Two New Members Join Board of Trustees

Former Cornell University professor and dean Francille Firebaugh and attorney Susan Scanlon ’71 have been elected to four-year terms on the Ithaca College Board of Trustees.

Known internationally for her work on family and household issues, Firebaugh is currently serving as director of special projects for the Office of the President and Office of the Provost at Cornell. From 1988 to 1999 she had been dean of the College of Human Ecology and professor of policy analysis and management. Earlier this year she was named dean and professor emerita at the school.

Firebaugh earned her Ph.D. in household economics and management from Cornell in 1962. She spent much of her subsequent teaching and administrative career at Ohio State University, serving among other positions as director of the School of Home Economics, associate provost, acting vice president for academic affairs and provost, and vice provost for international affairs. She was named professor emerita at Ohio State in 1988.

Firebaugh’s professional memberships include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Consumer and Family Sciences Association, National Council on Family Relations, and International Federation of Home Economics, and she serves on the boards of directors of the Families and Work Institute, Cayuga Medical Center, and Kendal at Ithaca. Listed in Who’s Who in America since 1991, she has been honored with the Distinguished Service Award from the American Family and Consumer Sciences Association and the Alice H. Cook and Constance Cook Award from Cornell’s Advisory Committee on the State of Women.

Susan Scanlon is the principal in Corporate Legal Management, a Pittsford, New York, firm she founded in 1989. The firm provides economic analyses of proposals to create, or add to, in-house legal departments; develops corporate legal department budgets; tracks and controls outside counsel expenses; locates and helps select appropriate foreign or other outside counsel; and otherwise acts as a subcontractor for all of the administrative duties of the executive responsible for a corporation’s legal affairs.

Scanlon earned her bachelor’s degree from the School of Music. She taught music in public schools, was on the faculty of the Ithaca Community Music School, served as music director at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Ithaca, and in 1975–76 taught business law at Ithaca College. After earning both M.B.A. and law degrees from Cornell in 1976, she joined the Rochester law firm Nixon Peabody LLP as an associate attorney specializing in corporate finance. From 1979 to 1989 she was employed by Schlegel Corporation, an industrial manufacturing company based in Rochester, where she was vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary.

Among her many community activities, Scanlon has held significant leadership positions with the David Hochstein Memorial Music School, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and Monroe Community College Foundation.