Ithaca College Faculty Council November 13, 2012 A & E Center – VIP Lounge Present: B. Belyea, D. Birr, L. Black, J. Blumberg, J. Bonnetta, B. Bower, K. Breuer, W. Dann, S. Freedman, S. Grigoriev, M. Hall, J. Harrington, S. Howard-Baptiste, A. Kissiloff, S. Lahr, D. Lifton, S. Mauk, C. McNamara, B. Murday, S. Osterreich, T. Patrone, J. Pena-Shaff, J. Rosenthal, P. Rothbart, W. Schlesinger, S. Stansfield, T. Swensen, D. Tindall, D. Turkon Absent: J. Stafford Excused: C. Henderson, E. Kelly, A. Monticello Guests: E. Gonzalez (Ithacan), Huron Consulting Group (R. Woodruff, L. Halloran), D. Johnson, M. Kelly 1. Welcome and Announcements: P. Rothbart opened the session, welcoming D. Rumsey who will be assuming the role of minute taking for the Council, as M.A. Taylor moves on to other duties in the Provost’s Office. It was brought to the attention of Council and guests that there was a reporter and photographer from The Ithacan present. 2. Open Session: None 3. Approval of Minutes: October 2, 2012: Motion to approve the amended minutes was made and unanimously approved. 4. Chair’s Report: A Faculty Council Executive meeting with the President and Provost was held to discuss a variety of items. A joint statement has been issued to the press, which should be available soon. The President has announced that the new media policy has been rescinded, effective immediately. Complete Middle State’s Reports will be posted online at the Provost’s website and will be password protected. P. Rothbart issued a reminder that as with anything posted on the password protected site, it is not for general or public distribution. There was an expressed concern that required department faculty meetings may conflict with upcoming faculty meetings. P. Rothbart said he would look into that, and to hold the November 27th date until such time that he could check on room availability. W. Schlesinger thanked P. Rothbart for arranging these meetings, and made this motion: MOTION: In order to improve communications between faculty and the administration, Faculty Council urges the faculty in schools to invite the President of the College to a faculty meeting at least once a year, preferable each semester. The motion was seconded. There was discussion and shared ideas of how to have informative, and inclusive, meetings where faculty from the schools could meet for a better understanding of each school’s perspective on various topics of discussion. VOTE: Motion passed with one opposed, and one abstention. 5. Provost’s Report Provost Kelly clarified M.A. Taylor’s transition from Faculty Council to other duties within the Provost’s Office. Explaining the recent personnel changes in Director of Grants and Faculty Council Meeting Minutes for November 13, 2012 1 Research position, which has been open for some time, many of those duties are being transitioned to W. Pickren; and M.A. Taylor will continue to work with the Biosafety, Animal Care and Use, and Human Subject Research Committees. Provost Kelly provided an update on the Central Advising System and the search for a director. It was reported that the search committee is very pleased with the caliber of applicants, and they have begun to narrow down the strong pool of candidates via telephone interviews; and will be bringing candidates to campus for interviews. IC NYC Program for spring is looking very strong. The goal is to have a minimum of 50 students per semester; and it looks like they will, in fact, have between 48-52 students in the spring. Students are primarily from the Business School and Park School, but there is likely to be representation from H&S, HSHP, and Music schools. Provost Kelly addressed the concerns that have been expressed, in the context of support for the integrated core curriculum, about the speed with which things are moving forward. Acknowledging the tremendous pace for which things are moving, she emphasized the importance, and challenge thereof, in defining the general education program for the College, and also assessment results. Students have to be in the program on time to have assessment results before those accreditations reviews occur. Understanding that faculty want to get this as close to perfect the first time, it is important that, despite the concerns about the pace and the increased workload, the College must keep in mind that this extra effort will be worth it in the end. D. Lifton thanked Provost Kelly and asked her to consider her role as faculty advocate on the budget committee. Expressing concern with regard to a memorandum dated October 31, 2012, from C. Sgrecci concerning an annual salary increment pool in the 2-3% range. Further, Lifton expressed concern over confidentiality and whether or not the Provost is advocating on behalf of the faculty with regard to the budget process. Provost Kelly responded to the statement, indicating the budget process is a collaborative effort. During this process it is important to look at the entire budgetary picture for the institution and attempt to stay focused on the relative affordability of an Ithaca College education for students. Discussion returned to concerns over the pace and whether or not the core requirements will be adequately functional. P. Rothbart interjected that, in the area of pacing everything, the fact that we don’t have to have everything in place by fall, is worth exploring how to give faculty a little extra time to relieve some of the pressure. D. Lifton voiced concern about the intention to cut the size of the faculty, citing again, the letter from C. Sgrecci, in which it indicates that all funding for positions related benefits must be provided for by reallocating existing salary dollars. Lifton called upon Provost Kelly to stop academic program review until she believes budgetary times are more amenable, or that in this budget, she place funding to implement recommendations that come to her to expand a program(s). Provost Kelly responded by stating that there is a difference between reallocation and cutting faculty. A program that wants more faculty is one issue. If the College were to reallocate faculty from one area to another to support that, this is not actually cutting faculty, because the size of the faculty stays the same. Redistribution tends to occur through retirements and actual shrinkage as enrollment shifts. It was reiterated that the end goal is to keep Ithaca College affordable for its students. This does not mean that recommendations that are put forth to increase programs are not appropriate. Those may just be put on hold for a while. Faculty Council Meeting Minutes for November 13, 2012 2 J. Pena-Shaff stated that the faculty are working very hard, not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom, and are a part of the student experience. The increased cost in health insurance, particularly for those with children, was higher than the salary increase. Provost Kelly emphasized that she absolutely agreed the faculty are critical to the student experience. She suggested that people look around at the number of institutions of higher education that have actually frozen for more than one year in a row any salary increase. Salary is the biggest expense for the institution. This is a different era in higher education, and it is something that needs to recognized. J. Pena-Shaff pointed out that faculty took a salary freeze two years ago when enrollment was actually higher than it is now; and never received any raises retroactively. The faculty knows how to make sacrifices, but it didn’t pay off. J. Rosenthal: In support of some of the things said by the Provost, that when the budget projections are reviewed for next year, he believes there they will see that the picture is much more austere than expected. 6. ICC Report: Danette Johnson provided a brief update on the activities of ICC, acknowledging the more than 98 faculty members, who have worked on a variety to things to date. About a week prior, a call went out for faculty participation in groups to develop a process for evaluating electronic learning portfolios, to develop assessment rubrics, and a themes steering committee. Development of the steering committee is really important. There are concerns about how we are going to evaluate the portfolio component, and the faculty will be developing these processes. So far, about 15 people have expressed interest, and meetings will begin before the end of the semester. Task Screen has been selected as the provider of integrated portfolio and assessment management for campus wide use. A very robust system, it allows students to create multiple portfolios for multiple needs, with access to different audiences. For assessment, it allows linking to hundreds of national and state standards to create custom rubrics and report in a number of different ways, which should make faculty work, with regard to assessment, simpler. Questions regarding the assessment of e-portfolios and potential extra workload for faculty were discussed. D. Johnson stated that there are a lot of concerns about substantial additional faculty workload, but this is one of the things the faculty group will be trying to figure out this spring: how do we make it as simple as possible, as un-intrusive as possible, and not overburden faculty with it? P. Rothbart clarified with D. Johnson that the committee is not yet fully formed. There is no pre-set number of committee members, and the committee is made up of 100% faculty. It is expected that the committee’s recommendations will eventually become academic policy. Several more questions were asked about liability issues, copyrighted media, assessment, and ease of use. D. Johnson indicated that these were all things that could be discussed by the committee. Again, concerns arose over the speed at which these things are being pursued. The pace is something that is acknowledged by all parties. 7. Huron Consulting Group: Robert Woodruff and Lauren Halloran presented a brief presentation on their Phase 1 of Effective and Affordability review. Huron was engaged by the College to take a look at the efficiency and effectiveness of its administrative units with an eye towards keeping the Ithaca College education affordable. Administrative units reviewed include information Faculty Council Meeting Minutes for November 13, 2012 3 technology, finance, human resources, procurement, and facilities. R. Woodruff emphasized that they were not engaged to conduct academic review. R. Woodruff explained their process for information gathering includes a document which requested information on the institution, surveys, and face-to-face conversations. After review, they identify four to five opportunities, in each of the 10 identified areas, developing business cases around those opportunities to generate incremental revenue, cost savings, and service improvements. Phase 1 findings were presented a couple of weeks ago to the five-member steering committee, and Huron is now working on Phase 2. D. Lifton asked Huron to consider review of how the College manages its endowment. R. Woodruff replied that the College utilizes an endowment consultant to determine asset allocation. Further comments on the endowment, and any potential surpluses, should be reviewed, particularly for its potential in alleviating annual salary increments. R. Woodruff further emphasized that Huron is not engaged in academic review when questions regarding student advising resurfaced. It was suggested that the advising center, which will be a major structural component of the College, may be left out of the Huron review process with no opportunity to examine it during the implementation process; with no opportunity to determine its efficiency and effectiveness. S. Osterreich expressed concerns about the welfare of the staff through this process, particularly potential staff layoffs. R. Woodruff indicated that their recommendations are meant to stretch dollars, and assure resources go to the core activities of the institution. Further discussion arose around a study indicating the ideal 3:1 ratio of faculty to administration, citing a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article. Ithaca College has a two to three ratio, and Huron was questioned about whether or not they are looking at benchmarks such as this one. Concerns about the confidentiality of the survey that was circulated to faculty were raised, and whether or not there is a list of faculty who have responded to the survey, and a list of those that have not. R. Woodruff stated that he has seen no such list. The likelihood is that any email reminders about not responding yet to the survey are automatically generated by the system. It was suggested that P. Rothbart share with the Staff Council, all the information sent to the Faculty Council regarding this review. 8. Faculty Handbook Amendment Motion P. Rothbart asked for discussion on the proposed amendment to the 4.6.2 Office Hours section. Clarification on the purpose of creating this amendment was requested. The intent of the changes is to provide more flexibility to respond to students. J. Rosenthal, having heard no discussion speaking particularly to the merit of the issue, suggested proceeding to a vote. This was seconded. VOTE: Two abstentions; amendment passed. S. Osterreich requested obtaining a report from the Faculty Handbook Amendment Committee on their progress of thinking about IC 20/20 and processes. 9. New Business: None 10.Executive Session: P. Rothbart moved to Executive Session. Meeting adjourned at 9:20 pm. Faculty Council Meeting Minutes for November 13, 2012 4