A message from the Ithaca College H&S Faculty Senate: 

In the wake of the all-college faculty meeting that took place on Thursday, Jan. 30 and the debates that it has sparked, the H&S Faculty Senate wishes to express our collective commitment to respectful and constructive dialogue that will allow us to navigate the very real challenges that we are facing as a community. Those challenges include maintaining the college’s fiscal health while educating our diverse student body in a fully welcoming, supportive and academically rigorous environment. We believe that vitriolic and sweeping denunciations have the potential to polarize us, making it that much more difficult for us to engage in the complex conversations that are so necessary for the health of our institution, our student body and our faculty.

There is bound to be disagreement among us, but we hope that our debates can model for our students the kind of thoughtful, intellectually nuanced discourse that we value despite the fact that it appears to be evaporating in the larger society in which we live. We believe that such debates are only possible if we assume goodwill even in those people with whom we disagree, if we listen at least as much as we speak, and if we agree that we are, despite inevitable and sometimes productive dissension, one college.

Sincerely,

The H&S Faculty Senate

         Claire Gleitman, English

         Jennifer Tennant, Economics

         Hugh Egan, English

         Kelley Sullivan, Physics

         Michael Trotti, History

         Dara Engler, Art

         Wendy Dann, Theatre Arts

         Chrystyna Dail, Theatre Arts

         Matt Klemm, History

         Marella Feltrin-Morris, Modern Languages and Literatures

         John Barr, Computer Science

         Emilie Wiesner, Math

         Gustavo Licon, Center for the Study of Culture, Race and Ethnicity

         Jessica Dunning-Lozano, Sociology

         Department Chair, Sociology