Submitted Questions and Answers

Staff Council responded: 

This fall, we had 446 newly admitted students with a total enrollment (including those overseas) of 1,869. We had 1,720 on campus this semester.

Staff Council responded: 

According to Leah Miller, the DOL increase that was scheduled to take place in January has been stopped and it looks like this increase will not happen. However, if anything changes, those who will be affected will  be notified in advance.  Leah said that Kenyon is taking a strategic approach. She and senior staff, along with legal counsel, have been examining the positions of those who may be affected to determine whether each position should remain exempt or could be moved to non-exempt (hourly) status.

Staff Council responded:

In general, emeritus faculty (who are retired) do appear in the public web directory, but almost all retirees do not.  Remember that the public directory is available to the world. Many retirees can be found in the extended directory, which is limited to the Kenyon community and requires a login to see. You can see that this protects their privacy.

Staff Council responded: 

EV charging spaces on campus are strictly to charge the vehicle, and it must be moved once the vehicle is fully charged so that others may use the charging station. Students may only use charging stations between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., Monday through Friday, and on weekends. If cars are parked there, call campus safety and they will ticket them. 

Staff Council responded: 

We have reached out to Tom from facilities and AVI and leadership has asked their staff if anyone from their respective teams is leaving food out for cats or other animals. Both departments have said no. This may be difficult to enforce; perhaps we could ask the relevant departments to send a reminder to not feed the animals with some references for local animal nonprofits? Kim Wallace would be happy to help draft a suggested note.

Staff Council responded:

"Free expression" is addressed briefly within the Staff Handbook's Harassment Policy Statement. After a brief review and discussion of the issue, Staff Council decided it was not necessary to create a separate policy specific to all other campus employees.

The Office of Human Resources responded:

Kenyon leadership took a few steps after the December 2021 email mentioned. For the current year (2022-23) this included a 4% increase in the general salary pool, plus an additional 1% to target salaries lagging in the marketplace and to recognize employee excellence through the Employee Performance Program. This is in addition to the increases to hourly wages that went into effect on January 1, 2022. Increases for union members are dictated by contract. Leadership is currently building the budget for 2023-24. Salary adjustments are one important consideration in building that budget. Typically the Board of Trustees approves the College's budget for the following year at its February meeting.

The Office of Human Resources responded:

Workplace bullying is addressed in the in the Standards of Conduct section of the staff handbook under Unacceptable Activities. Student bullying behaviors are encompassed in the Student Handbook section "Prohibited and Restricted Conduct."

The Office of Human Resources responded:

The EPP is about performance and encouraging consistent communication between employee and supervisor. If an employee wants to request a position review, they need to start that conversation with their supervisor and follow the steps at the link that you shared. That being said, we can definitely take a look at how we have this information placed on the website and discuss how we can make it more user friendly.

The Office of Human Resources responded:

Treatment for infertility medical conditions are covered (reference #36 on Page 54). Fertility services and medications related to procedures such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) are not covered by the vast majority of group health plans. Reasons include the high cost associated with the procedure; the low percentage of a covered population seeking such treatment and the low rate of success. The Benefits Committee has discussed that plan costs (and thereby premiums) could increase if this treatment was covered and that a lifetime maximum benefit for the treatment would have to be instituted if we were to add coverage.

Campus Senate responded:

As the KAMA panels were not recorded, due to Campus Senate being a non-funded entity, all questions and answers will be available online on a KAMA webpage that will be shared with the Kenyon community, as was indicated in all marketing, once all questions and answers are collated and input. All panelists encourage employees and students to reach out to them with any questions via email or phone that they may have; furthermore, most answers were already available in a variety of resources on the Kenyon webpage. The second KAMA was well summarized by the Kenyon Collegian and employees and students should also feel free to utilize that resource.

Campus Senate responded:

As the KAMA panels were not recorded, due to Campus Senate being a non-funded entity, all questions and answers will be available online on a KAMA webpage that will be shared with the Kenyon community, as was indicated in all marketing, once all questions and answers are collated and input. All panelists encourage employees and students to reach out to them with any questions via email or phone that they may have; furthermore, most answers were already available in a variety of resources on the Kenyon webpage. The second KAMA was well summarized by the Kenyon Collegian and employees and students should also feel free to utilize that resource.

Salaried staff have been receiving market adjustments and adjustments through the triennial review process when appropriate to do so. If an employee does not feel that they are being compensated appropriately, they should consult with their supervisor.

The Office of Campus Safety responded on Nov. 3, 2021:

Currently, we do not have any policies in place that address parking violations at spaces designed for EV vehicle fuel stations. As we are starting to review policies concerning parking on campus as a whole, this information will be added.

Chris Smith, Cox Health & Counseling Center director, responded on Aug. 10, 2021:

Throughout the pandemic, a principle of Kenyon’s COVID-19 response has been to follow the advice of scientists and experts. The CDC currently recommends that vaccinated individuals return to indoor mask wearing in areas of substantial or high spread, which applies to the majority of counties in the United States, including Knox County. While vaccines are highly effective and immunized individuals are much less likely to become infected with or severely sickened by the virus, the rise of more contagious variants means that when breakthrough infections do occur, people who are vaccinated can still spread the virus.

VP for Facilities, Planning and Sustainability Ian Smith responded on July 20, 2021:

The sign has been restored [following a vehicle collision in spring 2021] and will be re-installed after hearing from Ohio DOT about their safety upgrade plans for that intersection.