June 7, 1999 Volume 21, No. 16

Board of Trustees Notes Arrivals and Departures One new member has joined the Ithaca College Board of Trustees, while another has been elected to continue on the board following the completion of his term as an alumni trustee. At its May meeting the board also recognized two departing members for their service and promoted a faculty member to full professor. Janet Thornton Nieburg was elected to a five-year term as alumni trustee. Nieburg earned a bachelor’s degree in 1964 and a master’s degree in 1972, both from the School of Music. A resident of Vestal, New York, she retired after a career teaching music in the Union-Endicott Central School District. She has served since 1994 on the Ithaca College Alumni Association Board of Directors and has taken part in numerous Reunion activities. She also served on the campaign committee that raised over $10.5 million for the James J. Whalen Center for Music. Nieburg has been active nationally for many years in the Sigma Alpha Iota music sorority. Her mother, Ernestine Brown Thornton ’30, and daughter, Ann Slechta FitzGerald ’93, M.M. ’97, are also music graduates of the College. Ralph Siciliano, who had been an alumni trustee since 1994, will serve for the next five years as a term trustee. A partner in the Manhattan law firm of Newman Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt, he previously worked for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. He graduated from the College in 1972 with a degree in politics and holds J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Brooklyn Law School and New York University School of Law, respectively. Siciliano has been a member of the board’s Buildings and Grounds, Compensation and Benefits, and Resource Planning Committees. Prior to becoming a trustee he served on the alumni association’s board of directors. He has been active in providing leadership and guidance in the College’s fund-raising efforts, helping to significantly strengthen participation in the Annual Fund and Reunion giving. Dr. Robert Baker Sr., who has served on the board since 1982, was named an honorary trustee. In addition to chairing the Buildings and Grounds Committee for seven years, he served on the Audit and Finance, Compensation and Benefits, Educational Policy, Resource Planning, Trusteeship, Investment and Finance, and Executive Committees over the course of his tenure. In a resolution lauding his service, Baker’s colleagues noted that he "has proved a careful custodian of the affairs of the College, pondering carefully and thoroughly the important issues entrusted to his consideration and offering advice and counsel that have been judicious and insightful." Trustees also noted Baker’s prominent role in the Ithaca community and his professional experience as an orthodontist and professor of orthodontics, which has won national recognition from the American Board of Orthodontics, International College of Dentists, and American College of Dentists. Also departing the board was Dr. C. William Schwab, a trustee since 1989. Schwab, who graduated from the College in 1968 with a degree in chemistry, is chief of the Division of Traumatology and Surgical Critical Care at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1997 he won the Curtis Artz Award from the American Trauma Society for outstanding contributions in the field of injury prevention and care. He has served as chair of the Educational Policy Committee and as a member of the Trusteeship, Executive, Investment, Compensation and Benefits, and Presidential Search Committees. The board thanked him for gen-erously sharing "his very considerable talents, enhanced by his good nature, unerring grasp of reality, and active involvement." Laura de Abruña, who herself is a former faculty representative to the board, was promoted from associate professor to professor of English. A member of the Ithaca faculty since 1983, de Abruña was selected last year as an American Council on Education fellow, part of a national program designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in higher education. From 1995 to 1998 she served both on the board of trustees and as cochair of the Ithaca College Institutional Self-Study Steering Committee, which helped the College secure reaccreditation by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. She has also chaired the College’s Academic Policies Committee. In 1990–91 and 1991–92 she was awarded Fulbright fellowships to conduct research at universities in Belgium and Luxembourg. She has published a number of essays, book chapters, and journal articles. De Abruña holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and an A.B. degree from Smith College. She has also studied at the Université de Paris– Sorbonne.