Faculty Council News

Faculty Council News 7 May 2013

Peter Rothbart, Faculty Council Chair opened the May meeting by announcing that there will be new print procedures for students next year; namely, they will be limited to about 150-200 pages of free printing. The main rationales are cost and environmental impact. More information can be found here: http://theithacan.org/31909. Faculty and staff printing are not affected. Peter also mentioned that the ExCo of Faculty Council conveyed the fundamental flavor of last fall’s faculty survey with the President and Provost in our last monthly meeting with them; the ExCo didn’t discuss specific comments, focusing primarily on pace of change on campus, corporatization, and the cascade effect, whereby one change begets others, all requiring familiarization. Peter closed his remarks by indicating that the Provost will attend ExCo meetings next year; she’ll also attend the entire monthly Faculty Council meetings. These moves reverse changes in procedures made last year by Peter; he thinks they will foster better communication between the faculty and administration.

The Provost reported next, commenting first on the IC20/20 advisory committee, which she stated is monitoring IC 20/20 implementation by reviewing a series of reports from various subgroups. She mentioned that there has been a lot of progress in a short time frame, and that its “time to take a breather”, indicating that there is no need to push new initiatives; instead, we need to focus on completing tasks already started. Included in these started tasks is the review of the T and P procedures. She stated that she has no outcome in mind, although she hopes there will be greater clarity in what is valued in the areas of scholarship and in service and teaching, especially as it relates to IC 20/20 and ICC. She does not imagine new requirements, but rather an expansion of options. She intimated further that scholarly requirements are best set at the unit level. In her discourse with us, she also mentioned that the flexible workload initiative is at the various schools.

Sally Neal, Director of the Academic Advising Center, spoke next. Sally gave us a little biographical background, noting that she is a 1st generation student and adult learner having acquired a BA, MA, and PH.D. after her first career. She mentioned that the Center has nearly completed its searches for five advisors. She then discussed her operational philosophies. Namely, advising is teaching, and she hopes the Center helps students become strong self-advocates and better at assuming responsibility for learning as they progress from social to career foci during their years at IC. She stated that the Center will take any student in any major from any school, but that they will endeavor to have the student engage their academic advisor first or in tandem; Sally imagines much emphasis will be placed on transfer and exploratory students. Ultimately, she envisions the Center will help identify student with needs and subsequently coordinate student services, as the Center will also house Student Disability Services, the Office of Academic Enrichment Services, and Career Services. She also hopes the Center will be a resource for faculty across the college. To further that end, she is forming a campus-wide advisory committee that will examine processes, forms, and professional opportunities through CFE. She expects that the committee will consist of A-Deans, faculty and AA. Council then passed two motions with no opposition. The first of which was to create a Shared Governance Research Task Force, whose goal will be to articulate several modes of shared governance, which can then be used to inform discussions on the topic next year. The Task Force will have three faculty chosen by Council and three administrators chosen by the President/Porvost. The second motion was to encourage the President to sign the LEAP Compact from the Association of American Colleges and Universities, which can be read here: http://www.aacu.org/leap/presidentstrust/compact/. In short, the LEAP compact extols the virtues of a liberal arts education, primarily by highlighting the results of a recent survey of employers, who indicated that they want employees that can think critically, have integrity, express themselves well, and have applied knowledge rather then a specific vocational skill set.

Next up, Eric Maguire, Vice President of Enrollment and Communication, informed Council of the incoming class of 2017. Eric stated that 1912 freshmen enrolled, approximately 140 students transferred in, and graduate admissions were on target. Our goals were 1800 freshman and 110 transfers. With summer melt, Eric expects the incoming class to be about 1910 freshman and transfers, well above the goal of 1810; this assumes a melt of about 7.5%, which is pessimistic relative to other years. As important, the College met it is budgeted discount rate. Overall, this is good news for the College’s bottom line, and doesn’t present a problem, as we graduated our bubble class this spring, which means we have capacity. Eric stated further that this is our most diverse class yet with approximately 22.5% of the students identifying as a minority compared to past classes of less than 19%. As for quality, Eric stated it was difficult to quantify, as this was our first class under the SAT optional format, although GPA and class rank were similar to past years.

Council closed the May meeting with its annual elections. Peter Rothbart, Tom Swensen, Chris McNamara, Debbie Rifkin, and John Rosenthal were elected as Chair, Secretary, and Executive Council, respectively.

And so ends another year, an eventful year, one started under the cloud of plummeting enrollment, Huron efficiencies, program reviews aimed in part to reallocate resources, social medial policy advanced and rescinded, travel policy changes and subsequent revised revisions, Provost office interviews included in all faculty searches, the birth of the advising center, and the revision of every program on campus to incorporate ICC and all that that entailed to name a few of the challenges. Now we segue to summer battle weary, the second biggest incoming class in IC history in our rearview mirror, hopeful for a more tranquil 2013-2014 academic year. Enjoy your summer everyone. You earned it.

Respectfully,

Tom Swensen Secretary Faculty Council Professor and Chair Exercise and Sport Sciences