Thomas R. Rochon To Be Inaugurated As Eighth President Of Ithaca College

Dave Maley, 4/9/2009

ITHACA, NY — Members of the Ithaca College community will join with representatives from the higher education community and other distinguished guests on Friday, April 17, to celebrate the inauguration of Thomas R. Rochon as the eighth president of Ithaca College. The 3:00 p.m. ceremony in Ben Light Gymnasium will cap two days of festivities surrounding Rochon’s formal investiture.

C. William Schwab ’68, chairman of the Ithaca College Board of Trustees, will preside over the inauguration. In addition to remarks by President Rochon, the ceremony will feature an address by political scientist Robert D. Putnam titled “A New ‘Greatest Generation’?” Putnam, who is a professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, will also be awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree.

While the inauguration ceremony is free and open to the public, tickets to the event are required. Tickets may be picked up Monday–Friday from noon to 6 p.m. at the Recreation Center ticket desk, located on the ground floor of Phillips Hall on the Ithaca College campus.

Ithaca College’s student-run television and radio stations will provide live coverage of the ceremony, which can also be viewed on the Internet. The telecast by ICTV will air on Time Warner Cable channel 16 in the Ithaca area beginning at 2:30 p.m. Coverage will begin at 3:00 p.m. on WICB-FM at 91.7 on the radio dial. The live webcast of the ceremony will be available from the inauguration website at http://www.ithaca.edu/inauguration/.

Putting theory into practice has been at the heart of an Ithaca College education since its founding as the Ithaca Conservatory of Music in 1892, and the celebration of President Rochon’s inauguration will showcase Ithaca’s tradition of “learning by doing.”

Below is the schedule of inaugural events which are free and open to the public:

Thursday, April 16
James J. Whalen Academic Symposium
9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Campus Center
Annual presentation of student research and creative work done in collaboration with faculty sponsors.

 Student Inaugural Concert
8:30–10:00 p.m., Fitness Center
Performances by Ithaca College student groups Ithacappella, Amani Gospel Singers, 5 Cents Sharp Brass Quintet, Kalamos Saxophone Quintet and IC Jazz Combo.

 Friday, April 17
“Twitter Me: What Kids Know about Digital Worlds — and Why It Matters”
10:00–11:00 a.m., Park Hall Auditorium
Presentation by Dianne Lynch, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

 “Creativity and Aging”
11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m., Park Hall Auditorium
Presentation by Susan Perlstein, director of education and training at the National Center for Creative Aging, along with video highlights from Ithaca College’s Enduring Masters series.

 Inauguration of Thomas R. Rochon
3:00–4:30 p.m., Ben Light Gymnasium, Hill Center (please be seated by 2:40 p.m.)
Campus Reception
4:30–5:30 p.m., IC Square

 Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series
8:15 p.m., Ford Hall
Performance by guitarist Manuel Barrueco with the internationally renowned string ensemble Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

Additional information on the inauguration schedule and traditions can be found at http://www.ithaca.edu/inauguration.

About Thomas R. Rochon

Tom Rochon took office on July 1, 2008, after the board of trustees selected him as the eighth president of Ithaca College. He came to Ithaca from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where he had served since 2003 as executive vice president and chief academic officer. He holds B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from the University of Michigan.

As a first step toward achieving Ithaca’s vision of becoming the standard of excellence for comprehensive residential colleges, shortly after taking office President Rochon initiated an institution-wide strategic visioning process designed to set a course for the college’s future. Faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members were asked to offer ideas at a series of listening sessions. As a result, plans are now under way for (IC)2, an integrated approach to the curriculum that allows students to cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and combine learning in new and unexpected ways. The development of (IC)2 is expected to lead to revolutionary changes in the way students receive a college education and will set a new standard for academic excellence.

Prior to joining St. Thomas, Rochon was executive director of the Graduate Records Examination Program at the Educational Testing Service (2000–3) and had served in several administrative and faculty positions at Claremont Graduate University in California, including interim provost and vice president for academic affairs (1997–98) and dean of the School of Politics and Economics (1996–2000). His teaching experience includes seven years as an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.

Rochon has an extensive record of scholarly research in the areas of contemporary European politics and social movements in Europe and the United States. His 1998 book, “Culture Moves: Ideas, Activism, and Changing Values,” received a Distinguished Scholarship Prize from the American Sociological Association. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of the American Sociological Association and the Susan Louise Dyer Peace Fellowship from the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.

Since childhood, Rochon has been an avid baseball card collector. He developed an interest in older cards, including those dating from the 1880s, and is an active user of the eBay online auction site. His wife, Amber, until recently worked in a shelter that provided temporary accommodation to teenage girls; she is looking forward to continuing her work in the Ithaca community.

About Robert D. Putnam

Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He has published pathbreaking work on the domestic and international political conditions that must exist for leaders to reach international agreements on the coordination of policy. He is also known for his work on the ways in which an active community — one characterized by a high level of social capital — contributes to the welfare of society.

Putnam is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy and a past president of the American Political Science Association. In 2006 he received the Skytte Prize, one of the world’s highest accolades for a political scientist. He has written a dozen books, including “Making Democracy Work,” “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” and “Better Together: Restoring the American Community.” He has consulted widely with world leaders and founded the Saguaro Seminar, bringing together leading thinkers and practitioners to develop actionable ideas for civic renewal. Before joining Harvard in 1979, he taught at the University of Michigan and served on the staff of the National Security Council.

About Ithaca College

Ithaca College was founded in 1892, when local violin teacher William Grant Egbert rented four rooms on East Seneca Street to establish the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Over the years the curriculum was expanded to include study in elocution, dance, physical education, speech correction, radio, business and the liberal arts, and in 1931 the conservatory was chartered as a private college. During the 1960s the institution began its move from downtown Ithaca to its current location on South Hill, overlooking Cayuga Lake.

Today Ithaca College is a thriving private residential college with a total enrollment of 6,400, including 400 graduate students. Undergraduates may choose from 100 majors, 60 minors and three certificate programs. Graduate students are enrolled in 26 different programs, including a doctoral program in physical therapy. The college comprises the Schools of Business, Communications, Health Sciences and Human Performance, Humanities and Sciences, and Music as well as the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies and Division of Graduate and Professional Studies.

Ithaca College recently completed construction of the Dorothy D. and Roy H. Park Center for Business and Sustainable Enterprise, one of fewer than 100 buildings in the world to earn the highest level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. The Peggy Ryan Williams Center, an administrative facility named for Ithaca’s seventh president, opened last month, and fund-raising is now being completed for the first phase of construction of a new athletics and events center.