{"id":200,"date":"2014-04-03T15:22:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T19:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/?p=200"},"modified":"2019-06-28T09:39:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T13:39:09","slug":"task-force-to-review-employee-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/task-force-to-review-employee-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Task Force to Review Employee Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>April 3, 2014<\/p>\n<p>Dear Friends<\/p>\n<p>I am writing to inform our community about an important new initiative. We have invited individuals from the administration and faculty to serve on a task force that will conduct a strategic, comprehensive review of Boston University\u2019s employee benefits programs.<\/p>\n<p>This is an important and timely initiative. Our obligation is to ensure that Boston University can continue to thrive\u2014long into the future\u2014as an institution that offers excellent education and one where new ideas, inventions, and solutions are created and incubated. To meet this obligation, we need to recruit and retain excellent faculty and staff. Simultaneously, we need to deploy our financial resources prudently, with sober assessments of economic realities and the evolving competitive landscape for higher education.<\/p>\n<p>The task force\u2019s mission is to conduct a strategic and comprehensive review of our employee benefits programs to ensure that they support the recruitment and retention of faculty and staff, are competitive with our peer institutions, are cost effective, and are sustainable over the long term. As part of this review, the task force will focus on the University\u2019s health, retirement, tuition remission, and long-term disability benefits.<\/p>\n<p>I have asked Bob Meenan, dean of the School of Public Health and special assistant to the president, to chair this task force. As we announced in November, Bob will step down from the deanship of SPH once we have identified a successor, and he is joining my staff as a special assistant. Bob is exceptionally qualified to lead this strategic review. As one of our longest-serving deans, he understands the importance of our benefits programs as a tool for recruitment and retention. Bob is a physician by training and serves on the board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, where he has led a similar effort. And, of course, he is very knowledgeable about public policy in the domains that relate to our benefits programs.<\/p>\n<p>The other members of the task force, with their titles and affiliations, are listed below. I believe we have assembled a diverse group of individuals possessing valuable experience and complementary sets of knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>Dean Meenan has already begun meeting with the task force. Their intention is to deliver an initial report by September 1, 2014. This schedule will leave us ample time for discussion in the community before implementing any of the committee\u2019s recommendations beginning in January 2016.<\/p>\n<p>I am grateful to Bob and the members of the task force for agreeing to take on this important assignment. We will be a stronger institution for their efforts.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/marcom\/html-emails\/common\/rabsig.gif\" alt=\"Robert A. Brown signature\" \/><br \/>\nRobert A. Brown<br \/>\nPresident<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Bob Meenan, SPH Dean, Chair<br \/>\nStephen Brady, Vice Chair, Faculty Council<br \/>\nAmy Bronson, DAR Director of Recruitment &#038; Training<br \/>\nPeter Fiedler, VP Administrative Services<br \/>\nFred Foulkes, SMG Professor<br \/>\nNimet Gundogan, Executive Director of Benefits<br \/>\nDerek Howe, VP Budget &#038; Capital Planning<br \/>\nMaria O\u2019Brien Hylton, LAW Professor<br \/>\nNatalie McKnight, CGS Dean ad interim<br \/>\nPatricia O\u2019Brien, SPH Associate Dean of A&#038;F<br \/>\nJulie Sandell, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs<br \/>\nDiane Tucker, Chief HR Officer<br \/>\nTom Tullius, CAS Professor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 3, 2014 Dear Friends I am writing to inform our community about an important new initiative. We have invited individuals from the administration and faculty to serve on a task force that will conduct a strategic, comprehensive review of Boston University\u2019s employee benefits programs. This is an important and timely initiative. Our obligation is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1187,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/1187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/brown\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}