Dear Ithaca College Community,
I am writing to update the campus community about additional leadership changes that will take effect when I assume the interim presidency of Ithaca College on Aug. 30, as was announced on July 8 by board of trustees chair David H. Lissy ’87 and vice chair Jim Nolan ’77.
Melanie Stein, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of mathematics, has agreed to serve as interim provost for the 2021-22 academic year. Dean Stein came to Ithaca College in 2019 from Trinity College in Connecticut, where she served as the dean of academic affairs for three years after having been a faculty member in the math department there since 1995. A strong and thoughtful leader, she has helped advance the goals of the Ithaca Forever strategic plan and has been a thought partner to me and her fellow deans since her arrival. Dean Stein’s consultative decision-making style has been appreciated by the faculty and staff in H&S and will be welcomed by the entire college community.
Claire Gleitman, professor of English in the School of Humanities and Sciences, will serve as interim dean of H&S for the 2021-22 academic year. During her nearly three decades of teaching, scholarship, and service at Ithaca College, Professor Gleitman has won two faculty excellence awards (2017 and 2007) and has served as the president of the H&S Faculty Senate six times; chair of the Department of English nine times; member of Faculty Council for two, three-year terms; and member of the Faculty Council Executive Committee for four years. Since the fall of 2020 she has served as the Coordinator of Women’s and Gender Studies, soon to become Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Professor Gleitman is also an accomplished scholar, with her latest book, Anxious Masculinity in Arthur Miller’s Drama and Beyond: Salesmen, Sluggers, and Big Daddies, forthcoming from Bloomsbury Press/Methuen Drama in June of 2022.
Stacia Zabusky, currently the associate dean for curriculum and undergraduate programs in the School of Humanities and Sciences, will become the senior associate dean for curriculum and undergraduate programs. A member of the Ithaca College community since 1995, Dr. Zabusky began her career as a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology, the same year her book Launching Europe: An Ethnography of Cooperation in European Space Science was published by Princeton University Press. Since joining the dean’s office in the School of Humanities and Sciences as associate dean in 2006 she has led many initiatives, including chairing the All College Teacher Education Committee, developing and leading the H&S Summer Scholars Program, and expertly supporting H&S department chairs and faculty in all curricular matters. Most recently, she has taken on a college leadership role by co-chairing the Curriculum Revision Liaison Committee with Associate Provost Jeane Copenhaver-Johnson, supporting and guiding schools and departments across the college as they undertake comprehensive curricular revision.
Please join me in thanking Dean Stein, Professor Gleitman, and Dr. Zabusky for their willingness to serve the college as interim provost, interim dean, and senior associate dean at this important juncture in Ithaca College’s history. Their service to the college is and will continue to be appreciated.
All my best,
La Jerne Terry Cornish
Provost and Executive Vice President