Financial Restraints, New Major Proposals Covered at First Faculty Meeting
Pennsylvania Hall, pictured after the College’s convocation ceremony, August 21, 2024. On Thursday, the College held the first faculty meeting of the year in Mara Auditorium. (Vincent DiFonzo/The Gettysburgian)
By Vincent DiFonzo, Editor-in-Chief
Faculty and administrators met for the first faculty meeting of the academic year on Thursday afternoon, discussing the College’s strategic direction, new major proposals and welcoming new faculty.
Provost Jamila Bookwala first explained that President Bob Iuliano would be unable to attend in-person as he recently tested positive for COVID-19. Iuliano joined the meeting through Zoom.
Iuliano opened the meeting with a moment of silence for Peter Carmichael, professor of history and former director of the Civil War Institute, who died in July.
“Recognizing the heavy hearts we carry with Pete’s passing, I’d still like to welcome everyone to the start of the new academic year,” said Iuliano.
Strategic Direction and Financial Constraints
Iuliano discussed the College’s strategic direction and the draw for prospective students to apply to Gettysburg.
“The partnership between our faculty and students, the lifelong relationships they form here, they are critical reasons why students choose to come here rather than some other institution,” said Iuliano.
Iuliano recognized that the College was recently ranked tenth in the nation by the Princeton Review in “Best Classroom Experience.”
Next, he addressed financial and enrollment difficulties facing the College.
“Ten or so years ago, there were far more students seeking a liberal arts education than there were spots. Today, it is precisely the opposite,” Iuliano said. “Our students are applying to a dozen or so schools; they have choices. They are being admitted to multiple of those schools, most of which also provide an exceptional education.”
He characterized the College as “remarkably strong,” despite “external pressures.”
Iuliano argued that financial aid provided to students is one of the College’s main attractions to prospective students. The College recently ranked second in the nation in the Princeton Review’s “Great Financial Aid” category.
“We are providing increasing amounts of financial aid to encourage students to enroll here,” he said. “The average student is paying significantly less than what it costs us to educate them, and that’s not sustainable over the long-term.”
Iuliano said the College must “compete less on price and more on programming.”
The College provided $90 million in merit scholarships and need-based grants in the 2022-23 academic year. About 60% of students received some form of scholarship or financial aid that year.
This year, tuition, housing and food costs $82,750 per year, while the average student pays $31,048 after financial aid, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Iuliano next shared “three key philosophies” that support the strategic direction.
First, he said that Gettysburg students get involved outside of the classroom and urged that the College should “take better advantage of that reality.”
“A central commitment of the strategic direction is to ensure that these activities aren’t haphazard, but instead are more purposeful learning and growth opportunities,” said Iuliano.
Second, he argued that an “integrated experience” is a major draw to the College.
“What do I mean by integrated? Creating an environment where what students learn in the classroom is applied outside the classroom, and what’s happening outside the classroom gets fed back in.”
Third, he said that the liberal arts education provided by the College must be purposeful in “getting them ready to succeed in their professional lives.”
Iuliano also highlighted an increase in domestic applications and record-high applications this year but argued that “the underlying financial challenges actually intensified.”
Iuliano continued, “Remember when I said that students have choice? We see it in our yield. That’s the percentage of students who we admit who decide to enroll. It continues to face downward pressure and that translates into more pressure on our overall revenue.”
He argued that the best way forward for the College is to appeal to more prospective students.
“Our main focus this year has to be on strengthening our case to current and prospective students,” he said.
New Major Proposals
Next, Bookwala took the podium, welcomed faculty back and recognized new staff in the Provost office. She also mentioned that the College is in its final stages in the search for a new director of the Center for Global Engagement, as previous director Jesse Phillips left the College last month.
Bookwala discussed two new major proposals that are in their final stages of development. The economics and management departments are working on a major in finance, and the health sciences and public policy departments are developing a public health policy major.
These new major proposals will be addressed and voted on in a future faculty meeting. More information will also be shared on Sept. 6 at a Friday Forum meeting.
She also mentioned that the interdisciplinary studies department is working on a major in data science.
“By adding these majors to our curriculum, we can bring more students from families who are willing to pay more if they are able. And we can bring more students who will learn about fields such as finance, public health, data science and communications in a liberal arts environment like ours,” Bookwala said.
Faculty Morale
She also revealed that the Provost office will focus on lifting faculty morale this year. She announced that funds have been raised to build community among faculty, and asked faculty members to bring suggestions for how to use these funds.
Bookwala then said the Provost’s office will focus on improving the climate for faculty in response to the loss of six faculty members over the summer.
The following professors left the College for various reasons over the summer: Lidia HwaSoon Anchisi in Italian studies, Beth Campbell Hetrick and Daren Glass in mathematics, McKinley Melton in English, Angel Solis in biology and Deborah Sommer in religious studies.
“The known reasons are varied: career advancement, return to one’s alma mater, retirement, life demands and resignation due to an unwelcoming and unsupportive climate. This last reason is the most troubling — we should all be troubled by it — because we are all responsible for climate in our departments and on campus,” Bookwala said.
She discussed potential ways to improve the climate for faculty.
“We all need to play a role in changing climate. It’s not something that we can mandate, it’s something we need to do. We need to take ownership. We need to take responsibility. So I urge you to be an ally for change,” she said.
Bookwala encouraged faculty to reach out to herself or Michelle Schmidt, associate provost for faculty affairs, to report instances that lead to an unprofessional or unsupportive climate.
Anniversaries, New Hires Recognized
Next, Bookwala recognized faculty who have been with the College for 25 years.
Philosophy professor Steve Gimbel was recognized first. He has worked at the College for 28 years, 25 of which were full-time.
“He hopes that they’ll let him [Gimbel] go sometime soon, as he’s been told he has kids,” Bookwala joked.
He was recognized for 84 peer-reviewed publications over his tenure at the College. Gimbel also takes pride in his interdisciplinary work — he has co-taught or co-published with faculty from 23 different departments and programs.
Next, Bookwala recognized professor Eleanor Hogan in East Asian studies. Hogan started teaching Japanese at the College in 1999 and helped to create the East Asian studies department.
Bookwala said that Hogan’s favorite parts of working at the College include working with other East Asian studies faculty and watching students grow in their Japanese language abilities.
Bookwala then introduced Schmidt to introduce new faculty.
Schmidt first thanked the chemistry and health sciences departments for their search last year for new tenure-track faculty.
Chemistry professor Emily Dieter, who started in June, was recognized first. She earned her Ph.D in biological chemistry at the University of Washington. She also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Children’s Medical Research Institute in Sydney, Australia and at Montana State University-Bozeman.
Health sciences professor Victoria Wolf was recognized next. She earned her Ph.D in physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi before working at the Medical University of South Carolina. She has worked at the College as a visiting assistant professor for two years.
Visiting assistant professor Eatai Roth was recognized next, joining the interdisciplinary studies to teach data science. He earned his Ph.D in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Additionally, four language teaching assistants joined the College’s faculty this year: Kotoha Mori in Japanese, Wei-Ling Kuo in Chinese, Maria Gonzalez Pinzon in Spanish and Lara Ullrich in German.
Bookwala then recognized new employees working in administrative roles.
She concluded the meeting, thanking faculty for their attendance and inviting them to the Atrium for a reception.
