ITHACA COLLEGE
FACULTY COUNCIL MINUTES
Present: Jim Aguiar, Mara Alper, Luanne Andersson, Lee Bailey, Jules Benjamin,
Byron Caplan, Harold Emery, Michael Galván, Cathe Gordon, Don Lifton, Marian
MacCurdy, Sabatino Maglione, Winnie Mauser, Steve Peterson, Fred Pritt, Rick
Rainville, John Rosenthal, Stan Seltzer, Robert Sullivan
Excused: Diana Birr, Ari Kissiloff, Jennifer Strickland
Absent: Randie Blooding, Joseph Cheng, Carole Dennis
Guests: Garry Brodhead, Elaine Leeder
1. Welcome and Announcements
Stan Seltzer, Chair, welcomed the group to the first spring meeting of Council and
made several announcements.
 Cathe Gordon has agreed to fill the remaining term of Kinsuk Maitra, who has had
to resign from Council.
 President Williams has scheduled meetings with faculty on Monday, April 23
(3:30-5:00) and Tuesday, April 24 (12:05-1:05).
 A committee to oversee activities on the last day of classes, chaired by Brian
McAree, began meeting today.
 Chris Cecconi, the faculty representative on the Traffic Policies Committee, reports
that: (1) the visitor parking is working out well; (2) a survey of parking space
availability revealed that there are generally spaces available for faculty, even at peak
classroom times; and (3) the committee feels strongly that there should be a limited
number of reserved spaces to ensure that all faculty and staff have equal access to the
available convenient parking. In summary, the committee feels that things are going
reasonably well.
 Coaches and a small group of faculty who are unaffiliated with any school (faculty
in the Gerontology Institute and Teacher Ed Program) are not included anywhere in
the governance system. This limits their opportunities and eligibility for campus
committees and prevents them from taking part in the elections for any of those
positions. One or two coaches will be attending Staff Council and Faculty Council for
a few months with the hope of ultimately gaining representation on one or both
groups.
 Elaine Leeder's three-year term as Faculty Trustee is ending and Faculty Council
has been asked to submit to the Board of Trustees the names of three candidates for
the new term by April 15. The procedure used in the past has been to put out a call for
faculty interested in serving, distributing statements from each nominee, and
conducting a ballot to select the candidates. J. Aguiar inquired as to when the faculty
would take a stand on the issue of faculty being denied the right of direct
representation. E. Leeder noted that there is similar sentiment among the members of
the Alumni Board and the staff. J. Rosenthal said that a better front on which to
address the issue of direct election is search committees, not the Board, which is a
self-perpetuating body that appoints its own members. J. Aguiar acknowledged the
practicality of that suggestion, but reiterated that the principle behind it still bothers
him. E. Leeder noted that our Board of Trustees is progressive compared to some
institutions she has surveyed; some have neither faculty nor staff on their board. M.
Galván suggested that this issue be taken up over the next year. In the meantime, S.
Seltzer said he will explore the subject with Tri-Council. J. Rosenthal made a motion,
seconded by Fred Pritt:
MOTION: Faculty Council shall put out a call for nominees for Faculty Trustee;
after the election of candidates for position of Faculty Trustee by approval ballot,
the names of the successful candidates and the vote totals shall be conveyed to the
Board of Trustees.
The motion was approved.
 Susanne Morgan's three-year term on APC is concluding. The two representatives
continuing service are Hormoz Movassaghi and Renee Brown. A call will be put out
for candidates and an all-College election will be held.
 S. Seltzer will be asking the deans to conduct elections in the schools for Faculty
Council representatives; about half the terms are expiring.
2. Open Session
Elaine Leeder reported on the February 21-23 meeting of the Board of Trustees. Work
was tightly scheduled, with a Wednesday evening presentation from the Planning and
Priorities Committee. Approval of the budget was the first order of business on
Thursday. The budget includes increases in costs of medical benefits, utilities, and
software maintenance, among others. One of the new programs funded is a Lesbian,
Bisexual, Gay and Transgendered Center. She referred representatives to the budget
summary sent to them by S. Seltzer on March 15. An update on residence halls was
presented; students prefer suites with individual rooms, and the College is looking
into how space might be converted to remain attractive to potential students.
Discussions were held on the possibility of engaging in a major capital campaign; a
feasability study is under way. Also considered was the process of selecting a new
Chair, with the impending departure of Skip Muller. Among the several committee
meetings she attended was the Campus Life Committee, where the Sodexho situation
was discussed. The Drug and Alcohol Task Force was also a topic of discussion. She
found that serving on the Investment Committee was a challenging learning
experience. A tour of the residence halls and a well-attended reception for staff were
other events. She concluded her report by urging that the candidates nominated for the
new Faculty Trustee term be capable of being strong advocates for faculty concerns,
so that the voice of that constituency is fully heard. She thanked the faculty for having
allowed her to serve as trustee during the past three years and to have had this
experience.
3. Approval of the Minutes of February 6, 2001
H. Emery moved to approve the minutes of the last meeting as submitted. Rick
Rainville seconded the motion. With no objection, the minutes of February 6, 2001,
were approved .
4. Consideration of Motion to Recommend Conferral of Degrees
MOTION: The Faculty Council recommends to the Board of Trustees that all
students who have completed the requirements of their respective degree as
certified by the records of the Registrar's office be awarded the appropriate
degree at Commencement on Saturday, May 19, 2001
The motion was approved.
John Stanton was unable to attend this rescheduled Council Meeting, which would
have been his last appearance before his retirement. D. Lifton rose to express the
group's appreciation for his dedicated service as Registrar and his perpetually positive
outlook and warmth. At Don's suggestion, S. Seltzer agreed to send a letter of
appreciation to John on behalf of Council and have these sentiments included in the
Faculty Council Newsletter.
5. Budget Report
Stan Seltzer took questions about the budget summary and his comments as
distributed in a February 28 memorandum to Faculty Council. He noted that with all
the requests being made and rising costs in general, maintaining the "salary increment
pool" at 5% was quite gratifying.
6. Provost's Report
Garry Brodhead distributed an Admissions report from Larry Metzger
At the recent Board meeting, all the personnel actions that were recommended were
approved, including tenure, promotion, and emeritus status recommendations. There
were fourteen new faculty positions approved in the budget. There were substantial
increases in faculty travel allocations for the coming year and also for the Center for
Faculty Research and Development. He noted that because the funding for the Center
is largely grant-dependent, each recipient will be expected to write a brief report
responding to four questions, building a chronicle for future funding requests.
Gene Rice will be visiting the College on April 2-3. The opening session will be from
2-4 p.m. in the Whalen Center New Recital Hall and will be a general presentation, to
be followed by a group of focused presentations on the following day. A closing
session will be a panel discussion on "Implications for the Changing Academy at
Ithaca College." Faculty participants will include Betsy Keller, Mary Ann Rishel, and
Michael Twomey.
7. Report and Recommendations from the Grading Policies Committee
L. Bailey announced fresh data on grades: 5% of IC grades are A+, 25% are A, and
17% are A-. The percentage of students receiving Latin Honors over the past two
years averages 29%. He reported on his meeting with the SGA. They supported
changing the Pass/Fail system and raising the bar (30 aye, 6 nay, 6 abstentions). He
placed a motion from the Grading Policies Committee on the floor.
MOTION: Faculty Council recommends that the Policy Subcommittee of the
Academic Policy Committee recommend that the Pass/Fail system be changed in
the following ways:
1. the name be changed to "Satisfactory/ Unsatisfactory";
2. the threshold grade for a "Satisfactory" be a C-;
3. a "Satisfactory" grade would earn credit but not be calculated into the
student's Grade Point Average, as in the current system;
4. an "Unsatisfactory" grade would be calculated in the student's GPA, as
in the current system, as an F;
5. otherwise, the system is to remain the same. [IC Catalog, page 254]
There was considerable discussion of the motion. Some thought it was valuable to
leave the current system in place to encourage students to "take risks" by taking
courses outside their areas of greatest strength. This argument was challenged since
fewer than 2% of all grades assigned on campus are below C-; if a student wants to
take a course to learn a little about the subject, asking them to earn a C- or higher is
not asking too much.
Another concern was that two students doing identical (D) work in a course could be
subject to vastly different consequences, one earning graduation credit by passing
with a D, the other receiving no credit and having a U averaged in as an F
(conceivably leading to the former student graduating with 120 credits, with the latter
having only 117). To address this, M. MacCurdy offered an amendment changing the
system to S/D/U (seconded by John Rosenthal).
The amendment failed.
In support of the motion, it was noted that IC does not even accept grades below Cfor transfer credit; why should a D earn a Pass and count for graduation?
The question was called.
The motion was defeated.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:35 p.m.