AMENDED

Ithaca College Faculty Council

February 5, 2013VIP 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. PatroneExcused: 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 26th. President Rochon has accepted the Council’s invitation to attend the March 5th

meeting to address Faculty Council. 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.

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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 ReportS. 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 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.

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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 EndowmentAs 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. 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

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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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