FACULTY MEETING 

APRIL 27, 2001
GANNETT AUDITORIUM

MINUTES 

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes of the April 6, 2001 meeting were approved as written.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

President Studley summarized the advantages of planning for the College. She said it defines our priorities and what we care most about; creates a shared message for self-understanding, pride, morale, faculty and student recruiting; lays a coherent foundation for fundraising; helps us make smart choices when choices have to be made; and keeps us focused on the top priorities.

DEAN OF THE FACULTY’S REPORT

Dean Berman reported being heavily involved in the planning process. Over the summer he will continue his involvement with planning and will be developing background information necessary to make decisions that will come out of the planning process. He would like to fashion a structure so that we can efficiently take on the big issues and make decisions about them.

REPORTS

Dean Berman said that IRC has been collecting data from faculty, staff and students. IRC is now distilling the data and will formulate a plan.

Susan Zappen has been updating IRC about copyright issues, which are very restrictive. IRC feels that a workshop will be needed at some future date to deal with this important issue.

The cost of journals goes up steeply every year, and approximately 72 percent of the library acquisition budget is spent on journals while 28 percent is spent on books. IRC hopes that electronic journals will replace printed journals in the future. IRC encourages the faculty to foster the use of electronic journals to help make them as prestigious as printed journals.

Bret Ingerman, Director of CITS updated the faculty about the computer inventory:

There are 1,440 computers on campus of which 1,100 are primary (those that need to be upgraded regularly).
Of those that are primary, 846 are in departments; 200 are in department labs; 195 are under the custody and control of CITS (public terminals).

There are about 150 network printers.

CITS is deciding what is the best way to divide all of the departments into four cohorts in order to formulate a four-year replacement schedule.

Professor Tom Denny, Chair of FPPC, reported on the committee's activities. After FPPC made its recommendation of key budget parameters to the Board, it learned that the College acquired $19 million in unrestricted bequests. Professor Denny thought that an appropriate use of a large bequest would be to invest it and use the income for enhancing faculty salaries in order to gain ground with the group we compare ourselves to. In the future, he would like to see FPPC alerted about these large sums of money and play a bigger roll in the discussions about how to use them. Professor Denny received email from a colleague asking if faculty compensation is still a central core value of the college. He reported not being sure if the College is still trying to gain ground with its comparison group in terms of faculty salaries.

Professor Una Bray said that she has heard rumors that Skidmore College will no longer compare itself to the CWWCO list and wondered if this rumor was true. She said that the faculty has been promised for several years that their salaries would move up the ranks of our comparative group. She also wondered if the faculty would receive the yearly faculty salary statement from FPPC and the Dean.

Professor Denny stated that with the new Dean perhaps it hasn’t been pushed through in its normal fashion, but the report will get done.

There was a question about whether the College expected the $19 million in unrestricted bequests. Professor Denny thought that it was.

President Studley relinquished the Chair to John Berman.

President Studley explained that the bequest money, referred to reflects more than a year's funds including portions already counted as Journey Campaign revenue. Some is targeted for a specific purpose, which is determined by the donor or reflecting donor or family interests. Most of it is in unrestricted endowment now, generating funds, and based on priorities, decisions are made where to spend it. If a bequest is not yet in endowment, it generates immediate income on a different line of the operating budget and the money generated pays for immediate needs. If a bequest goes into unallocated endowment, it can always be allocated to a specific priority or simply increase our overall funds to met key goals.

She noted that Professor Denny did an extraordinary job of focusing FPPC's attention on the serious issues during the year, keeping FPPC’s eye on the big picture, and identifying specific areas of expense and revenue to pursue carefully..

The faculty compensation question (as a core value) continues to be a top institutional value. It is one of the objectives that the College tries to maximize for the long-term health of the institution. Working together through strategic planning, decisions about faculty compensation and other important priorities for the future will be made and shared. There has been no change in the school's cohort that we look at. It is hard to gain ground against colleges who have bigger endowments and who are getting richer faster. Skidmore could gain ground, but together we would have to find a way to accomplish that.

Dean Berman returned the Chair to President Studley, who then gave the IPC update.

President Studley said that strategic planning is moving along well, and IPC has received from all over campus excellent ideas for reaching our priorities. Additional ideas are still welcome, especially from key committees and programs that reflect special perspectives. IPC has melded these ideas into recurring strategy recommendations that will be shared back with the campus. IPC will work with these recommendations in several ways. The necessary background information will be developed so that the campus and IPC can see the consequences, connections and costs. Initial suggestions will be pursued and combined to create even better and more effective ways to move forward.

There are a few big issues that IPC is working on. A lot of constructive feedback was received on the working goals, and IPC will revise the goals and share them. We need to address explicitly:

• Academic excellence and its relationship to assessment.
• What is meant by diversity.
• Clear explanation of Goal 3. (Closely linking the learning and living elements of the student experience)
• Financial equilibrium--linking goals with financial directions and the budget.

Professor Mehmet Odekon reported that the Committee on Faculty Governance (CFG) convened the Committee of Committees twice during the 2000-01 academic year. The following committees were represented: Admissions and Financial Aid, All-College Council, College Benefits, CAFR, CAPT, CEPP, CFG, Curriculum, FPPC, and IPC. The following issues were discussed:

• The committees reported that their relationship with the administration has been cordial.
• In a broader sense, however, committees reported various structural problems regarding their operations. The problems varied from committee to committee: several committees questioned the impact the faculty had in the committee decision making process; for some, lack of continuity posed a problem in setting a long-term agenda for the committee; some committees questioned the flow and the clarity of information among committee members; for some committees, scheduling of meetings with short notice and without regard to for faculty members’ schedules was a problem.
• The Committee of Committees is concerned with the perception of diminishing faculty voice and hopes that by increasing communication among committees, the faculty governance system will be strengthened.
• On behalf of the Committee of Committees, the CFG thanked the faculty, administrators, support staff, and students who served on committees in 2000-01.

OLD BUSINESS

Professor Odekon, presented the two motions that were introduced at the April 7 faculty meeting.

MOTION 1: Replace "Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty" in the membership language of EMAC (External Masters of Arts Committee), ACC (All-College Council), and AC (Athletic Council) in the Faculty Handbook by "Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty or his/her designee."

Motion 1 carried with all voting in favor.

MOTION 2: Replace "the Dean of Student Affairs" in the membership language of the Athletic Council in the Faculty Handbook by "The Dean of Student Affairs or his/her designee."

Motion 2 carried with all voting in favor.

Hugh Foley, on behalf of Curriculum Committee, presented the motion that was introduced at the April 7, 2001 faculty meeting.

MOTION:

That Skidmore College create a Neuroscience major to replace the current Biology-Psychology interdepartmental major, which will be deleted (effective 08/31/01) if this motion is passed.

Following a few questions, the motion carried with all voting in favor.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• For the Faculty Development Committee, Professor David Domozych announced that Professor John Anzalone is this year’s winner of the Ciancio Award for Excellence in Teaching.
• Professor Phil Boshoff reminded the faculty that the Academic Festival will start on May 2. He thanked the members of the Academic Festival planning committee, members of Periclean, Honors Forum, and SGA as well as John Biggers in Office Services, and Margo Pancerella. He asked the faculty to encourage their students to attend the events.

Professor Susan Kress, Chair of CAPT, read the following resolution on behalf of Charlotte Goodman who is retiring at the end of this academic year:

BE IT RESOLVED, the faculty of Skidmore College expresses its profound appreciation and admiration for the following member of the Skidmore faculty who has this year expressed her determination to retire. The faculty further resolves that the following biographical highlights be included in the minutes of the faculty meeting of April 27, 2001—as recognition and celebration of distinguished service and achievement. (See Attachment A.)

Professor Goodman was presented with a gift and the resolution was passed by acclamation.

Professor Sarah Goodwin announced that the faculty/staff reception would be held in Professor Goodman’s honor at the Surrey immediately following the faculty meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Claire Demarest
Executive Secretary
Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and
Dean of the Faculty