AMENDED
Ithaca College
Faculty Council
February 5, 2013
VIP Room, A & E Center
Present:
D. Birr, L. Black, J. Blumberg, B. Bower, K. Breuer, W. Dann, D. Duke, S. Freedman,
S. Grigoriev, M. Hall, J. Harrington, C. Henderson, S. Howard-Baptiste, A. Kissiloff, S.
Lahr, R. Lesses, C. McNamara, B. Murday, S. Osterreich, T. Patrone, J. Pena-Shaff, J.
Pfrehm, P. Rothbart, W. Schlesinger, T. Swensen, D. Turkon,
B. Whitehead
Absent:
A. Monticello, T. Patrone
Excused: S. Stansfield, J. Lapp, J. Bonnetta
Guests:
S. Knight (The Ithacan), M. Kelly, S. Skopik, C. Biehn
1. Welcome and Announcements:
P. Rothbart called the meeting to order at 7:02 pm.
2. Approval of Minutes: January 22, 2013:
P. Rothbart presented the amended meeting minutes from January. There was discussion
about the motion on page five, which appeared to be left on the floor at the close of the
January meeting.
 A move to strike was made by B. Whitehead and seconded by J. Harrington.
There were no opposing votes, and three abstentions. The motion was
carried.
Additional corrections were requested to specific words.
 P. Rothbart requested a motion to accept the minutes. D. Birr so moved; T.
Swensen seconded. The minutes were passed with one noted abstention.
3. Chair’s Report/Additional Announcements:
 P. Rothbart made several announcements:
 Jim Stafford, from H&S, has resigned as a member in good stand from Faculty
Council. P. Rothbart will contact M. Trotti to fill this vacancy.
 The Provost has set up a series called Coffee with the Provost. The February 11th
coffee has been canceled; information for the remaining scheduled coffees was
circulated. Please rsvp to Mary Ann Taylor if you wish to attend
(mataylor@ithaca.edu).
 The 16th Annual Whalen Symposium is Thursday, April 4. The submission deadline,
as well as a call for volunteers, has been extended to March 1st. This is great
experience and a fantastic opportunity for students to share their work with their
peers, as well as faculty.
 Thursday, February 7th, the Fourth Annual Faculty Colloquium, featuring Dan Breen
from the Department of English, will present: “Making the Past: History, Poetry and
Discipline Formation in Early Modern England,” from 5-6:30 PM in Clark Lounge.
 Tomorrow is the open house in Emerson for the Huron Report. The deadline for
submission of comments in February 11th. So, please get your responses in early.
 The CCR is looking for someone to fill an at-large position. Susan Delaney, Assistant
Professor of Writing, has put her name forth. After discussion on proper
procedure, Council’s vote was unanimous.
 P. Rothbart has tentatively scheduled a Town Hall Meeting for March 26 th.
 President Rochon has accepted the Council’s invitation to attend the March 5 th
meeting to address Faculty Council.
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Faculty Council Executive Committee has requested and received a bi-weekly
meeting with the President and the Provost over the next few months to address a
variety of issues.
P. Rothbart indicated that he intends to pursue the establishment of a Shared
Governance Task Force/or Committee and will be considering this more closely over
the course of this semester.
Staff Council invited Faculty Council to their meeting about the Huron Report, which
P. Rothbart attended. He reported that he found it really interesting and that there
is a lot of really good expertise on that committee, that Faculty Council may consider
availing itself to from time to time.
At the last minute, Council was invited to attend SGA (the meeting was yesterday)
where the Huron Report was to be discussed. P. Rothbart was unable to make it due
to a schedule conflict.
4. Provost’s Report:
Provost M. Kelly updated Council members on the search for a Dean of the Music School.
Two of the three candidates have visited campus, and the third one was scheduled to be on
campus the next day. She encouraged attendance at the open sessions, followed by
feedback to the search committee. A second critical search is just getting launched for a
new Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Recreational Sports. The search committee has
been formed; and updates on progress will be posted on Intercom. Provost Kelly expressed
that she feels really good about the prospects for both open positions.
An update was provided regarding the Enterprise Content Management System (ECM). This
system will allow the College to make electronic many of the current paper-based processes
(items such as sabbatical forms, and undergraduate and graduate admissions application).
A subset of the ECM project is the Homer Workflow Project, which will essentially take all
paper work related to student processes currently stored in Homer and will transform them
to the electronic format. This will better support students because it will eliminate the need
for them to go office to office to collect signatures; it will also reduce lag time and the
number of lost forms, and will support the College’s sustainability efforts. In many cases,
transferring from paper based to electronic format is simple; and, in other cases it is
complicated. It takes anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to map out
exactly what this needs to look like, so it will not change what people are currently doing.
It will more likely be summer to early fall before some of these changes will be
implemented. If anyone has a question about a specific form or process, Provost Kelly
recommended they talk to either their assistant/associate dean, or contact Margie Arnold
(Provost’s Office) or Dave Weill (IT).
P. Rothbart asked if there was a mechanism for faculty input, especially since this will
probably happen over the summer. M. Kelly responded if there’s a case where streamlining
something is on the table, where something is really a mess, and/or different processes are
being used in every school, and nobody knows why, those situations would be handled on a
form by form basis; and would include input from groups that really need to be involved in
that process. She anticipates that anything that needs a broader input would not happen
until next spring/fall.
5. Faculty Handbook Amendment Committee Report
S. Skopik, Chair of the Faculty Handbook Amendment Committee (FHAC) updated Council
members on the work of the committee in recent semesters. FHAC has an opening for an
at-large member (Faculty Council position), and S. Skopik asked anyone interested to
please contact him. S. Skopik reviewed the committee’s charge, which to facilitate changes
to the handbook policies and procedures by reviewing items brought to the committee. The
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committee deliberates on the proposals, and if there is consensus for action, they develop
specific language which is then sent to Faculty Council for consideration. Recent items
under discussion include:
 N-ten review – currently there is no mention of policies and procedures on N-ten
review.
 Defining the term “community” – as a result of amendments over the years, the use
of the word “community” has resulted in many different meanings.
 Review of the 4.1.6 portion of the handbook, with a focus on Items E and F.
S. Skopik detailed each of these topics, updating Council members on the activities that had
occurred, how the processes have worked, and the work the Committee still needs to
complete. T. Swensen inquired about the current status of standardization of T&P across
schools. S. Skopik stated that this was not currently on the committee’s radar.
S. Osterreich expressed concerns about the T&P process and the ability of people to
document and have considered, and honored, the amount of work they are participating in
regarding IC 20/20 and ICC, as it is not clear where it goes in someone’s file. This is
something she feels should be addressed within the next couple of semesters as people will
have completed the work, and will have no place to document their participation in their file.
P. Rothbart suggested that this topic be discussed under new business.
6. Report on Endowment
As follow up to recent questions Faculty Council had with regard to the status of the
endowment, P. Rothbart invited C. Biehn, Vice President of Institutional Advancement (IA),
to address council members’ questions on endowment, as well as possible discussion on
fund raising and Huron Report recommendations related to those topics.
C. Biehn provided an overview of the current status of the endowment, which was up for the
calendar year by 12.3%, which is a significant improvement over May 31, 2012 figures.
Endowment continues to rebound from the significant drop in 2008. Chris Lecroix is the
new chair of the endowment committee, and has been doing a great job. Regarding fund
raising, the College is gearing up for a campaign. As the institution shifts towards the goals
around IC 20/20 and its strategic plan, Institutional Advancement is looking at how it can
model or mirror that plan in order to support it. In the past, most of the fund raising has
been driven by school or capital projects. C. Biehn talked about the College’s need for early
student engagement, and the need to grow the annual fund and endowment, which lessens
the dependence on tuition. For many years, the focus has been on capital and school
projects, without much effort focused on the unrestricted annual support or broader
engagement of the College’s alumni. Currently, the College has some 55,000 alumni, and
its annual fund yields about $900,000 annually – much less than comparable institutions,
which raise an average of $2-3 million in annual funds each year. The campaign for IC
20/20 has a goal of $150 million (seven-year campaign), and will fund broad-based
priorities. There is ongoing assessment of donor capacity and what is actually needed for
the College. The business plan, accessible online, does not contain the general priorities for
the campaign because the amounts have not been fully defined. In broad terms, there is
about $72 million for facilities (advising center and first-year housing), $9 million for the
annual fund, approximately $68 million for scholarships and financial aid. Included in these
totals is support for faculty chairs, distinguished visiting professorships, professional
development and program support for the Advising Center.
Alumni surveys have been conducted, and the love of Ithaca College is there, but what is
missing is the understanding of why the College needs to be supported on an ongoing basis.
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One of the main reasons that the annual fund is so much lower than its peer schools is that
there has been no focus is on this in the past.
Despite these changes, schools will still have the ability to fund raise. C. Biehn asked that
those efforts be coordinated with IA in order to assure a coordinated strategy for any
particular donor. The practice of having a major gift officer assigned to each college is
currently under review with the deans, campaign counsel has been hired, and IA is getting
itself ready to launch into a campaign. C. Biehn indicated that the Huron Report was
in alignment with, and validated IA’s best practices for a development shop in
institutions that are raising more money. A written strategic response will address the
recommendations regarding the realignment of communications staff. C. Biehn closed by
inviting faculty to participate in the campaign process.
7. New Business:
P. Rothbart asked S. Osterreich if she wanted to raise the issue she mentioned earlier. It
was decided to postpone this discussion until the March meeting, under an umbrella
discussion regarding flexible workloads and the committee work.
P. Rothbart turned to the topic of what to do regarding Faculty Council’s recommendations
on the Huron Report. After discussing the options and learning about what others such as
Staff Council are doing, W. Schlesinger made a “motion to pass this to the Executive
Committee to make a decision on how to publicize what we are doing, rather than
spending our time debating this.” The motion was seconded by D. Turkon. P.
Rothbart then opened the floor for discussion, restating the motion and pointing out that the
implication is that the recommendations will be publicized. It was clarified that by way of
the motion all power about publicizing this was being given to the Executive Committee.
The motion was passed with one opposition; two abstentions.
W. Schlesinger posed the question if any faculty present were aware of any reason that they
shouldn’t endorse and support the recommendation made by the Huron Report of increasing
enrollment of transfer students. A conversation ensued about the strategy to enroll more
first year students vs. the efforts to increase transfer students. W. Schlesinger made a
motion to endorse the Huron Report’s recommendation to increase the transfer
student population at Ithaca College. The motion was seconded by J. Harrington.
P. Rothbart opened the floor for discussion. The discussion turned in the direction of
Admissions recruiting efforts. The main focus for Admissions has always been first year
students. After further discussion, W. Schlesinger withdrew the motion. J. Harrington
seconded.
Due to the late hour, P. Rothbart provided members the option to push remaining
conversation to March, or extend the meeting. He clarified that the Executive Committee
has been charged with publicizing the three resolutions and it was decided those should be
published before the February 11th deadline. He asked Executive Committee members to
stay for a few minutes after the meeting.
8. Executive Session: None
Meeting adjourned: 9:00 PM
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