Friday, December 3, 2021
To: Melanie Stein – Interim Provost
From: Cynthia Henderson – Professor and Assoc. Chair, Performance Faculty, Theatre Arts
Jennifer Kay – Associate Professor, Music Performance
Benjamin Rochford – Associate Director of Bands, Assistant Professor, Music Performance
Saviana Stanescu – Associate Professor, Theatre Studies, Theatre Arts
Steve TenEyck – Professor and Chair, Production & Design Faculty, Theatre Arts
Ivy Walz – Interim Dean, School of Music
Lilly Westbrook – Teaching Staff, Costume Shop Manager, Theatre Arts
John White – Associate Professor, Music Theory, History, Composition
Baruch Whitehead – Associate Professor, Music Education
Bradley Whittemore – Director of Music Admission
Christopher Zemliauskas – Assistant Professor, Director Musical Theatre & Opera
Re: Recommendation from the SOM/DTA Transition Committee
Provost Stein,
The School of Music & Department of Theatre Arts Transition Committee would like to unanimously recommend that we move forward under the one school model with the name of School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (MTD) with a Division of Music and a Division of Theatre & Dance. We also propose maintaining two independent planning units with their robust governance structures intact including leadership, tenure and promotion, curriculum, and assessments to name a few. Additionally, we recommend that this new model include two Associate Deans: one from Music and one from Theatre & Dance. We also recommend that the institution seize on this moment as an opportunity to capitalize in the marketplace with intentional positive messaging around uniting these two strong programs.
The reasons for this recommendation are as follows:
This proposed model will align with the four other schools at Ithaca College with one dean and an associate dean(s) structure per school.
This proposal will create an adaptive academic unit to serve current and future students in the arts by allowing for more cross-disciplinary training and exposure, better preparing them for real world multi-disciplinary artistic careers in the 21st century.
This proposal honors the first two units at Ithaca College (Music and Theatre Arts) as foundational to the formation of Ithaca College. With this unification, there is great potential to be more prominently visible for prospective students and to attract an expanding donor base alike.
The proposed model of one school will elevate the uniting of two strong units, creating a moment to display to the outside world a position of strength, placing them in a more prominent institutional position from the outward facing perspective.
This proposal reaffirms the mutual commitment of both divisions in their work to be leaders in inclusive and anti-racist practice in the performing arts by creating space for both units to foster the work that has begun, as well as collaborate in the work moving forward.
This proposal benefits both units by allowing for more ease of future curricular collaboration, and provides opportunity for Music and Theatre Music colleagues to work intentionally across curriculum.
This proposal allows for a level of autonomy for each planning unit, as it recognizes the need for specialists, and that certain areas may experience less cross-collaboration. Yet, over time, as the needs of our students may evolve, this model provides an opportunity to collaborate more effectively, thereby leveraging the stature and strength of both units into a stronger identity.
This proposal further elevates the prominence of the dance area within theatre arts.
This proposal positions the search for a new dean to be successful, attracting excellent candidates with this exciting opportunity, leading this newly formed school at Ithaca College.
This proposal serves to be a model for the rest of the College, in as much as this work demonstrates a process and precedent for how to innovate and transform in leveraging the strengths of each planning unit. We recognize that more collaborations are desired among the five schools, and it is our hope that through this work we will discover more clearly and share with our colleagues what we learn to help remove the existing barriers for cross disciplinary work. Page Break
Context and Background
The School of Music and Department of Theatre Arts Transition Team spent the better part of the Fall semester learning about one another’s structures, collecting feedback and input from colleagues, benchmarking competitor, and comparator institutions, and engaging in robust conversations around many questions, concerns and ideas around coming together under one dean.
As we examined the structures, we learned about the Planning Unit. The main official organizational unit, as spelled out in section 4.9.7 of the Faculty Handbook is the Planning Unit. Faculty with a variety of appointment types (tenured, tenure-eligible, non-tenure-eligible notice, part time, etc.) are appointed to a planning unit, and each planning unit maintains curricular and staffing plans. Formal reviews of faculty, for instance tenure reviews, begin with a review and recommendation by a planning unit review committee. Procedures for changes in planning units, such as combining two planning units, dissolving a planning unit, or creating new planning units are specified in the handbook.
The term “planning unit” is something new to many of us. We are much more familiar with other organizational structures such as departments, schools, and divisions. Interim Provost Stein helped us in understanding that currently, our planning units are organized into five groupings, the five schools. Each school also has departments, but they are not necessarily the same as planning units (some departments are planning units, and some are not. Some planning units contain multiple departments, whereas other planning units contain exactly one department). Thus, departmental functions vary across the College. Schools, divisions, and departments can be reorganized without following the process outlined in section 4.9.9 of the faculty manual.
As an example, suppose two departments (also planning units) on campus who are closely allied have been exploring how to reorganize to work more closely together. They have two options:
Join to become a single planning unit (and department), with a new name reflecting the combined nature. They must follow the faculty handbook process outlined in section 4.9.9.
Remain two planning units but combine to become a single department with a new name reflecting the combined nature.
Both options will require changes to the website to reflect the new structure. And in either structure, they may want to name the two parts of the department (in option 1) or the planning units (in option 2) to maintain the identities they bring. They could refer to themselves, for instance, as two programs (or divisions or some new noun) within a department. Each runs several degree programs.
Both options allow for each planning unit (Music & Theatre) to maintain their discrete budgets, endowed funds and annual use funds. There is the possibility in the one school model that additional fundraising opportunities might present themselves to develop school wide annual use funds.
Reflecting on the School of Music and the Department of Theatre Arts, two of the planning units at Ithaca College, which are to be brought together under one Dean, we recognize there is more than one way to reorganize. We are proposing that the best way forward is simply to bring the two planning units under a single school’s umbrella, without changing the two planning units and the faculty lines and curricula (degree programs) within them, all without invoking the procedures in the Faculty Manual (since no changes to planning units are contemplated)
My signature below indicates my support for the recommendation.
John W. White, Associate Professor, Music Theory, History, Composition, Jazz Studies
Marc Webster, Associate Professor, Performance Studies
Christopher Zemliauskas ‘97, Assistant Professor, Performance Studies
Benjamin Rochford, Associate Director of Bands, Performance Studies
Dann Coakwell, Assistant Professor of Voice, Performance Studies
Alison Wahl, Assistant Professor of Voice, Performance Studies
Beatrice Olesko, Assistant Professor, Music Education
Matthew Clauhs, Assistant Professor, Music Education
Sean Linfors, Assistant Professor, Music Education
Morgan Jolley, Assistant Professor, Music Education
James Mick, MM ‘05, Associate Professor, Music Education
Jennifer Kay, Associate Professor, Performance Studies
Martha Guth, Assistant Professor, Performance Studies
Sara Haefeli, Associate Professor, Music Theory, History, and Composition
Kristina Shanton, Music Librarian, & Lecturer, Music Theory, History, and Composition
Shannon Hills, Academic Service Coordinator
Sherri Dunham, Administrative Assistant, Theatre Arts
Chrystyna Dail, Associate Professor, Theatre History and Theatre Studies
Mary Scheidegger, Coordinator of Theatre Operations, Theatre Arts
Amy W. O’Brien, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Ryan Dickson ‘18, Instructor, Theatre Arts
Daniel Zimmerman, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Cynthia Henderson, Professor, Associate Chair, Theatre Arts
Steve TenEyck, Professor, Chair, Theatre Arts
Lilly Westbrook, Costume Shop Manager, Theatre Arts
Bradley Whittemore ‘16, Director, Music Admission, School of Music
Gregory Evans, G’11, Assistant Professor, Performance Studies, Jazz Studies
Mike Garrett, Lighting and Sound Supervisor, Theatre Arts
Amanda Gladu, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Dawn Pierce, Associate Professor, Performance Studies
Becky Jordan, Manager, Library of Ensemble Music & Music Education Resources
Jeff Theiss, Assistant Professor, Musical Theater, Theatre Arts
Michael Caporizzo ‘10, Assistant Professor & Interim Director of Sound Recording Technology
Sara Jacobs, Administrative Assistant to the Dean, School of Music
Elizabeth Medina-Gray, Assistant Professor, Music Theory, History, and Composition
Felice Doynov, Assistant Director, Music Admission, School of Music
Gavin Mayer, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Austin Jones, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Ruth Barber, Instructor of Scenic Art and Design, Theatre Arts
Deborah Rifkin, Professor, Music Theory, History, and Composition
Wendy Dann, Professor, Theatre Arts
Kitty Whalen, Administrative and Communications Coordinator, School of Music
Ainsley Anderson ‘10, Instructor, Theatre Arts
Don Tindall, Professor, Theatre Arts
Colin Stewart, Associate Professor, Theatre Arts
Walter Byongsok Chon, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Molly Windover, Scheduling and Events Assistant, School of Music
Ivy Walz, ‘98, ‘02, Associate Professor Performance Studies, Interim Dean, School of Music
Catherine Weidner, Professor and Former Chair of Theatre Arts (2013-2021)
Seth Soulstein, Lecturer, Theatre Arts
Michael Samuel Kaplan, Assistant Professor, Acting
Saviana Stanescu, Associate Professor, Playwriting, BA in Theatre Studies Program Coordinator
Courtney Young, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Daniel Gwirtzman, Assistant Professor, Theatre Arts
Paula Murray Cole ‘87, Associate Professor, Theatre Arts
Joey Bromfield, Scene Shop and Props Supervisor, Theatre Arts
Angela Branneman, Associate Professor and Degree Coordinator, Theatre Arts Management