By Ella Prieto, Editor-in-Chief
President’s Report
President Iuliano began the faculty meeting by reminding everyone that Get Acquainted Day (GAD) will take place this coming Saturday. The event has had the largest number of registrants in four years.
“If you have a chance to be on campus Saturday, strike up a conversation with a prospective student and their family,” urged Iuliano. “This is a really important opportunity to help build the class.”
He then provided an update on Gettysburg 2.0, stating that it is in a new phase of development, as market research has concluded. An in-depth presentation of the research will take place on April 28 at 4 p.m. in CUB. In the summer, a group will be formed to turn the research into a set of proposals to be discussed in the fall when the faculty reconvenes.
Iuliano concluded by thanking everyone who has worked on 2.0 thus far.
“So many people have devoted time, energy and sweat equity into really conceptualizing in bold ways what a future could look like for a dynamic liberal education that is very much Gettysburg,” he said. “I’m really excited by where we are.”
Provost’s Report
Provost Jamilia Bookwala reminded faculty that the Provost’s Office is conducting an anonymous feedback survey via email. She then handed her time over to Psychology Professor Richard Russell to provide more details about the College’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Initiative.
Russell announced that the initiative is looking to fill three positions on the AI leadership team, which is composed of faculty, students and administrators organizing how the College will be approaching AI. These three positions would be tenured faculty members from each academic division for the 2026-27 academic year, with the possibility of renewal. The position includes working on pedagogical innovation, organizing and conducting other professional development activities, leading structured discussions on AI among faculty, managing and facilitating the work of departmental AI coordinators and developing policy and curricular innovation as a part of a Gettysburg approach to AI.
Due to the high workload of this position, it would come with a course release for the faculty members chosen. The positions and application process will be announced formally through email soon.
Proposed Change in Policy for Soliciting External Evaluator Letters
Chair of the Faculty Personnel Committee (FPC), Economics Professor Brendan Cushing-Daniels, presented a motion to make the Provost’s Office responsible for soliciting letters from the external evaluators of tenure requests and providing those letters to evaluation committee members and the FPC. The rationale for the policy is that the current system of Department Chairs soliciting letters is “overly cumbersome and leads, infrequently but problematically, to situations in which external evaluation letters are not available in a timely manner.”
Faculty members appeared to split on passing the proposed policy. Some were in favor, asserting that it would cut down on ‘busy work’ for chairs. Others felt that the policy was not needed, and it was better for someone within the academic discipline to be requesting the letters.
The policy will be voted on at a later meeting.
Proposed Policy to Change Faculty Meeting Operating Rules
Faculty Council members Professor of History William Bowman and Interdisciplinary Studies Professor Ian Isherwood presented a policy to change faculty meeting operating rules. The change would allow for more than one main motion to be introduced prior to the resolution of a separate main motion. However, only a single motion can be discussed at one time, and a main motion cannot be introduced if it is dependent on the outcome of a main motion that has been resolved. The hope is that this would allow the faculty to work through more issues in each meeting.
Faculty members appeared poised to support the policy, and it will be voted on in the next meeting.
Study Abroad Working Group Update
French Professor Jack Murphy provided an update from the Study Abroad Working Group (SAWG). SAWG has been working to identify ways to reduce spending on global study while maintaining academic quality and access. They are presenting a report to President Iuliano later this semester on their findings from their work, but wanted to update the faculty as well.
Currently, the College has a strong reliance on semester-long programs through third-party providers. While these offer deep academic and cultural immersion, they are the most expensive type of program. Last semester, SAWG helped form a new agreement with the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), which lowered per-student costs. However, it only got the College about one-third of the way toward the needed reduction in costs.
Thus, SAWG is trying to change the structure of study abroad programs to make a substantial additional cut to further reduce the global study budget. The program models they considered are semester-long partner programs, faculty-partnered semester programs, 7-week faculty-led programs, short-term intensive courses offered abroad in Jan. or May and courses with embedded travel.
They currently have three approaches to the issue:
Very Restrictive – Least costly (in line with the budget goal), but fewer study abroad opportunities with lower participation. Additionally, greater use of shorter or lower-cost programs, and limits access to higher-cost programs.
Restrictive – Moderately costly (slightly over the budget goal) with similar overall participation to current rates. More students in lower-cost semester programs, and selective limits on higher-cost programs.
Less Restrictive – Still a high cost, broad access to semester programs is maintained and continued use of a range of providers.
Each option comes with tradeoffs to consider, and the report to Iuliano does not recommend an option; it simply provides them. Any significant changes to global study will require curricular review, program approval processes and ongoing faculty oversight.
