Ithaca College

Contributed on behalf of Tom Grape ’80, chairman of the Board of Trustees

To the Campus Community:

From October 19 to 21, the Ithaca College Board of Trustees and I will be on campus for our first full board meeting of the academic year. I always look forward to the October meeting, because I get to experience the energy of our campus when the semester is in full swing.

After our meetings conclude, I will share updates about our work. In the meantime, I wanted to send you a preview of what we will be working on this fall and beyond. 

Our Community and Our Future
When I was on campus in August for convocation, I had the chance to talk to our newest students about why I think it’s such an exciting time to be at Ithaca College. We have a lot of important work going on that will shape the college for decades to come, and that is a tremendous opportunity for all of us. I invited our new students to join our community in:

• Engaging in our sustained efforts to build a more inclusive and welcoming Ithaca College;
• Shaping a new approach for shared governance, which will ensure wider participation in the college’s decision making;
• Celebrating Ithaca College’s 125th anniversary, which starts in fall 2017; and
• Welcoming a new president.

The list above makes me excited for our future—and these are just a few of the big topics that the board will work on in the coming year. But just as important and exciting are all of the individual, personally transforming moments that make this college great: those experiences of learning, creating, bonding, performing, supporting, and achieving that happen on our campus every day.

I believe that Ithaca College is, at its heart, an inquisitive, resilient, and deeply idealistic community made up of people that truly care for one another, and I am grateful that we have this shared foundation to help us shape a better future for the college together.

Our community’s compassion came to the forefront this fall when a senseless act of violence took the life of one of our own students, Anthony Nazaire. The board members and I were deeply saddened by the loss, and we were moved to see our IC community on and off campus support Anthony’s friends and family and help one another in so many ways, both large and small.

Introducing Our Newest Trustees
This week our newest trustees, elected to the board in May, will participate in their first full meetings. You can learn more about them and the returning members on the trustees website. The college also has just published an interview with all of the new members.  I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know these incredibly talented and dedicated individuals as much as I have.

The process for electing trustees, as well as some of the skills and attributes that the board seeks in candidates, is outlined on our website. Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll share more details about these processes and other aspects of board life, because I believe it is critically important for our community to understand the role of the board and its members.

Inclusive Excellence
Continuing our focus on diversity and inclusion has been a priority of every board meeting since last fall, and the board has been preparing for an intensive workshop with Craig B. Clayton, a well-known consultant in diversity and inclusiveness education. Clayton has been working with the college since July to help all of our volunteer groups gain stronger cross-cultural competency and more effective approaches to improve inclusiveness. In this week’s workshop, we will focus on the role that boards can play in stewarding a stronger climate of inclusivity on campus and on the board itself, as well as ways to measure effectiveness and keep improving.  I look forward to sharing reflections on this work after our meetings this week.

Time with campus community
In addition to standard board meetings, we will have a number of opportunities to connect with our campus community this week. For example, we are hosting a joint meeting with the executive committees of the Faculty Council, Student Governance Council, and Staff Council. We also look forward to an event honoring all of our newly tenured and promoted faculty members. The board and I are very much looking forward to interacting with students, faculty, and staff—learning about one another, sharing ideas, and finding connections.

I’m also happy to announce that all three board meetings this year will be held in Ithaca. We had an informal tradition of holding the winter meeting in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, where large concentrations of IC alumni live and work. Last February, we moved our meeting to Ithaca so that we could spend more time with faculty, students, and staff as the community was working together through the unrest of last year. Our interactions were so valuable and constructive that we have decided to meet again in Ithaca, and continue to make progress together during this time of transition.

This summer, one of the biggest transitions we’ll experience is the retirement of our current president and installation of our ninth president. I’d like to say thank you to my colleagues on the presidential search committee for the exceptional work they are doing to help identify the next president of Ithaca College. I have tremendous respect for how hard and thoughtfully they have been working on the college’s behalf.

Finally, I would like our community to know that the board has remained abreast of the challenges that the college and the part-time faculty union are experiencing in their first contract negotiation. We remain optimistic that future bargaining sessions will be productive, and that the college and the union will arrive together at a fair and equitable agreement that supports the needs of our students, faculty, and the institution as a whole.

Thank you all for working to make Ithaca College stronger. Your work matters. 

Sincerely,

Tom Grape ’80
Chair, Ithaca College Board of Trustees