Faculty Council Meeting

April 19, 2016

Ithaca Falls Room, Campus Center 5:30 PM

In Attendance: Moustafa AbuELFadl, Duncan Duke, Lisa Barnard, Ari Kissiloff, Chris Hummel, Kari Brossard Stoos, Tom Swensen, Diane Long, Saviana Condeescu, Colin Stewart, Ted Galanthay, Jason Freitag, Tatiana Patrone, John Rosenthal, Stanley Seltzer, Alex Moon, Matt Sullivan, Michael Trotti, David Turkon, Denise Nuttall, Jeff Holmes, Rachel Kaufman, Bridget Bower, Jennifer Strickland, Diane Birr, Peter Rothbart

Excused: : Matthew Geiszler, Bradley Rappa, Patrick Winters, Kyle Woody, Christine McNamara, Vivian Bruce Conger, Cynthia Henderson, Don Tindall, Charis Dimaras, Deborah Rifkin, Ivy Walz

Absent: Matthew Geiszler, Bradley Rappa, Patrick Winters, Kyle Woody, Christine McNamara, Vivian Bruce Conger, Cynthia Henderson, Don Tindall, Charis Dimaras, Deborah Rifkin, Ivy Walz

Guest: Grace Elletson

Meetings Open 5:30 PM

Chair Comments

Town Hall Meeting with Provost Rifkin – To be held Thursday, April 28th and open to all faculty.

New Faculty Council Member Elections – Please make sure that elections are happening on the individual school levels. Next Faculty Council meeting, held on Tuesday, May 3rd, should have in attendance current Faculty Council members in addition to the elected incoming Faculty Council members.

Phased Retirement Committee – In response to the presentation last meeting and other conversations, a Phased Retirement Task Force has been formed. It will consist of Warren Schlesinger from Business, Stan Seltzer from H&S, Vice-President Nancy Pringle, a representative from Human Resources, and Interim H&S Dean Michael Richardson. They will be starting this week or next week to investigate how to make the Phased Retirement Program more understandable and comprehensive for everyone involved.

Dana Professorship Task Force –

  • New timeline: Aim for a finished product by the May 3rd meeting for Faculty Council approval; faculty are under contract until May 31st.
  • Provost will need a day or two to look over the document.
  • Document will then be sent to everyone and then begin accepting application.
  • Full-time faculty will have about a week and a half to apply for the professorship.
  • Each school is to elect one representative to be on the selection committee.
  • The selection committee will have 4-5 days to make their selection. The final selection has to then be approved by the Provost according to the Dana Foundation rules.
  • Those selected will be notified by May 31st or June 1st.
  • This will meet the Dana Foundation deadline of having people named by the beginning of the semester, but will miss the official awards ceremony.

Suggested requirements for the application process:

  1. Current CV
  2. Narrative discussion evolution of their career and how this award would further that trajectory
  3. Evidence of local, national, and preferably international reputation
  4. Supporting materials
  5. Phone references – at least 3, with one being internal and one being external
  6. Internal/external at rank peer or supervisor who can speak to significance of their contribution to their particular field of endeavor

*Focus = Reward for the past and promise for the future.

Faculty Council Discussion Comments:

  • Suggested a criteria criterion be working with a student on a mentored project, but by specifying further, there are already awards for those. Idea is to keep as open as possible and see what is brought forward. However, this does make the selection process difficult as there is a level of subjectivity.
  • #3 means local AND national reputation; AND/OR international reputation.
  • #2 – Should we ask how they will use their time to further their trajectory?
  • Can’t plan as they do not know what the time allotment will be this round?
  • Should there be a question asking for them to describe their “project” plan?
  • This is as much a reward for the past as it is promise for their future.
  • Don’t Haven’t full professors already have to shouldbeen evaluated regarding #3? Making, making it redundant?
  • Could add “evidence of recent”
  • Should include a page limit for guidance for those submitting so the committee does not get over a hundred pages of supporting materials. Typical narrative page number for full professors is ten pages. Could also use a word count.
  • #1 and #3 can be combined to eliminate the need for a separate document
  • #3 could be a part of #2
  • #2 narrative is the most important part and the committee can look at the supporting materials if needed.
  • The committee will have approximately a week to go through all applications and choose, it will be less work for the committee, if criteria are specific as to where the information should be.
  • “Evidence of current local, national, and/or international reputation, can be part of our CV, unless specifically relevant to your narrative.”
  • “Welcome to include this information in the CV.”
  • Need to be wary of international evidence in the CV as it is not always relevant, dated, or outstanding.
  • That is why the word “reputation” is there and cannot be removed. It refers not only to publishing.
  • Are the supporting documents to include artistic endeavors or copies of candidate’s publications?
  • To be left open?
  • Worried you will end up with someone’s full professor file… needs to be limits added and clarified. Suggested that the supporting materials be only in support of their proposed project. How will they carry out said project that has national and/or international scope?
  • More of a sabbatic model, but on a limited time period; should be looking to see if there is a plan to use that time wisely. Why do they need time off, away from teaching, to do this project? What are the goals? How will it benefit the college?
  • Could this be limited to only the CV and the narrative? This would mean removing #4 and #3.
  • Cannot remove #3 because of the addition of the “recent.”
  • Even a recent CV will have things included that they have not done in ten years. For example, music CVs sometimes list performances, but not by date; could be two weeks ago or two years ago plus.
  • Can clarify the narrative saying this should include (#3) evidence of recent ….
  • Worried that requiring certain parts needing to be included in different areas puts extra burden on those applying to update/edit documents.
  • If not clarified where things need to be listed, it is harder for the committee to compare and make a selection within the shot timeline.

Discussion of setting up criteria for selection:

  • Should this be based on what someone has done or what they propose to do?
  • Project based or past teaching?
  • Answer: Both 50% and 50%
  • Each professor has a different area of expertise and are still phenomenal teachers, if you are selecting based off of one project they propose, you discount experience. Not needed to have all of the great teachers to stop teaching to do a big research progress; needs to be a balance. This sounds like a scholarly thing due to the reputation.
  • Need to advocate this as furthering the college’s reputation rather than an award for the professor.
  • Add into narrative, how will your winning’s enhance the reputation of the college?
  • Pro looking foreword forward as full professors, once reaching this rank are at their intellectual prime and should be focusing on research and advancement in whatever form that takes.
  • Faculty Council is always telling the college that teaching comes first, but this discussion for this professorship is making sound like scholarship is more important. From this process currently, it seems that the professor whose main priority is research, but is a phenomenal teacher is closed out completely.
  • Hard to judge the merits of projects from an array of disciplines and the committee may not have the time to go through and compare all of the projects, contact the references, evaluate the reality of their future goals etc. with the given time frame. This seems to cater towards someone who can persuasively plead their case/project.
  • The Dana Professorship comes with release time, so if a great teacher is already heavily endowed in research, why do they need this extra time away from teaching? What is the plan? This can be accommodated by changing the narrative to be project based and include that the project can be scholarly, service, or teaching and open the doors for those projects where someone says I will teach less because I am going to send all my time focused on “Physics 101” and improving learning goals in “Physics 101” and I need extra time to be extra, super good in “Physics 101.” They will need to argue why that would be better than studying something else, but it would still be considered a good project.
  • The above could be solved by saying the “project be justified in terms of the Boyer model” (which the college subscribes to.)
  • Need a different word for project? And open as possible, but need to be justified.
  • Being on committees can be considered a project. For example, focusing on service and serving on a multitude of committees within that area.
  • Include leadership?
  • Hard to measure.

This will be revised and sent to Council electronically for feedback. The Council as a whole will vote on it at the May 3rd meeting.

Executive Session

Faculty Council passed the following motion, with one abstention, to send the out the following statement:

Faculty Council urges the administration to reopen the search [SES1]for the Director of Programs and Outreach to external and internal candidates given the significant job description changes.

Proposed Study Abroad Program Changes – The issue, as relayed by Jason Freitag, is that students attending affiliated study abroad programs are taking their funds and financial aid money with them on the trip away from the college. Unaffiliated programs are at the student’s expense, where they take a leave of absence, return to their program, and can petition for credit for their study abroad experience. Costs are rising, and the college is losing more money. There was a request to decrease the number of expensive affiliated programs (programs set at approximately $12K.) ). The International Program Advisory Committee (which includes faculty), has began looking at the more expensive programs, particularly the ones that over the last five years, very few students were going on and created a list to be cut. Many of these are programs where in the last five years, only one student has gone. Other programs were ones that serviced served the same location as other, better attended study abroad programs. In 2016, 3 million dollars has gone to affiliated programs; in 2015, it was 2.9 million, 2014 was 2.7, 2013 was 2.5 million. The new list gives opportunities for students to go to all of the locations offered before (with the exception of one or two countries).

There are some programs, typically offered by SIT, for documentaries, filming, and immersion that were on average largely more expensive than other programs that did get cut. It is reported that Mark Israel and other administration members are open to reopen some of these programs if faculty can justify their need to be affiliated rather than unaffiliated. This can be done with a submitted proposal.

Some of the more expensive locations such as Australia or New Zealand that also have high student participation are entering into direct relationships with institutions there to save costs.

This was only an update; discussion will be held at another time.

Adjournment 6:40 PM

[SES1]Need to specify what search!