President Tom Rochon held all-college faculty meetings Monday and Tuesday to discuss the future of Ithaca College.

Rochon said about 100 faculty members showed up between the two meetings, which are held every semester. Though he said he would have liked to see more faculty, the low turnout was a good thing.

“Realistically, the low turnout shows that faculty aren’t deeply unhappy,” he said.

Rochon, along with Kathleen Rountree, provost and vice president of academic affairs; Carl Sgrecci, vice president of finance and administration; and Eric Maguire, vice president of enrollment management, fielded questions concerning faculty governance, the status of the integrated curriculum IC2 and the 2010-11 budget and enrollment process.

The three topics were chosen because Rochon said those were issues faculty were interested in.

The media were barred from attending the meeting, but Rochon and other participants discussed the meeting with The Ithacan afterwards.

Rochon said IC2 is funded and on its way to being completed. Concerning faculty governance, Rochon said he would like to see more faculty and administration collaboration.

Faculty who were not able to make the 3 p.m. meeting Monday had the opportunity to attend the noon-hour meeting Tuesday. The president spoke for about 25 minutes and then opened the rest of the hour-long meeting up to discussion.  

Rochon said most of the questions from faculty members were about the college’s target enrollment in the next few years.

Rochon emphasized that enrollment demographics are changing and the predicted smaller number of high school graduates in the next 15 years may affect the college.

“We need to attract prospective students so not to become a smaller college,” he said.

Maguire said though the administration is concerned with the changing demographics, the college will be prepared.

“We’re working on strategies to increase applications in the upcoming years,” he said.

Rochon said faculty members discussed how the college should be more receptive to transfer students in an effort to keep first-year enrollment steady.

Emilie Wiesner, assistant professor of math, said she decided to attend the meeting Tuesday afternoon because she was curious about the future of enrollment. She said at the meeting, she learned that other schools were going through the same issues because of the shifting demographics. She said she walked away feeling like the college is focused.  

“It seems like IC has a plan,” she said. “They talked about how the college is going to better advertise to prospective students.”

Stan Seltzer, associate professor and chair of the math department, attended both Monday and Tuesday’s meetings. Seltzer said the meetings created a sense of dialogue between Rochon and faculty.

“The president had a few things he thought were important for faculty to hear,” he said. “But he also wanted to hear faculty and address things they had

concerns about.”

 Seltzer also said enrollment was the topic of discussion at both meetings. He said the president and Maguire want to encourage students in the Northeast to attend the college.

 “It’s an uphill struggle to get to what they’re looking for because demographics in the Northeast aren’t great, but if they can accomplish what they want, it won’t be so bad,” he said. “It wasn’t a doom-and-gloom scenario.”

Seltzer also said he thought faculty and the president communicated well at the meetings.

“I’ve been to meetings in the past with previous presidents, and they have been hostile on faculty members’ part,” he said. “But this was not one of them.”

Rochon said the next all-college faculty meeting will be sometime in February, shortly after the board of trustees meets to discuss the 2010-11 budget.

Rochon said he looks forward to meeting with faculty again in the spring.

“It’s very important to have a direct channel of communication between the faculty and me,” he said. “The opportunity for face-to-face dialogue is precious, and I’m very glad we do this twice a year.”