Columns:: Governance group polls staff about holiday preferences

since 12/15/98

Columns::January 14, 2002

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Campus News

Governance group polls staff about holiday preferences

By Larry B. Dendy
ldendy@uga.edu

An informal poll of staff members conducted by Staff Council indicates a strong preference for Christmas Eve over Memorial Day as an official university holiday.
About 3,100 of the university’s 4,300 staff members participated in the poll. About 64 percent favored Christmas Eve and 26 percent favored Memorial Day. About 9 percent expressed no preference.
A number of people also suggested other alternatives, including working on Labor Day and taking both Christmas Eve and Memorial Day as holidays, or creating a “floating” holiday that employees could take at any time.
Staff Council decided to conduct the poll after the university cabinet adopted a university calendar for 2002, 2003 and 2004 that designates Memorial Day as a holiday and has the university in normal operations on Christmas Eve.
Council President Brenda Keen said she was told the decision to observe Memorial Day was made to recognize the events of Sept. 11 and America’s war on terrorism. But several council members objected that staff should have been consulted.
The council voted to send the poll results to President Michael F. Adams with a request that the cabinet “re-examine the holiday schedule as it presently stands through the year 2004.”
University officials have said that many employees will probably take annual leave on whichever day is not the official holiday.
In other action, the council voted to request Staff Council representation on the University Council Strategic Planning Committee.
The Staff Council also asked its Health and Safety Committee to look into the question of protection of personal information on university documents. The issue arose after some staff members complained about the possibility of “identity theft” because data such as social security numbers is not always secure in electronic and paper documents.

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