ITHACA COLLEGE
FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES
October 3, 2000
Present: Mara Alper, Luanne Andersson, Lee Bailey, Diana Birr, Byron Caplan,
Joseph Cheng, Harold Emery, Michael Galván, Marian MacCurdy, Kinsuk Maitra,
Winnie Mauser, Steve Peterson, Fred Pritt, Rick Rainville, John Rosenthal, Stan
Seltzer, Jennifer Strickland, Robert Sullivan
Excused: Jim Aguiar, Jules Benjamin, Carole Dennis, Don Lifton
Absent: Randie Blooding, Sabatino Maglione, Diana Ryan
Guests: Garry Brodhead, Lillian Jones '03, Jim Malek, Larry Metzger, Frank
Musgrave, Ellen Stapleton '03, John Stanton
1. Announcements
S. Seltzer, Chair, welcomed the members and guests attending this session. He
announced that he has received a rewritten draft for the Academic Accommodations
Policy for Students with Disabilities. He will distribute it for review by members and
will place it on the November agenda.
He noted that the United Way of Tompkins County has announced that after this year
it will no longer support the Boy Scouts, in line with the thoughts expressed at the
September Faculty Council meeting.
A reception for faculty and trustees will be held on Thursday, October 12, at 4:30 p.m.
in the Emerson Suites at which faculty members will have an opportunity to meet
informally with Board members.
2. Reports from Registrar and Dean of Enrollment Planning
John Stanton distributed a summary report on Fall 2000 enrollment and noted that the
entire report is available at www.ithaca.edu/registrar. Total enrollment is up 210, from
5960 to 6170. Larry Metzger referred to a copy of a memorandum to Peggy Williams,
dated August 16, 2000, distributed to Council in September, explaining the factors
that contributed to the substantially larger-than-planned freshman class.
The second half of the presentation dealt with the new online registration system,
which will be used for Spring 2001 registration, beginning November 3. Students will
be able to use the online system continually until the end of the add-drop period on
February 2, 2001. He noted that access to the system would not require an advisor's
signature. Students will still need to obtain permission from the instructor to sustain
their enrollment in a "permission by instructor" course; failure to do so before the end
of the registration period may result in their removal from the course by the instructor.
If they desire, instructors allow specific students to enroll in a course by making a
request in writing to the Registrar's office. The system does not count requests for a
course that is closed (a student returning ten times to request the course should be
counted only once), but the Registrar hopes this feature will be added in the future. It
may take another year to include a waiting list for classes ? there are many issues to
be addressed in development of such a feature. If the restrictions on a class (e.g., it is
open only to students in a specific school or program) result in smaller-than-expected
enrollment, the instructor may relax the requirements at any time during the
registration period. Students can monitor new opportunities as often as they wish.
In responding to concerns regarding students' ability to monitor progress toward
meeting graduation requirements, L. Metzger pointed out that every time a student
logs on to the Degree Navigator he or she must go through a screen that shows what
they are missing for graduation; Degree Navigator automatically tracks a student's
progress in fulfilling degree requirements as courses are added or dropped.
A series of informational sessions for all campus community members will be held
from October 30 to November 10. Students or faculty having a problem using Degree
Navigator should ask for assistance (individual or group) by contacting Lorraine
Reardon at 274-3099.
3. Approval of Minutes of September 5, 2000
It was moved by W. Mauser and seconded by R. Rainville, to accept the minutes of
September 5, 2000, as presented. The motion passed unanimously.
4. Provost's Report
After exploring the possibilities of what kind of programming Ithaca College would
like to do for the Dominican Republic, a decision has been made not to create an
Ithaca College Center (with all its repetition of services and overhead expenses), but
to form some kind of partnership with an existing consortium of Hobart and William
Smith, Colgate, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. This consortium works very
well already with the Catholic University, which has campuses in both Santiago and
Santo Domingo, and is by far the best institution in the D.R. Rather than just being
restricted to the Dominican Republic, there will also be possibilities to establish
programs in Costa Rica and elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Preliminary conversations were held with representatives from Creighton University,
which owns a facility in Santiago that has a relationship with six rural medical
facilities and that would be a wonderful place for our PT students. They have monthlong programs, but can do other programs as well, depending on our needs and the
level of language that students have.
R. Rainville inquired about how much involvement faculty have in developing these
kinds of programs. Provost Malek responded that this project was undertaken at the
suggestion of faculty.
There was a question about an increase in funding for travel. The Provost said that is a
distinct possibility this year.
He announced that there will be a change in the way position requests are handled.
Funding will go into a pool in the Provost's Office and each of the schools may make
requests from that pool, to either get positions back or to have the funds reallocated to
create new positions. For example, replacing a retiring tenured professor with an
assistant professor would not require the same level of funding, permitting remaining
dollars to be used for funding a new position. Positions may well stay where they are
forever, but it is important that an institutional overlook be taken when the
opportunity arises. S. Seltzer pointed out that deans have been doing this within their
schools, moving funds from department to department as needs demanded, and that
this will simply expand on that process, making unused funds available for needed
positions throughout the institution. The Provost pointed out that this is not a
significant change from the way things are done now since all positions currently have
to be approved by his office.
J. Malek reported that we have had two distinguished visitors this fall, Charlie
Glassick, interim president at North Carolina Wesleyan, former president of
Gettysburg College, and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching, was here for a day on September 12. Mr. Glassick was an
associate of Ernie Boyer and the principal co-author of Scholarship Assessed. He
talked with a number of people about enrollment and finances in colleges like ours,
about the future of comprehensive colleges, and about the shift of emphasis from
teaching to learning. Jon Wergin of Virginia Commonwealth University, who is one
of the leading assessment people in the country, spent two days talking with various
groups. He will be back again. We will use him for other things, thanks to the extra
$60,000 grant we received for assessment last spring. Garry Brodhead distributed an
article by Wergin, from the AAHE Bulletin, suggesting strategies for program
assessment. He said that Wergin is interesting in that he does not just deal with
statistics, but is a qualitative person who is interested in knowing what the details are,
listening to the stories to grasp what the dynamics are in real terms. He has shown that
you do not need a course in statistics, but that there is a simple procedure to follow
which can be used to improve things by gathering information to make meaningful
changes resulting from that information. There will be a luncheon for Chairs later in
the semester and copies of Scholarship Assessed will be distributed.
5. Appointments for Faculty Council Approval
S. Seltzer presented the names of five volunteers for various committee appointments
that require Faculty Council approval. F. Pritt moved to accept the nominations, and
L. Andersson seconded the motion. Approval was unanimous. The positions approved
were:
Faculty Justices: Donald Beachler, Julio Lopez Arias, William Altman
Traffic Appeals Committee: Sherri Gross
Campus Life Committee: Diane Long
6. Reports from Park School and HS&HP
Byron Caplan said that Park Hall, built to support about 800 students, currently must
accommodate around 1200. Following a study of overcrowding, an expansion plan
has been drawn up for consideration by the administration. This is the second year the
Park School has exceeded its enrollment goals, and the quality of the applicants
remains high. It is anticipated that the numbers will stay the same in coming years.
January 1 will be the seventh anniversary of the Pendleton Center in Los Angeles, and
the Los Angeles program continues to be strong.
The second endowed Distinguished Chair position was filled this year by Joanne
Caplan, the first chair having been filled by Chris Harper. The Park Scholar Program
continues, providing full scholarships for ten outstanding students. There are currently
24 Park Scholars; this number will increase to 40. Present scholars represent nine
different states, but there are none from New York. Later this month, ABC's Carole
Simpson will be this year's Park Distinguished Visitor, spending four days on campus
giving talks and conducting master classes.
There are discussions under way on a separate Journalism Department, with a revised
journalism degree, and it is anticipated that Journalism will separate from the
Television-Radio Department within the next year. Park School is also working with
the School of Business on a degree in integrated strategic communications. Due to the
number of retirements and resignations, there are currently eight searches in progress.
The Society of Professional Journalists has named The Ithacan the best non-daily
college newspaper in the United States; they also named the ICB-TV News the best
non-daily college news broadcast in the United States. Ben Crane, Associate Professor
in Television-Radio won a national Emmy for his documentary on school prayer. Last
summer the Park School hosted the second Frederick Douglass Academy Media
Workshop with twelve students and two teachers from Frederick Douglass Academy,
which is located in Harlem, New York.
W. Mauser said that the biggest challenge in HS&HP now occurs in the Department
of Physical Therapy. Cognizant of the trend within the profession, the department is
actually going forward to pursue offering a doctoral degree, a professional doctorate, a
D.P.T., not a research degree (Ph.D.). It will be a six-year program and will require
courses at the graduate level from other schools. She stated that there are many issues
to be dealt with, so this will not be implemented very soon. In answer to a question
from the floor, the Provost pointed out that the Department of Physical Therapy does
not have permission to begin a doctoral degree.
7. Faculty Handbook Revisions
Due to the time, the Chair postponed the discussion of bylaw revisions to the next
meeting; turning to the Faculty Handbook, he asked for a brief inventory of areas of
concern regarding the proposed revision of the Faculty Handbook, so that
representatives could focus their attention on areas of major concern at the November
meeting. L. Andersson indicated two areas of concern from her area: (1) the
description of clinical faculty and (2) the wording of the indemnification section. J.
Rosenthal stated concern that there are a number of places where matters are referred
to the Policy Manual as a whole, instead of to Volume IV of the Policy Manual (the
Faculty Handbook). This means that changes over which faculty has no control could
occur in documents regulating the faculty.
Mara Alper distributed copies of a memorandum from Carolyn Byerly, dated
September 5, 2000, urging rejection of the Faculty Handbook revisions in their
present form. Frank Musgrave distributed copies of an April 22, 1998, letter from
James E. Perley, President of American Association of University Professors, with
comments on proposed revisions. Also distributed was a table comparing AAUP
recommendations with the proposed handbook revisions. S. Seltzer queried whether
the group was prepared to devote most of the November meeting to a discussion of
the Faculty Handbook Revisions. R. Rainville felt there should be a meeting devoted
solely to the Handbook. F. Pritt hoped it could be organized so that issues could be
heard and decisions made, not just have concerns raised with no position taken. It was
decided to try to complete consideration of the proposed Faculty Handbook revisions
at the November meeting, with the possibility of scheduling an additional meeting, if
necessary, to complete the task.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.