when we went there. Since my father always told me I should go to college, and I had a girlfriend whose father was once the Student body President at Snow College, we both planned to go to Snow College. According to my mother, my father was a little disappointed that I didn’t go to the University of Utah, but he never told me. To be honest, I was really naïve. I didn’t know the difference between a junior college, a regular college and a university. After high school, I went to Snow College, my girlfriend did not, and while there, I was editor of the school newspaper for two years. It was called The Snow Drift. Being the editor was a great leadership experience for me. I was on the newspaper staff at South High School, but I wasn’t the editor. I had great teachers who loved Snow College. It was a small town, but that didn’t bother me. It was different than growing up in a big city like Salt Lake, but I liked it. I graduated from Snow with my Associates of Arts degree in 1975. KH: What did you do next? 4 CN: Next, I got married, which was the typical thing to do back then. I had two daughters, Natalie and Denise. When the girls were two and three years old, I decided that I needed to go back to work. Ideally, I think mothers should stay home with their children, but that was difficult for me. I got a position at Hercules Aerospace Company where I did data entry. After a year, I moved to a new position at Hercules and worked for Bill Purcell, the Quality Control Manager. He told me that I needed to go back to school and get my bachelor’s degree and I agreed. That was going to be difficult with two little children, especially since I had recently divorced. About that time, the University of Phoenix opened up a location in Salt Lake City. University of Phoenix is for people who work; it is set up so you can do all of your schooling at night. A Hercules colleague told me about it, and after I had done my research, I enrolled. Hercules paid almost all of my tuition because it was a business degree (Business Administration). I had a good relationship with my ex-husband so he would watch our two daughters when I went to school in the evening. Eighteen months later, I received my Bachelor’s degree, which opened up a lot of doors. However, I found that once you are labeled a clerk—or back then, a secretary—people had a hard time letting you get out of that role. I didn’t recognize it while I was there. Unfortunately,; I was there for 11 years and I know that perception stifled my upward mobility. After I received my Bachelor’s degree, I was promoted into the field of Total Quality Management/Quality Improvement, where I was a trainer and a 5 facilitator. Our plant manager, Gary Muir, recognized that we needed to do things better. Hercules’ business was manufacturing rocket motors, which were fitted by another company with warheads. There was a buzzword at that time called “Zero Defects” and every company was trying to reach that goal. Gary Muir started this quality improvement movement effort at Hercules, which showed his foresight and leadership. This took place during the early 1980s. Since this was a new movement, Hercules put me through a lot of schooling (Crosby Quality College, conferences and workshops), where I learned the procedures to improve and mistake-proof processes. One of the quality gurus I learned from was Dr. W. Edwards Deming. He was commissioned by the United States to help the Japanese build their economy back up after World War II. When I was a child, anything made in Japan was considered junk. With the help of Dr. Edwards Deming, the Japanese learned how to make the Toyotas of the world. I learned from him that reducing variation in a process creates improvement. At one time, Ford motor company actually bought several Toyota cars and took them apart; it’s called de-engineering to see how the cars were manufactured. Ford found that there was not much variation from part to part. This created minimal movement between parts which is why Toyota’s transmissions last 300,000 miles. That’s a little bit of information about the total quality movement that I was fortunate to be involved in. KH: What were some of the challenges that you faced while obtaining your degrees? 6 CN: When I was at Snow College, I was blessed. I had a scholarship because I was the newspaper editor and since my father was disabled, my mother gave me $66 a month from social security disability. I also had a part-time job. . The hardest part about college for me was the first quarter. I was in an Art History class and I didn’t have clue about what was going on. I talked to my sophomore roommates and they told me to drop the class. And I did, but after every semester, when things got tough, I thought I thought about dropping the hard class. I received college credits from the CLEP test, so even though I dropped that class I was still able to graduate on time. Telling a new student to drop a class may not be the best advice. . New students have to figure it out; I had to figure out that college is hard. I learned to put my shoulder to the wheel and work hard to get through school. As a junior college student, the first quarter was very hard. Other than that, I loved it. I was considered part of leadership because I was editor of the newspaper and I enjoyed being involved. Working at Hercules was a great experience. However, during the early 1990s, there was a recession that greatly affected the company. During that time, the employee count went from 5,000 employees down to 2,000. Then, in 1992, I was laid off. That was very difficult because back then, most people worked for the same organization for many years, eventually retiring. 7 A paradigm shift occurred around that time. People recognized that they couldn’t plan on retiring from any one employer. Everything happens differently now. Some companies are bought out, some companies sell off; Because of constant change, job security does not exist in private industry any more. Even though it was difficult to get laid off, I knew I was fortunate because at Hercules I earned a bachelor’s degree and acquired a career in Total Quality Management. I had remarried and gave birth to another daughter, Angelina in September of 1991 and was laid off in February of 1992 I enjoyed staying home with her for a while, but when my husband got laid off from Hercules Aerospace six months later, I decided to find a job, I was able to find employment pretty quickly. The first job that I had was at PST Vans, which was a trucking company. They were directed by Kimberly- Clark to start a Quality Improvement Program. I worked there for a while, but it was a man’s world. I struggled with that and I wasn’t happy with the company’s ethics. For instance, I would travel across the country training different truck drivers at different places about the Total Quality. The human resource director explained that the travel process used was to make air reservations 3 months in advance and then go to the airport and say, ‘I need to go earlier.” The airline would charge a $25 change fee. Thus, the company would get the deep discount for a trip planned three months in advance and then only be charged $25. I told him that I didn’t feel right about that process. The director explained 8 that someone had written a book about it, so it must be okay. Ethically I started to have concerns. Shortly after, I found a job posting in the newspaper for a Quality Improvement Coordinator for the State of Utah. It was through the office of Family Support which provides food stamps and child care stipends to people in need. I applied for and got that position, where I worked with a lot of women; wherein at my other positions, I worked mostly with men. It was nice to work with counselors or social workers and I enjoyed the work. Then one day my husband told me there was a job in the newspaper that was perfect for me. Weber State was looking for a Total Quality Manager. When I was laid off, I visited WSU to see what it would take to get a teaching certificate. I met with Al Talbot and he said it would take three years to get a business teaching degree. I decided not to go that route. However, I applied at the position at WSU and Al Simpkins, Vice President of Administrative Services, hired me. It’s been a great 25 years. KH: You mentioned the mentor at Hercules, what other mentors or resources did you have available to you in either your school programs or in your career? CN: I don’t believe I had a mentor during my school programs, although I had a colleague at Hercules who helped me with my stat class. However, in my work life, I had a lot of mentors. Bill Purcell was the first one and at WSU, Al Simpkins was awesome to me. 9 Higher education is really a different industry. Once I arrived at WSU for work in 1992, Al Simkins gave me a lot of articles to read. As I was browsing through them, I found an article that said, “America’s Colleges and Universities: No one runs the place.” I talked to Al about that article and mentioned that I don’t understand the title. In private industry, the CEO dictates decisions to the company. But in higher education, it’s very different. Al explained that Faculty Senate and faculty members have a big voice in decisions; they get involved and have input into process changes. Higher Education also has a staff advisory council who has a voice. The administrators listen to at least these groups and often comes to consensus on decisions. My first experience at Weber State University taught me about the differences between Higher Education and private industry. At that time, Ben Reed was the Payroll Manager and his office was trying to transition to direct deposit. The current practice was to have WSU police officers deliver payroll checks to banks and credit unions, or, payroll checks were delivered through campus mail. Ben knew that direct deposit was a better way. Because moving to direct deposit was such a big change, Ben attended faculty/staff meetings to discuss this change. During these meetings, Ben explained that paychecks would not be provided the last day of the pay period, which was the current practice. The goal was to provide pay 7 days after the pay period ended. As a side note, I had never heard of an organization that paid payroll on the same day that the work period ended. It’s bad practice because it creates a lot of rework, i.e., an employee didn’t work the last two days of the pay period but 10 got paid for them, so the next paycheck would be less because of the missed work days. This creates a lot of needless tracking and paperwork. The Payroll Office decided to compromise on that concern and that is why we are now paid on the third day after the pay period ends. Another compromise involved a faculty member’s concern about not receiving his full pay. He noted that he had a contract and it said that he should get paid XXX amount every year. If payroll doesn’t get paid until the 3rd of January for that last check in the previous calendar year, then WSU isn’t fulfilling his contract. The compromise was to pay the last paycheck of the year on the 31st of December. This experience taught me what that article was trying to say. The President of most public universities will not edict changes. Nevertheless, you can get things done in higher education; it just takes longer. In the end, I think the inclusive process is better because faculty and staff have bought into the change since they were involved in the process. KH: What mentors or resources did you have available to you in your program and career? CN: As mentioned, Al Simpkins was one of those mentors and I gave an example of how he helped me understand that higher education is a quite different. Al also looked out for me. After I had been at WSU for five years (1997), he told me that someday he was going to go back to the classroom. He was worried that the new vice president might not be interested in Total Quality 11 Management. He wondered what I thought about going to work in Human Resources (HR).” I told him I’ve worked in and out of HR over the years, depending on where the quality improvement group was placed in the organization I talked to some of my peers about the change and they wondered why I would do that; they viewed it as a demotion. I explained that Al had some good reasoning for the suggestion. Additionally, The Assistant Vice President (AVP) of HR, Stan Greenhalgh, had worked at WSU over 25 years and I knew he would retire someday. After that discussion with my peers, I told him that I’d like the opportunity to move to HR. I also began virtually attending Utah State University and I earned my master’s degree in Social Science (Human Resources). It worked out well because the class was held on our campus, and because it was taught on our campus and they were using WSU facilities, I received a third off of tuition. At that time in my life, my older daughters were in college and my younger daughter was about six or seven. I also had a niece with drug addictions and Family Social Services took her family away. I ended up adopting her youngest son, who was 20 months old at the time. It was ironic that I had two children again and I was going back to school. I was on a two-year plan -- two, 4 hour-- classes a week for six quarters (fall, winter, summer).. The teaching was provided through satellite TV and there were satellite locations all over the state, i.e., one at the prison, one in Evanston, one in St. George, etc. I never stepped foot on the campus of Utah State until I completed a team building class which actually was on one of the sites that Utah State owned in the mountains. I had 12 back surgery during one quarter and it was very difficult working full-time, raising two children and studying. So, I changed my plan to four years and took one class a quarter. I completed my degree in four years instead of two, which was very doable. I proudly earned my master’s Degree in Social Science in Human Resources in 2003. It gave me a much broader understanding of human resources. When Stan Greenhall, who was also a mentor, retired in the latter part of 2007 I applied for his position. I was hired to be the AVP of HR in 2008. It was a great opportunity since like to manage. Also, a lot of my time is spent mentoring supervisors how to handle discipline issues and conflicts. Another person that mentored me was Craige Hall. He, at one point, was the librarian Dean. Alan Simpkins asked Criage to work with him in administrative services when he was promoted to be the VP. Craig was an AVP and he was always educating me about higher education, giving me advice, and helping me out. All of my mentors have been men; they were all great to help me and that’s why I’m where I am now. KH: What resistance or battles did you face as you progressed in your career? CN: I talked to you about how hard it is to get through school, while raising children and working full-time. It’s doable and sometimes it might take longer than you wish, but it can be done. As far as the battles, I haven’t really had many battles at Weber State. It’s a wonderful place to work. However, there has been resistance to change and many challenges. One of the challenges saw was that human resources wasn’t treated as an important department. For instance, I 13 hear a lot of comments about the payroll office being the most important function because they provide our checks. If HR didn’t hire faculty and staff, then the Payroll Office wouldn’t have anyone to pay. The truth of the matter is that everyone’s job and all departments are important, otherwise, tax payer and tuition dollars wouldn’t fund that position or department. CN: So, there is that perception that HR is not as important as I think it is. I’ve learned to live with it and continue to provide great service and look for opportunities to provide even better service. KH: What was Weber State like when you started? CN: It was much more personal. There weren’t as many students and the administrators were more personable. In fact, one of my favorite stories is about President Paul Thompson, who was WSU president for 10-11 years, from around 1982 to 1993. When I was interviewing for my first job, I had an interview with President Thompson and he took notes on a legal, yellow pad during our discussion. I noticed that action made me feel important. So I’ve used that strategy of taking notes whenever I talk to someone one-on-one. For instance, when an angry employee or an upset supervisor comes to my office, I sit them down at my table, I get out a pad of paper, and I take notes because that helps them calm down. But it also helps them realize that I am writing down the things that they are saying. Perhaps President Thompson was doodling during my interview, I don’t know for sure. But it made me feel important and it was nice to meet with the president of an institution where I might work. I don’t believe that would happen now. 14 KH: What happened to the Total Quality Management Program? Did that continue after you moved to HR? CN: It is part of Administrative Services’ culture so there continues to be improvement in many areas. For instance, when we establish a team to improve, a major process, that’s part of the Total Quality Movement. A charter is developed so the team knows exactly what their mission is. We make encourage the use of a facilitator who watches the team dynamics and ensures they stay on task and don’t forget their mission. Additionally, we have a process that recognizes those improvement groups. We have individual outstanding performance awards in administrative services and we also have team outstanding performance awards, It was Al Simpkins’ intention that the quality movement start in administrative services and then the rest of the campus would follow suit. That didn’t happen. That doesn’t mean that others are not improving processes; I’m just saying they aren’t doing it with that process/terminology in mind. On another note, when I moved to HR, Al Simkins also mentioned that Weber State has never had a staff training program and that the AVP of HR wanted one. It seems like an oxymoron. Here we are, higher education, but we don’t worry about providing learning opportunities for our staff. I began developing a staff development and training program for staff in 1997. It was a challenge determining e where to start. Faculty had the Teaching and Learning Forum available for their development, so the focus was definitely on staff. However, please note that faculty attended classes; not a lot, but they do come. It is another great resource for them to learn. My experience at 15 Hercules taught me how important it is to document classes taken. In some situations, it’s important to be able to prove that an individual received the necessary training. Based on that knowledge, I knew we needed to have some kind of documentation software. Besides its benefit to prove training received, supervisors can look at records to verify training completed. A transcript can also be printed so employees can view classes taken and can be used on a personal resume. I shared my vision of this software with IT and Alan Livingston assigned an hourly employee, Ben Barraza, to take on the task. This happened about 20 years ago. After development, this Training Tracker app was used across campus. HR’s Office of Workplace Learning (OWL) “owns” the app and uses it, but also facilitates its use by many different departments. One example is that Jessica Oyler used this app, when she was in Student Affairs, to enroll individuals for various classes that teach about student affairs. Many departments or groups use this app to advertise their classes and track attendance. I knew the app had finally come of age when several years ago at the back–to-school breakfast, President Charles White said in his opening remarks, “I want you to log onto Training Tracker and I want you to sign up for that class.” By the way, Ben Barraza is just finishing version 2 of Training Tracker that will now talk to Canvas. A class can be created in Canvas and it will record the grade the employee received in Canvas and whether they passed the class in Training Tracker; depending on what the instructor desires. 16 CN: Another very positive thing happened regarding campus training in 2018. Our office got a call from Hal Crimmel, English Chair. He said that he was getting a lot of calls from department chairs who wanted to know how to do their job. He wanted HR to provide the training. For the first time ever (at least during my tenure), faculty want to understand how to be a supervisor. It’s so cool to me because faculty has changed over time. Twenty-five years ago, I feel faculty were more pompous. It’s not like that anymore. Faculty members are much more down to earth, as you can tell from the group already mentioned. The OWL group just finished providing faculty department chairs, as well as some other supervisors, the entire supervisor training module that we give to all of our supervisors at WSU. This was done during the first week of May 2019 that was definitely a highlight of the last decade To summarize, it has been really exciting to develop the staff training and development program at Weber State. I’m happy to say that Jennifer Evans with carry on with that effort as Manager of OWL. KH: How has human resources changed since you started? CN: It has changed so much. I believe Stan Greenhall, the former AVP, retired at the right time, before everything became even more complicated! At leave five items have changed significantly: the American with Disabilities Act (ADAAA); the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); the Family Medical Leave Act (FLMA); the enactment of the Affordable Care Act; and implementation of the Strategic Threat Assessment and Response Team (STAR). 17 American with Disabilities Act (ADA) The American’s with Disabilities Act changed to the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADA Amendments Act), which is more broad than it was before. Faculty and staff can ask for an accommodation for a variety of disabilities. HR generally does not require extensive analysis and works with the employee and department supervision to find an accommodation. Students have the services for students with disabilities office to help them, but our employees have HR. We are doing more of that. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – First Challenge When I moved into HR, I learned that the FLSA was not being consistently followed. For example, at the end of a training class, an employee would come up to me and say, “I was here late last night.” And I said, “Why were you here late?” The response was, “I work in the Browning Center, something happened during the performance and I had to come back to work.” This startled me and I asked the employee if s/he told their supervisor you worked overtime? The answer was often, “Oh, no, I don’t tell them that.” I knew that we had a problem and had to do something. Thus, I started on the bandwagon to shore up following the Fair Labor Standard Act, which is a federal law. Norm Tarbox, my supervisor, was very supportive of this effort. Here’s one important aspect of the law: If a non-exempt employee works over 40 hours a week, s/he needs to get either comp time, which is what our preferred method is, or get paid time and one half for that work. 18 That wasn’t happening; in fact, we didn’t even record the number of hours that non-exempt staff worked. The law says we need to record hours worked for non-exempt employees so our IT guys, Ron Jensen and Stephen Guzzetti, developed a time worked app. Recording time worked was a paradigm shift; non-exempt staff had never been required to do that. After ensuring non-exempts that this protects them from not being paid fairly, they accepted the change. Now, these employees record their hours worked and acknowledge yes, this is what I worked.” The supervisor then acknowledges that as well. I feel confident now that we are following this federal law. Another part of FLSA requires proper identification of exempt employees. Exempt employees do not receive overtime pay. To quality, generally an employee must the exemption duties test: (1) be paid at least $23,600 per year ($455 per week), and (2) be paid on a salary basis, and also (3) perform exempt job duties. When I was going through this FLSA improvement process, Utah State University (USU) had a Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation because some of their IT and administrative staff were classified incorrectly. When computers were first developed, all of those who worked in IT were exempt. There was a huge main frame and anybody who could work on computers, was considered a professional that had a degree and they knew what they were doing. They were considered exempt. Somewhere in between that time, things changed. Now we have a Help Desk with positions that usually don’t meet the exemption duties test. Over time, the Wage and Hourly Division noticed that IT had changed. 19 The general rule now is if an IT position is not a programmer or computer analyst, it is non-exempt. Basically all of the people on the help desk and people who are not programming or analyzing, are non-exempt. Utah State hadn’t done any reclassifying so when the DOL Wage and Hour Division visited USU, they asked those non-exempt IT employees “How many hours do you normally work in a week?” And they’d say, “I work about 45 hours a week” or "I work 50 hours a week.” Those estimates were converted into overtime pay, going back two years USU had to reimburse thousands and thousands of dollars to former IT personnel for not following the law. Now I think staff and supervisors understand that law and are following it. Staff need to record their hours worked and we need to give them what’s due to them. So that was a big initiative; it changed things for the better. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) – Second Challenge Additionally, I spent six months working on an FLSA modification-- a change to the exempt minimum wage requirement. . Under President Barack Obama, the US Department of Labor announced that on December 1, 2016 the current minimum annual salary for an exempt employee would change from $23,660 (or $455 per week) to a minimum of $47,476 (or $913 per week). This was almost a change of $14,000 per year. Since WSU employees are technically state employees, and are funded through state tax dollars and tuition, salaries are often below average. This change would affect several hundred WSU staff. 20 In anticipation of that change, I trained everyone on campus who would be affected, as well as their supervisors. We identified what action to take for each of those employees. However, two days before December 1st, a Texas judged ruled the action illegal. Everything stopped and it is still stopped to this day. On January 1, 2020, a revised change will be implemented that’s more reasonable. There still may be a few employees that will be affected, but certainly not as many due to the more reasonable change. Nevertheless, it was very frustrating to spend six months on this activity that was never implemented. Family Medical Leave Act Another thing that has changed is FML—Family Medical Leave, which didn’t exist until Bill Clinton passed that act in 1993. It’s a good law, which allows job protected care for a newborn; spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition; or an employee with a serious health condition. The employee’s job will be protected for 12 weeks. However, like many other processes, employees have learned how to play the system. There are some problems with that and the ever-increasing workload is huge for HR. I’m really happy that FML exists, I’m happy that seriously ill individuals can be cared for, but it is taxing on HR resources. Affordable Care Act (ACA, PPACA or “Obamacare”) The implementation of the ACA in 2010 was a huge undertaking. Even though our insurance company, the Public Employees Health Plan (PEHP), helped us meet a lot of the requirements, the act has increased benefits costs. The cost for 21 health and dental is $20 million a year; Faculty and staff pay 20% of the premium for dental and 10% for medical. The university is paying a large chuck of that $20 million. Additionally, to deal with the ACA, WSU had to create a rule for hourly employees that they couldn’t work more than 59 hours in a pay period (two weeks), otherwise WSU would need to provide them medical insurance. It’s not that WSU doesn’t want to provide hourly employees medical insurance, they can’t afford it. In order to accommodate this new rule, IT had to change the time worked feature in the Time and Attendance System (TAS) to generate messages to warn an hourly employee that s/he was approaching 59 hours. The supervisors also got warning messages. HR has a “three strikes and you are out” rule to govern violators. We’ve never gotten to three strikes on anyone yet because there is usually a discussion to help both employee and supervisor understand why the rule is important. Another problem with the ACA is that if a staff member retires or quits and comes back to work, as an hourly employee, WSU has to provide the individual medical insurance for six months until HR ensures that the employee isn’t working more than 59 hours in a pay period. Because of this ACA law, WSU’s general rule is that a separated salaried employee cannot come back to work hourly for six months. There is one solution to this dilemma: if the former employee has other medical insurance, we have them sign a waiver There are so many rules with the ACA, it’s really hard to keep track. Another example is that annually WSU must send an electronic document to the 22 IRS This document is similar to what PEHP sends all faculty and staff that notifies them that they had medical coverage for XXX individuals for these XXX months out of the calendar year.HR sends the IRS a document that shows all WSU employees and dependents who had insurance and for how long they had it. We send that document annually to the IRS and there is no reason to because the federal tax penalty imposed for not being enrolled in health insurance was eliminated in 2019 due to changes made by the Trump Administration. The main reason this process is a nightmare is because faculty and staffs’ dependents names and social security numbers, must match IRS records. Employees often think they know the name on their child’s social security card, but because there’s an error we often ask the person to find the SSN document and read it to us. All too often, it included their middle name and the parent didn’t remember that or they thought the child didn’t have a middle name and it did. One time a spouse was using her married name and had never changed her social security card to reflect that so of course it didn’t match. These error reports provide minimal information and keep being kicked back until all the errors are fixed. Strategic Threat Assessment and Response Team (STAR) I’m co-chair of the STAR Team, which never existed until about seven or eight years ago. STAR stands for Strategic Threat Assessment and Response. We have a team that is set up to look for threats that may impact our campus. We are being proactive in order to keep everyone safe at WSU. Individuals’ 23 problematic actions, whether they come from students, or faculty or staff, or someone from the community, need to review to determine if there is a threat. The STAR Team exists so that potential threats can be identified and mitigated. KH: I was reading an article in the signpost from 2005 and it was talking about non-student hourly employees getting wildcards. Was it not common until that point for hourly to get the benefits on campus? CN: Non-student hourly employees still do not get many benefits. We have two retirement systems at WSU. There is TIAA, formally known as TIAA-CREF, and it’s an educator’s retirement plan. Which in the past, was only available to exempt staff and faculty. The rest of the staff who were generally non-exempt were on the Utah Retirement System (URS). Unfortunately, URS gets more and more expensive . In 2015, WSU, and most of the other higher education institutions in the state, decided to stop enroll any more staff into the Utah Retirement System. Now, new hires are enrolled in TIAA and they get 14.2% of their annual salary put into a retirement savings account, which is better than what new hires would get in URS. If the new employee has been enrolled in the Utah Retirement System, we allow them to stay in that program. That’s been a big change. To answer your question, if we give hourly employees benefits worth more than $500, then URS will tell us that we must provide them retirement benefits. That’s why we’ve never given hourly employees many benefits; similar to medical care, it’s too expensive. Hourly, non-student employees can use the gym and receive season tickets to some sports and theatre, but they do not get a wildcard. 24 KH: I was reading another Signpost article from 2009 talking about background checks. When did background checks start? CN: Around that time frame. The state legislature made a law that schools, including higher education, had to complete background checks on employees. Of course, that was because of safety issues for all of our students. The letter of the law said that we need to provide background checks for those who interact with students. Some vice presidents decided that they wanted to background check every faculty and staff; while others decided to only do those that interact with students. I’m certain the library has everyone fingerprinted now; it’s just normal practice. Unlike many imposed new or changed laws, administration gave HR a budget to pay for the background checks, we are one of the few schools in the state that uses fingerprints because an analysis proved that the use of SSNs doesn’t always provide enough information. For those areas that require background checks, we are very successful at hiring people that we feel are safe to work at WSU. Once in a while, we have someone who doesn’t pass the background check. We have a committee where the individual can appeal the decision. The individual will give the committee information regarding their offense(s) and note why they should be given a second chance. Based on each situation, we may provide them an employment opportunity (which is what higher education is all about), and then sometimes we tell them to apply again in a year. 25 KH: What was the process before? Was it up to the hiring people? They would just call the references and if it was fine, then they would be hired? Or was there a different process? CN: On the application, the applicant was required to list any felonies, if applicable. The individual could tell the truth or not. It was the same process with hourly employment when it was under Career Services. If there was no disclosure, there was no action taken. KH: What does a typical semester look like for you? CN: In general, the only way it affects HR is with the hiring process. A lot of hourly employees are hired before and during the first few weeks of every semester. Additionally, in all of the faculty that we’ve offered positions to throughout the school year come to HR to go through the hiring process. Their contracts start July 1st. The majority come to HR during June and July, but a few move to Utah at the last minute and they are hired in August. All of the faculty hiring happens during the summer, we don’t really have a slow time. Staff and adjunct faculty are hired all year long. KH: What committees or organizations on campus or otherwise have you or are you a member of? CN: When I was in Total Quality, I was a member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and served as Treasurer for several years. I had a Quality Manager certification that I kept current until a year or two ago. I have a professional 26 certification of HR from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).. I also have an HR professional certification from the HR Certification Institute. Regarding committee participation, I’ve probably been on 100 committees over my 25 years at WSU. Those that stick out in my mind are the teams formed to improve processes. There are a lot of those. Additionally, I am currently the advisor of the Staff Advisory Council (SAC). SAC is a group of exempt and non-exempt staff members who support the goals and objectives of the university and represent staff employees to the university administration, Board of Trustees, and university community. Years ago, I also advised the softball club, until they went intercollegiate. Women’s Fast Pitch Softball was an intercollegiate sport at WSU years ago in the 70’s, and it was cut. Both of my older daughters are big softball players. They had to go to other schools to play softball so I decided to start, with the help of local softball athletes, a Softball Club Sport at WSU. It lasted for quite a while and I was the advisor for the majority of the time. Then intercollegiate softball was reinstated at WSU, which is a dream come true for a lot of kids in this area who wanted to play intercollegiate softball close to home. That was a really fun thing; a lot of work but it was fun, and both of my daughters eventually played on the team, too. KH: Do you know what year it became part of the intercollegiate? CN: The Softball Team just won their third conference championship and they just went to regional playoffs. I don’t know if they lost to UCLA, but they did win 27 against UC Fullerton. I think they have been an intercollegiate sport for about seven or eight years. Other committes I’ve been on are: • The FLSA committee, I was the Chair. • The Tuition Benefits Committee, also Chair. We tried to reign in a little bit , because it was getting a little out of control. That was an important committee that greatly improved the process. • We also had a committee for the Affordable Care Act implementation effort, also Chair. • The Back-to-School/Diversity Committee for Administrative Services. The division has an event in the early part of August that includes a diversity speaker to help get more in tune with the WSU initiative for diversity. Chair off and on, I was a member of the Staff Development Grant Program a long time ago and was also chair. Our office still handles the funding for that program which wasn’t the case many years ago. • I’ve had the pleasure of being part of what’s called the Utah Higher Education Personnel Administrators Council (U-HEPAC). It’s a group of higher education Chief Human Resources officers from the state institutions who get together every semester and talk about HR in higher education I’m proud to say that Weber State is always on the leading edge of new/improved HR processes. The New Hire e-Process Committee, Chair. About one year ago, HR, Payroll and IT developed a system where new hires can look at their benefits online and then sign-up for them as well. After that is completed, HR meets with the new 28 hire and makes certain there are no questions. Again, it’s because of our IT support group that we have this wonderful, new system There is a question about being a mentor on the sheet you provided me. Once you are in HR long enough, our U-HEPAC group turns overs and I have been a mentor to many a new Chief HR Officer. It’s a great opportunity to help them out, just like how I was helped out 11 ½ years ago when I took this job. I’ve also mentored a few people in my area to help them get a little further along in their career. However, the people that I mentor the most are supervisors regarding how to be a good supervisor. KH: What topics have you written about? CN: I have not published anything since 1990. However, I’m constantly documenting processes. I just documented our new online PREP process. Have you used it yet? KH: We are in the process. I think this is our first year. We went in and we approved the goals from last PREP, to be implemented for this year. CN: That’s a new, online program. Back in 2000, for years and years, the kind of performance appraisal form that WSU used was one sheet, and the supervisor checked some boxes and that was it. About that time, (2000) there was a perception across America that performance appraisals were bad. Because of that, some departments at WSU quit doing them all together. After several years, Presidents Council determined that performance appraisals are important because it’s a development opportunity. Additionally, they said that they should 29 be an input into the merit process. Presidents Council established a committee in 2000 to develop a new performance evaluation process for the entire campus (excluding faculty). That was another team that I was on, but, Bruce Davis was the chair. After reviewing a lot of performance evaluation programs from private industry, state government and various colleges and universities, the committee developed the Performance Review and Enrichment Program (PREP). It was very similar to Villanova’s program. When it came to implement, I was more or less the chair because I took it through to fruition. The first program used hard copy paper forms. Then, IT developed an online system which worked well. At some point, IT decided not to build or maintain home-grown systems anymore, so the next software program was provided by a vendor. In the Fall of 2018, HR moved to a new software from the same vendor. We like it better because it has a dashboard so supervisors and employees can see where the PREP is in the process. KH: What recognition have you received for your accomplishments? CN: Not a lot, which comes with the territory my UHEPAC group gave me a service award because they knew I was retiring in our last meeting, which was really nice. Before I became the AVP, I received a lot of team outstanding performance awards. But, other than that, not much. But that’s the way it is in these types of positions. Generally, you don’t get a lot of recognition. KH: What advice would you give students or women starting in your field? 30 CN: “Hold on to your seat,” because I’m certain everything will continue to change like it has over the last 11 ½ years. Note that there are more attorneys going into HR now because of all of the employment laws that continue to change. However, It is also a thankless job, but there are times when it is rewarding. For instance, when individuals retire and they come to you and give you a hug and say, “Thanks for helping me get through this.” A retiree has so many forms to complete and so many decisions to make that the process can be overwhelming. It’s nice to get a hug from them, wish them well, and know that you helped them have a nice retirement. Make certain you make time to pat yourself and your team members on the back. We recognize ourselves in staff meeting by sharing kudos we received that month. I make certain my team knows that I’m really blessed to have a great staff, which I hate to leave. Recognize that it’s a very stressful job. The stress level may be to the point where it’s not something that you can do forever; at least, not in the world that we live in today. KH: What are some of your favorite memories at Weber State? CN: I have a lot of favorite memories. Probably the first thing that I loved about Weber State was men’s basketball. At that time, Jimmy DeGraffenried was an awesome three-point shooter and the Dee Events Center (DEC) was always packed. In retrospect, I believe the DEC was a full house because the fans that came to those events helped build the DEC in the 70’s. They had a lot of pride in 31 that building and the program. Over time, the attendance has fallen, even when Damian Lillard was here. Of course, nobody knew that Damian was going to be an a NBA star for the Portland Trail Blazers. Those were some of the most fun games because Ron Abeggen was a very good coach. Another fun thing that I loved was back to school week where WSU celebrates the beginning of a new school year. In private industry, there’s no start and no finish. Here, there is a start and there is a finish with graduation. Graduation is also a wonderful time when we recognize that all of au are educators. Other favorite memories include: • The WSU women’s softball club already mentioned. We played BYU, Northern Colorado and Idaho State before they were intercollegiate teams and for a time we sponsored a national tournament. • Being invited here, to share of my history. Many wonderful friends – to many to name. • The Staff Awards luncheon. I think we do a wonderful job of hosting this event. It’s a great time to recognize all of those staff who receive years of service awards, as well as recognize the retirees and the outstanding staff. That’s a very special time. KH: I was reading somewhere that the higher education academy started during your tenure. Was that something that you started? 32 CN: Yes. I’m so glad you mentioned that; it’s. Another one of my favorite things. In 2002, the University of Utah, Continuing Ed, was hosting a higher education academy. Since higher education is so different, I wanted to share this knowledge with our new faculty and staff who have never worked in higher education. During the Olympics, WSU shut down campus for the month of February because events were held at the Ice Sheet. We thought this would be a great time to do campus training.” I presented a plan to President’s Council proposing training activities that could be done during this time (staff still worked). One of the items I mentioned was bringing the University of Utah’s Higher Education Academy to WSU. to. President Ann Millner thought that was a great idea, but told me that I was going to develop that academy for WSU. I was a startled, but I said, “Okay, I’ll do that. We had a committee who put it all together.. In fact, we still have a standing committee that oversees the program. We. A WSU staff member that had gone to the U’s Academy was a member of the team so we had an idea what was included in their program. After we developed our agenda, we implemented a pilot program to get feedback from a small group of staff and then made improvements. One of my favorite speakers was L.Jackson Newell who overviewed the history of higher education. Dr. Newell has Professor Emeritus status from the University of Utah and President Emeritus status from Deep Springs College in California. We also involved many of our administrators in teaching the program. Norm Tarbox taught finance in higher education, and President Brad Mortensen taught shared governance. Initially this program was 33 for those unfamiliar with higher education. However, faculty and staff who have been here for 20 years go to the Academy and say they learn things they didn’t know. I’m very proud to have led that effort and the Academy is still being taught every Fall Semester and we will keep doing it as long as we have faculty and staff who want to attend. KH: That’s great. CN: Thanks for asking about that. KH: How do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? CN: I think it was the catalyst for change. I look at the other countries in the world whose women have no rights at all and it makes me very sad. I’m so glad that I live in America where we are finally recognized as being equal to men. We have the same rights and we now run big businesses. Of course, when I was growing up, things hadn’t changed much. Most mothers didn’t work and the fathers were the breadwinner; it was the way it was. However, my life was a little different because my father was disabled and my mother worked. I saw from a very young age that women could have a stronger presence in the home than what would be portrayed on T.V. It took a long time for the US culture to change, especially in Utah. As mentioned, I got married after receiving my associate degree from Snow College. My husband had limited college credits and I told him that he needed to go to school because he was going to be the breadwinner. That was the culture that I 34 grew up in. Nobody told me that; I just knew that’s what I should do. In retrospect, it was a crazy decision because I’m the one that was further along in my college education. That’s the way it was. I’ve told my three daughters that their education is more important than their husbands’ because 50% of marriages end in divorce. The good news is that the culture has changed dramatically since then. I think it’s wonderful that women in the past gave us the opportunity to vote because it truly was the catalyst for the change that we are able to experience now. KH: Is there anything else that you’d like to share? CN: No, I think that I’ve talked plenty. KH: Not at all. Thank you for your time. CN: No, thank you. Thanks for listening.