Organized for Opportunity: Ithaca College Begins Conversation About Its Future Academic Structure
By IC News, October 13, 2026
With Board of Trustees endorsement, the college is exploring how its academic organization could help students pursue multiple interests and strengthen the connections between liberal arts and professional education.
Photo by Gio Santacroce
Photo by Gio Santacroce
Ithaca College is beginning a campus conversation about how its academic organization can better serve students and respond to a higher education landscape undergoing profound change.
On October 9, the Board of Trustees approved a resolution stating: “The board endorses the development of a new academic model anchored in our key strengths, responsive to our size, mission, vision, and values, and incorporating changes in the broader higher education landscape.”
The conversation comes at a consequential moment for higher education. Colleges face a shrinking population of traditional college-age students, mounting financial pressures, and growing skepticism about the value of a degree. Political and cultural attacks challenge the role of higher education itself, while rapid technological change reshapes how people learn and work. Some institutions are responding by eliminating programs and narrowing their academic offerings. These pressures put at risk both the sustainability of institutions and the breadth of education they can offer future generations.
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Melanie Stein outlined the case for change and introduced one possible academic model to faculty on October 13. The model would bring related academic fields into closer relationship, making it easier for students to combine interests and for faculty to develop educational experiences across traditional school boundaries.
Watch: A brief message from Melanie Stein, provost and vice president for academic affairs
“In the face of this level of turbulence and urgency, it does not make sense for us to continue to keep doing things more or less as we have been,” Stein said. “This moment demands a broad level of proactive institutional adaptation.”
That approach builds on what draws students to Ithaca College: the opportunity to pursue more than one interest and put their learning into practice. Through close faculty mentorship and hands-on experiences in classrooms, studios, laboratories, clinics, and communities, students connect theory, practice, and performance as they prepare for lives and careers that will evolve. A new academic structure could make it easier for students to combine their interests and for faculty to develop courses and experiences that bring those interests together.
The board’s resolution establishes a direction for this work. Stein’s model provides a concrete starting point grounded in the college’s academic strengths, the fields for which it is nationally recognized, and students’ interests. Developing a new academic model and carrying out an eventual reorganization would be a multiyear process requiring careful consideration of academic and operational implications. The campus conversation will help identify refinements that advance the same goals. Decisions will be guided by students’ needs, the college’s mission, and its long-term sustainability.
The college has not adopted a final academic structure, and no changes to the current organization are taking effect with the launch of this conversation. Stein’s model carries forward existing degree programs and faculty expertise and is not structured around faculty layoffs.
At stake is Ithaca College’s ability to sustain and strengthen the education that defines it. How should the college organize itself to meet these converging challenges and help students pursue multiple interests, combine liberal arts and professional education, and learn through theory, practice, and performance?
Why IC’s Structure Needs to Change
Photo by David Weil '87, MS '89.
Students’ expectations are changing. Many want to pursue several interests and shape an education around the connections among them. They seek preparation for meaningful careers alongside the ability to think critically, exercise judgment, and adapt throughout their lives.
Ithaca College’s combination of liberal arts and professional programs offers a strong foundation for that education. Although its academic organization has evolved over time, the overall framework has remained largely unchanged for decades.
The current organization does not fully support the experiences students want and the education IC seeks to deliver. The college is examining how a new structure could remove those barriers and better support its academic strengths.
While students already combine interests across Ithaca College and faculty already collaborate across schools, those connections can require navigating different administrative processes, coordinating requirements, and overcoming boundaries that have little to do with what students want to learn. The aim is to make these experiences easier to design and pursue, so students can build on multiple interests without undertaking an unusually complicated process.
Connections among health professions, biology, psychology, and data can support new approaches to health and scientific inquiry. Film and television share creative and production practices with theatre, music, and visual art. Business, communication, the humanities, and social sciences offer complementary ways to understand how people shape society through commerce, storytelling, leadership, and public life.
The college has already made progress in reducing barriers through changes to the schedule grid, centralized academic support, and a cross-school major. These efforts advance the Ithaca Forever strategic plan’s goals of deeper academic integration and sustainable institutional structures. The next step is to examine the academic framework itself: how the college’s organization can make these connections a foundation of the student experience.
“In the face of this level of turbulence and urgency, it does not make sense for us to continue to keep doing things more or less as we have been. This moment demands a broad level of proactive institutional adaptation.”
Melanie Stein, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs
Organized for Opportunity: One Possible Model
Stein’s model would organize the college’s existing academic programs within three schools:
School of Health, Technology, and Scientific Discovery: Natural sciences, quantitative fields, psychology, public health, and allied health programs.
Roy H. Park School of Communication, Society, and Enterprise: Communication, business, social sciences, and humanities to explore how stories are told, systems are understood, and organizations create impact in society.
School of Performing, Visual, and Media Arts: Music, theatre, visual arts, and cinematic and television arts.
These are conceptual groupings and working names for discussion.
Under this model, all existing degree programs would remain initially, providing the foundation for faculty to develop new connections, combinations of study, and academic offerings over time. The possibilities would emerge through collaboration and cannot all be anticipated at the outset. The model is not structured around faculty layoffs, and it assumes no immediate changes to campus facilities.
Bringing health professions into closer relationship with natural sciences, quantitative fields, psychology, and technology could strengthen connections between scientific discovery and its application to human health. Shared courses, research, and hands-on experiences could give students more ways to combine these interests and faculty more opportunities to develop educational experiences together.
The model carries forward the college’s existing academic programs and expertise while changing how they are organized. Liberal arts education would remain foundational for every IC student, with humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences represented across the three schools. Communication programs would form part of an expanded school encompassing business, social sciences, and humanities, while cinematic and television arts would join music, theatre, and visual arts in a school devoted to creative practice and artistic excellence.
“One of the things I hear most from alumni is that they wish they had taken business classes,” Stein said. “Business knowledge has value across so many fields. This model would preserve our business programs while making it easier to connect that expertise with students’ interests in other areas of study.”
Prospective students tend to approach the college through what they want to study and the experiences they hope to have rather than which school houses their program. They want to know whether they can combine business with music, health sciences with communication, or other interests that cross school boundaries. They are less invested in the administrative divisions familiar to those already within the college and more interested in how readily they can pursue those combinations.
As higher education faces mounting pressures, IC must make the fullest use of its academic strengths to sustain the breadth of its education and give students greater freedom to combine interests. The model offers a way to meet that challenge by organizing the college around the connections students seek and the possibilities faculty can create.
“The board endorses the development of a new academic model anchored in our key strengths, responsive to our size, mission, vision, and values, and incorporating changes in the broader higher education landscape.”
Ithaca College Board of Trustees
Leadership and the Work Ahead
As the college’s chief academic officer, Stein will lead the academic planning work with faculty expertise and campus participation, supported by President La Jerne Terry Cornish and the Board of Trustees. She will assemble an Organizing for Opportunity Transition Team to help develop the model and facilitate opportunities for broader participation.
The work coincides with a presidential transition and interim appointments in several leadership roles. The challenges facing the college will not pause during those transitions, and developing a new academic model will take time. Beginning now gives the incoming president a foundation of planning and campus engagement to build on, with opportunities to help shape the college’s academic future.
Throughout that planning, the college will evaluate how a new structure can strengthen the academic rigor, close faculty relationships, and experiential learning that define an Ithaca College education while making it easier for students to pursue multiple interests.
Read the accompanying questions and answers for more about the model, what it could mean for students and faculty, and the work ahead.
Q&A: Ithaca College’s Academic Future
Ithaca College has begun a conversation about developing a new academic model that better supports students’ interests, strengthens connections among academic fields, and responds to the challenges facing higher education.
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Melanie Stein has introduced one possible model as a concrete starting point. It builds on IC’s academic strengths and the fields for which the college is nationally recognized.
The college has not adopted a final academic structure. No changes to the current organization are taking effect with the launch of this conversation.
On October 9, the board approved a resolution stating: “The board endorses the development of a new academic model anchored in our key strengths, responsive to our size, mission, vision, and values, and incorporating changes in the broader higher education landscape.”
Higher education faces converging challenges: a shrinking population of traditional college-age students, financial pressures, skepticism about the value of a degree, political and cultural attacks, and rapid technological change.
IC faces enrollment and financial challenges of its own. It also has enduring strengths that respond to what students seek: close relationships between students and faculty, the integration of theory, practice, and performance, and a combination of liberal arts and professional education that allows students to pursue multiple interests.
The current organization does not fully support those connections. Developing a new model takes time, and delaying the work until after the presidential transition would postpone opportunities to address barriers students and faculty already encounter.
IC draws students whose interests span fields and whose ambitions may take them in directions they cannot yet anticipate. The goal is to make it easier for them to build an education around those interests, combining deep knowledge in their chosen fields with opportunities to explore and apply what they learn. That education prepares them to adapt, discover new interests, and pursue opportunities as their lives and careers evolve.
A new structure could help faculty develop connected courses, projects, and combinations of study, with clearer advising and coordination. These opportunities would build on the academic rigor and experiential learning students already receive.
Those opportunities exist because students, faculty, and staff work to create them. The college wants its organization to support that work more consistently and intentionally.
School boundaries affect how academic leaders coordinate, which faculty routinely work together, and how programs and resources are managed. Examining those boundaries can help the college make collaboration easier to develop and sustain.
The goal is to make these connections a foundation of the student experience.
The model would organize existing programs within three schools, using these working names:
School of Health, Technology, and Scientific Discovery: Natural sciences, quantitative fields, psychology, public health, and allied health programs.
Roy H. Park School of Communication, Society, and Enterprise: Communication, business, social sciences, and humanities to explore how stories are told, systems are understood, and organizations create impact in society.
School of Performing, Visual, and Media Arts: Music, theatre, visual arts, and cinematic and television arts.
The model connects related fields and builds on the college’s reputational strengths. The groupings and names remain subject to development.
No. Stein’s model provides a substantive starting point for developing a new academic organization.
The planning process will examine its academic and operational implications and consider refinements and alternatives that advance the same goals. Community input will be essential to identifying opportunities, addressing challenges, and shaping the eventual model. The board has endorsed developing a new model, but it has not adopted this particular structure.
Bringing health professions into closer relationship with natural sciences, quantitative fields, psychology, and technology could strengthen connections between scientific discovery and its application to human health.
Shared courses, research, and hands-on experiences could give students more ways to combine these interests and faculty more opportunities to develop educational experiences together. The model builds on the strengths of both health and science programs.
No. Stein’s model envisions an expanded Roy H. Park School that connects communication with business, social sciences, and humanities.
It would also change the placement of some current Park programs. Cinematic and television arts would continue within the proposed School of Performing, Visual, and Media Arts, alongside music, theatre, and visual arts.
The model preserves those academic programs while exploring different relationships among them.
No. All existing business degree programs would remain initially under the model, within the expanded Park School.
Business knowledge has value across many fields. The model would preserve the depth of business education while creating stronger connections with communication, the arts, and other areas of study. The goal is to give more students opportunities to benefit from business courses and programs as part of an education that combines their interests.
No. Liberal arts education remains foundational for every IC student. Humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences would have a substantial presence throughout the new organization, with closer connections to professional study.
The model carries forward existing humanities and sciences programs while organizing them across the three schools. It would change the current standalone School of Humanities and Sciences administrative structure.
The planning must support both the integrity of individual academic fields and opportunities for collaboration among them.
Liberal arts education remains essential to an IC education.
Critical thinking, ethical reasoning, scientific inquiry, historical understanding, and cultural analysis help students make sense of their work and the world around them. They also prepare graduates to adapt as their lives and careers evolve.
Bringing liberal arts and professional fields into closer relationship is intended to strengthen that education. Maintaining strong degree programs and academic communities within the broader schools would be an important part of the planning.
The model would carry forward existing business, humanities, and sciences programs and faculty expertise within three broader schools. It reorganizes academic administration to create stronger connections among fields; it is not structured around eliminating those programs or faculty layoffs.
The changes would extend across all five current schools, creating new combinations of liberal arts and professional education. The purpose is to expand what students can pursue and make collaboration easier across the college.
No final structure has been adopted.
No degree programs are being eliminated through the launch of this conversation.
Under Stein’s model, all existing degree programs would remain initially. They would provide the foundation for faculty to develop new connections, combinations of study, and academic offerings over time.
The model describes a starting academic structure. It cannot anticipate every curricular possibility that could emerge as faculty work together within it.
“Initially” recognizes that academic offerings evolve. Faculty may identify new combinations of study, shared courses, or approaches that the college cannot fully define at the outset. Any eventual curricular changes would require the appropriate academic review and approvals.
No. The model begins with the college’s existing academic programs and faculty expertise. It is not structured around faculty layoffs.
Administrative leadership and support arrangements would need examination as part of developing a different school structure.
A structure with fewer schools could reduce administrative expenses and duplication. The amount would depend on the leadership and support arrangements of a final model.
The model seeks to use resources more effectively while strengthening academic connections, making collaboration easier, and expanding opportunities for students to combine interests.
The model begins with an academic purpose: reducing barriers, strengthening faculty collaboration, and making it easier for students to combine interests. It builds on IC’s strengths to better serve students and respond to the challenges facing higher education.
A more effective administrative structure could also produce savings and contribute to the college’s financial sustainability.
A new structure could help IC turn its academic strengths into experiences that more students want to pursue. Easier collaboration among faculty could produce distinctive combinations of study and clearer opportunities for students to connect their interests. Those experiences give prospective students stronger reasons to choose IC and enrolled students stronger reasons to continue their education at the college.
A more effective administrative structure could also reduce expenses and duplication. Together, these benefits could contribute to enrollment and financial sustainability as part of the college’s broader strategy. Reorganization alone would not resolve those challenges; its value depends on the educational opportunities and operational improvements it makes possible.
Stein will lead the academic planning work with the support of President La Jerne Terry Cornish and the Board of Trustees.
The incoming president will have the opportunity to build on this work and lead a college prepared to turn its distinctive academic strengths into new possibilities for students.
The challenges facing the college will not pause during the transition, and developing a new academic model will take time.
Beginning now gives the incoming president a foundation of planning and campus engagement to build on. It also creates an opportunity for that leader to help shape the work with a clearer understanding of the possibilities and questions already identified.
Interim leaders continue to lead their schools and support faculty and students. Provost Stein will guide the planning with academic leaders and faculty, whose expertise is essential to developing a model that works for the college.
Former School of Business Dean Michael Johnson-Cramer left for another appointment. Former Roy H. Park School of Communications Dean Amy Falkner left to spend more time with her family.
Stein’s model provides a concrete starting point for planning and campus discussion, including consideration of refinements and alternatives that advance the same goals. The board has endorsed developing a new academic model; it has not adopted a final structure.
Participants can shape the eventual academic model by developing connections among fields, examining the proposed groupings, addressing operational challenges, and proposing refinements or alternatives that advance the work’s goals.
Faculty expertise is vital to questions about curriculum, academic rigor, accreditation, workload, and the support needed to sustain individual programs.
The board has established the direction: develop a new academic model. Participation will help shape how the college pursues that direction. Decisions will be guided by students’ needs, the college’s mission, and its long-term sustainability.
No final academic structure has been adopted. Faculty and other participants can identify opportunities, raise concerns, and propose refinements or alternatives that help shape the eventual model.
The board has endorsed developing a new academic model. The campus conversation will help determine how that direction takes form. Contributions will be considered in relation to students’ needs, the college’s academic strengths, and its long-term sustainability.
Students and alumni take pride in their schools because of the education, relationships, and experiences they built there. Those connections—and the reputations earned by faculty and graduates—are among IC’s greatest strengths.
Stein’s model builds on those strengths. It envisions an expanded Roy H. Park School with a broader academic scope, while carrying forward existing programs and faculty expertise throughout the college. Planning must address how programs maintain their visibility, alumni connections, and distinctive academic communities within a new organization.
The college must also create opportunities for future students, many of whom arrive with interests that cross existing school boundaries. The aim is to carry forward what makes an IC education meaningful while opening more possibilities for what students can pursue.
Those decisions concerned specific academic offerings. This conversation examines the organization of Academic Affairs across the college.
It does not announce additional changes to those programs. The model starts with all existing degree programs remaining.
Artificial intelligence is one of several developments affecting higher education, but the academic case extends across the college’s fields of study.
The model assumes no immediate changes to campus facilities.
Any later facilities changes would require separate planning and communication. Changing a program’s administrative home does not itself imply that its physical location would change.
The launch of this conversation does not change degree requirements or put a new school structure into effect. Stein’s model carries forward the college’s existing degree programs.
Stein’s model includes a preliminary timeline for a multiyear process, beginning with campus discussion, refinement, and academic and operational planning before board consideration of a final structure.
Later phases would establish the new organization and leadership arrangements and develop curricular opportunities. The timing would depend on how the model develops, the approvals required, and the work needed to support students and faculty through the transition.
The college will examine Stein’s model through further planning and campus discussion, including consideration of refinements and alternatives that advance the same goals.
Before a final plan could proceed, the college would need to work through academic and operational details and seek board ratification. Information about participation opportunities and subsequent steps will accompany the next phase of the work.
