Beatrice Mantel
Kirra Franzese, associate vice president and chief human resources officer said health insurance costs across the board will increase between $1.03 and $88.76.
The Ithaca College Faculty Council met Oct. 7 to discuss upcoming employee health insurance premium increases, new software access and micro-credentials.
The meeting opened with council chair Dennis Charsky, professor in the Department of Strategic Communication and the director of the Communication Management and Design program, introducing new members of the council. The new members are Sayanti Mondal, assistant professor in the Department of Writing and Saviana Stănescu, professor and chair of the Department of Theatre Studies.
Melanie Stein, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, gave updates to the college’s accreditation process being handled by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education Accreditation. Accreditation is a quality assurance and recognition process for higher education institutions. Stein said the accreditation team is being led by Joseph Evan, provost and vice president for academic affairs at King’s College and that he and his team will visit and give an evaluation of IC in March 2026.
Health insurance changes
Kirra Franzese, associate vice president and chief human resources officer, spoke to the council regarding upcoming changes to employee health insurance. Franzese said health insurance costs across the board will increase between $1.03 and $88.76, depending on the health plan, for employees and the college in 2026.
“This is not an Ithaca College only problem, this is a national problem,” Franzese said. “Everyone is facing increased costs for health care.”
Outside of factors like inflation and rising drug prices, Franzese said a major factor in the increase in the college’s health care costs came from an abnormal amount of high-cost claims from employees in the past year. High-cost claims are insurance claims over $75,000. Franzese said occurrences of high-cost claims have doubled in 2025, while claims in general are up 34%. IC has a self-insured health plan, meaning the college can provide its own health plans and accepts full financial responsibility for health benefits.
Franzese said the projected medical benefit spending for 2025 was $14.2 million, but that the college is currently running 30% over budget. She said the projected budget for 2026 has been increased to about $18 million and the increased expenses will have to be split between the college and the employees. These changes go into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
The three main employee health insurance plans, Blue High Deductible Health Plan, Gold HDHP and Choice POS II will all see increases. The Blue HDHP plan will see monthly increases between $1.03 and $28.57; the Gold HDHP plan, the most common plan, will see monthly increases between $4.80 and $56.01; and the Choice POS II plan will see monthly increases between $25.70 and $88.76.
Michael Trotti, professor in the Department of History and legal studies coordinator, said while he understands that costs increase every year, the 2026 budget appears to be far above the rate of inflation and asked how much more the increase was this year than past years. Franzese said costs have increased at a much higher rate in the past four years.
David Gondek, associate professor in the Department of Biology, asked why costs and expenditure have gone up by so much in the past few years, while the college was cutting faculty positions through the Academic Prioritization Plan process. Gondek suggested the increase in high–cost claims was a result of an aging faculty from a lack of new hires. Franzese said faculty cuts do not account for dependents and restated the issue of high-cost claims.
“As someone who experienced a tragedy in their life this past year, I was so grateful for that insurance,” Franzese said. “You don’t even need to be aging, people have accidents, people get cancer. The increasing rate is caused by a lot of things.”
Amy Rominger, clinical associate professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, asked whether IC being self-insured was better than being fully-insured, especially when the personal costs for faculty and staff keep going up. Franzese said the college may have to reassess next year if the benefits of being self-insured are worth it. She said if being self–insured becomes more expensive than being fully-insured in the coming years, they may make a switch.
New software
Jenna Linskens, director of the Center for Instructional Design and Educational Technology, spoke to the council about new software offerings for students and faculty. Linskens said there are now limited logins for faculty to use Canva Enterprise, complete with branded IC templates and assets, sponsored by Marketing Communications. As part of this deal, all students now have access to Canva Pro and can sign in using single sign on with their IC email address. Faculty and staff will not have access to free Canva Pro.
Additionally, Linskens said all students, staff and faculty now have access to Adobe Express, the Adobe software suite.
Micro-credentials updates
Ingrid Johnston, associate provost for academic programs, spoke to the council with further updates on the micro-credential system. Johnston said micro-credentials will be between four and 14 credits and will appear on student transcripts but not DegreeWorks. Johnston said students will keep track of their own credential requirements and communicate with their department chair when they have completed one.
“These are to be resource neutral, so we’re not looking for new courses or major staffing implications,” Johnston said. “It’s really a way to optimize the coursework we already have.”
Johnston said micro-credentials will be planned out through conversations between each school’s deans, department heads and faculty members. The Department of Computer Science has piloted this program in Spring 2025 and already has three micro-credentials available.
Devan Rosen, professor in the Department of Media Arts, Sciences, and Studies, asked about how micro-credentials would affect adviser workloads.
“We have faculty on our campus that might have 83 advisees, and if 62 of them end up doing two micro-credentials each, that’s a fairly large lift for the adviser [to] know what each one of those departments are offering or how to base those courses,” Rosen said. “I think it’s a fantastic initiative, I just think that it’s worth thinking through how this will impact an advisory role.”
Rominger said she thought the micro-credentials should be available on DegreeWorks because it would make it easier for advisers to know what skills students have and how they can use those skills to help market themselves for jobs or graduate school. Johnston said there were many conversations being had around this subject and that it was good to continue them.
“We’re still working on those kinds of questions,” Johnston said. “We really want to find ways to demonstrate that these are worthwhile and these are benefitting students and that they really do gain the skills [from the micro-credential].”
The Ithaca College Faculty Council meets from 4-6 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month in the Taughannock Falls room of the Campus Center. The faculty council can be contacted at [email protected].