Faculty Council News
21 January 2014
The January meeting opened with the Chair’s report, with Peter providing the following
updates:
Gender Equity Study: Human Resource is scheduled to conduct a salary study beginning the
end of March/beginning of April with the results expected by the end of the semester. If results
are available, Council will review at May 2014 meeting; if results are not available Council will
review at the September meeting.
Academic Boycott Statement: President Rochon publicized his position statement regarding
the boycott of Israeli academic institutions in favor of free academic discourse in all situations.
Inventory of Committees: Peter said he will assemble the information received to date.
When complete, he will ask a Council member to draw up a chart to visually demonstrate
respective lines of communication.
Intellectual Property Rights: Peter hopes that T. Byrd will revisit this topic shortly.
Commencement Procedures: Student Affairs has decided to utilize members of the alumni to
carry banners leading their respective schools into the stadium this year.
Shared Governance Research Task Force: There has been some difficulty in getting the task
force members together, but the work being done is good. Plans include meetings to gather
materials, to be followed by a two-day retreat, which the Provost has agreed to fund. The
retreat will be an opportunity to review possibilities and should result in a document by
September.
To facilitate the process, Council passed the following motion with 12 in favor, 7 opposed, and
7 abstentions:
Faculty Council requests the Provost to provide funds to pay for the Faculty Council’s
Chair’s membership in the AAUP during the shared governance exploratory process so
that Council can access AAUP’s resources.
Next up were MaryAnn Taylor, Assistant to the Provost, and Karen Emnett, Manager of
Administrative Operations, spoke to us on the behalf of Wade Pickren, Director for Center for
Faculty Excellence & Sponsored Research. MaryAnn and Karen asked Council to
communicate with faculty about the Whalen Symposium. Namely, the CFE needs abstract
readers, session moderators, and judges for talks that are award eligible. More information can
be found here: https://www.ithaca.edu/provost/whalensymposium/
Afterwards, Steven Skopik, Professor and Chair Media Arts, Sciences and Studies, and Chair of
the Faculty Handbook Committee (FHBC) led a discussion of six proposed amendments to the
Faculty Hand Book (FHB). The first amendment concerned changes to section 4.12.9 in the
current policy manual. Related was the addition of section 4.12.10. The first section 4.12.9 is
being changed from a very short statement on evaluation of part-time and adjunct faculty to an
equally short statement of evaluation of NTEN faculty. Section 4.12.10 is a new section, and
essentially covers the evaluation of part-time and adjunct faculty. The amendments provoked
significant discussion, mainly centered on the lack of structure to the articulated processes.
Council passed a motion with no opposition recommending the approval of the proposal with
the understanding that the language for the new 4.12.9 will be further reviewed within the next
several years.
The remainder of the proposed amendments were either tabled or returned to the FHAC for
further revision with exception of a recommendation concerning a proposed change to the
Appendix in the current manual on Procedures for File Preparation and Presentation Tenure
and Promotion. Specifically, Council recommended that the word “profession,” which was
erroneously stricken from #8, be retained. Thus, the only substantive change was the words
“and the Ithaca Community” were removed. Council approved the proposed changes without
opposition.
Respectfully,
Tom Swensen
Secretary Faculty Council
Professor and Chair Exercise and Sport Sciences