PDF Version of this report

Feb. 2007

Dear members of the University System of Georgia Staff Council,

An ad-hoc committee was created by the Staff Council at the University of Georgia to look into discrepancies within the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) that prohibit some individuals from gaining enrollment in their intended classes. Since TAP is available to all University System of Georgia (USG) employees, the Committee formed at UGA was charged with presenting their findings on TAP to UGA Staff Council and subsequently to the Staff Councils or a staff representative from each of the USG institutions.

It is the intention of this committee to present the recommendations for improvements to the Tuition Assistance Program to our institutional President Michael Adams for his approval and subsequently to the Board of Regents (BOR) for their consideration.

We request that you consider the importance of this issue and discuss with the staff of your institution the potential for improvements to the educational benefits for all USG staff, should the Board of Regents choose to implement any of these recommendations. If you choose to join in this effort, we urge you to write to your institutional presidents and request that they offer a letter of support for the following proposed improvements to the Tuition Assistance Program. We also suggest that a letter be written by the Staff Council or a staff representative from your institution emphasizing the need for equality in the administration of USG benefits and highlighting the return benefit to the USG through the educational improvement of its employees.

The Committee on the Tuition Assistance Program requests that the Board of Regents take the following actions in order to improve the Tuition Assistance Program so that it provides an equal and viable educational benefit to all of the employees of the University System of Georgia.

1. For applicants, set fair and reasonable class registration times at all University System of Georgia (USG) institutions. As it stands, all institutions set their own TAP registration times and the discrepancy between those times creates a serious disadvantage for TAP applicants at certain institutions. We request that, at the least, a minimum allowable time of no less than two weeks (pre-class) be set for TAP registration system wide.
   
   
2. Require that E-Core classes be made equally available to the TAP applicants of all institutions. Currently E-Core classes are only available to individuals who are accepted at one of the few institutions that offer them, or who are able to enroll at one of those institutions as a ‘transient student,’ which is not a viable option for the students of certain institutions.
   
   
3. Provide a resource for applicants to help resolve supervisory conflicts that result in their inability to enroll in classes or to use TAP. An option such as having the employee/TAP applicant’s Department Head/Administrative Official review the application with the employee in the event of a supervisor denial of the application, and lend his/her signature to the application either in agreement with the application denial or to override the denial, would cut down on abuse of supervisory authority or personal conflicts of interest.
   
   
4. Require that all USG Institutions update their web sites to include information on TAP (preferably through a direct link to the Board of Regents benefits page) so that their employees have easy access to that information. Currently there are 16 institutions in the USG that do not have readily available links to TAP on their web sites.
   
5. Require that the difference between Independent/Distance Learning classes and E-Core classes be clarified, and that the availability of E-Core classes to TAP applicants be made known.

The committee also requests that, in order for this proposal to be presented to the BOR as a single request from all institutions, the letters from institutional presidents and staff councils/representatives be turned over to the committee so that they may be compiled into a single document which will then be sent to the BOR.

If you want further information on this matter or assistance with any of these suggestions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Respectfully submitted by Sarah McKissick on behalf of the Committee on the Tuition Assistance Program,

Sarah McKissick
Chair of the Committee on the Tuition Assistance Program
Secretary of the UGA CVM Staff Representative Group
Lab Coordinator, Gross Anatomy Lab
The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine
Athens, Georgia 30602

(706) 542-5476

smckiss@uga.edu