Faculty Council News
7 April 2015
The April meeting opened with approval of the previous meeting’s minutes. Council Chair, Peter
Rothbart, spoke next, updating everyone on various matters. He indicated that:
a. Work continues on Council’s Sakai site, which contains information on all committees on
campus, and will be a place for them to post their minutes and list their rosters so-to-speak. Peter
also wants there to be a comments section to facilitate communication.
b. Council will be reapportioned. There are modest changes. Data will be published soon.
c. Grading deadline in the fall is permanently set for 12/30. Thank you Cyndy Scheibe,
Psychology, who spearhead the initiative.
d. A call will go out for two volunteers to serve on the Institutional Effectiveness and Budget
Committee (IEBC). The meetings are as long as the committee’s name.
Next up was Gwen Seaquist, Legal Studies, who spoke to Council about unions. Gwen indicated that
there is momentum towards unionization among part-time faculty, whose ranks have increased
from about 43% of the professoriate in 1975 to 70% in 2011. She mentioned that a recent
congressional study shows that the part time faculty have an unenviable professional life. She said
the union that is attempting to unionize IC’s part-time faculty, the Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), is a grass-roots organization that began with unionizing janitors in California. She
said that the SEIU has had many victories over the last 10 years, possibly securing better pay, job
security, and benefits, while providing part-time faculty with a louder, more articulate voice with
which to speak to college administrators. Exactly what happens depends on the collective
bargaining agreement that the union reaches with a college where the part-time faculty have voted
affirmatively to unionize. Presently, IC is in the union pre-formation stage. Voting is by secret
ballot and success is based on securing a majority vote among those who vote with one caveat
established by the National Labor Relations Board. If the part-time faculty unionize, then the union
will collectively bargain with the Administration on the part-time faculty’s behalf. Council inquired
about member dues. Who pays depends on the collective bargaining agreement: sometimes all
part-time faculty pay or just those in the union. Dues are typically $30 a month.
Brody Burroughs, Lecturer in Art and leader of the efforts to unionize IC’s part-time faculty,
followed Gwen. He thanked Council for leading efforts to increase part-time salary, as the Board of
Trustees recently approved a change in per credit salary from $1300 to $1400 per credit. IEBC and
FC members Rosenthal and Swensen presented Council’s desire on this matter to the
Administration at IEBC budget meetings. IEBC didn’t approve, however, a standard increment
addition clause to part-time salary. Burroughs also indicated that his efforts have received support
from students and that at present the Administration is respectful—this is not an adversarial
process at this time he said. Burroughs’ group circulated a petition for Council to sign; his group
minimally seeks neutrality from other parties on campus (Editor’s note: as of Friday, 4/24,
Administrative neutrality is under scrutiny.) Burroughs also presented a letter signed by the Ithaca
Town Council, urging IC not to waste tuition dollars fighting the Union; instead, they advocated a
focus on education, the primary mission of the College.
After the union discussion, Steven Skopik, Chair Media Arts and Chair of the Faculty Handbook
Committee (FHBC), spoke to us about his group’s work on tenure and promotion guidelines. He
mentioned that they held several open meetings for faculty to voice concerns; all were poorly
attended. Council will visit the proposed changes in subsequent meetings.
Council then moved to John Rosenthal’s Budget Report, which was introduced last meeting. The
report is attached. Based on the report and Rosenthal’s request, Council passed two motions
unopposed:
a. Council requests that future budget reports reflect expenses by division as has been done
previously so that we can more readily assess if the College is shifting resources from academic to
other priorities.
b. Council again requests that per-credit wages receive a general merit increase annually.
Rosenthal and Council also desired to have more information on Professional Services, a natural
classification code or budget line that increased substantially during the zero-based-budgeting
(ZBB) process. Much of this increase reflects a realignment of expenses from other codes to more
“natural” ones, which is perhaps the most significant success of our first ZBB process.
Council then discussed whether or not to lead an initiative to assess ICC. Council had questions on
whether of not ICC attracts or repels students. Council wondered about pinch-points, like the
Honors Program or study abroad for students in some programs in the professional schools.
Council members were charged to gather concerns from their constituents so that we could explore
this matter more fully.
The last topic of the night was new business. Peter indicated that he wished to:
a. Explore our situation where despite a relatively stable student population over the last 15
years, we have added about 60 new faculty and 250 new staff/administrators.
b. Update Council by-laws to reflect changes in administrative titles. Given that Council cannot
change its by-laws without communicating changes to the faculty as a whole in advance to voting
on such changes, Council decided that an email from Peter will serve as our intention to align
Council by-laws with the administrative title changes over the last 10 years. Council will vote on
this matter in May.
Respectfully,
Tom Swensen
Secretary Faculty Council
Professor and Chair Exercise and Sport Sciences