As far as teaching, I pretty much taught the same way as I have in the past. My evaluations still indicate I could do better in terms of organization. I think I could as well. However, I fear that in the process the character of what I am trying to do would be damaged beyond the degree to which being slightly unprepared (on purpose sometimes) might detract from the perception students have of me. I am attaching a set of student evaluations that were filled out after the fact. It is interesting because these students had already received their grades and there was no possible penalty that I could bestow upon them either for not filling out the form or for panning my teaching efforts. The outcome, however, pretty much summarizes what these "instruments of evaluation" have been over the years. Although again, for the fifth year in a row now, I was nominated for the Eisenhart Award, in my own estimation I am basically an average teacher. But, I think that I bring much more to the "table" than my classroom "performance" and the "total package" the students experience over the years has a positive impact on them both in the near and far future. Unfortunately this can not readily be measured and thus, I realize, it may only be an artificial perception on my part.

Like everyone else in the department I have assigned advisees. They present little impact on my other activities but it is something that I plan on continuing to try to improve on. I generate roughly 1000 pieces of e-mail per year that I send to the students in the Imaging and Photographic Technology department informing them about all kinds of things associated with the functioning of the Department, from job leads, to trivia contests, to general announcements, to greetings, to pizza party invitations (and running them as well), etc..

My plan last year was to develop a new, or revamp an old, course every year. I did not come up with a new course last year. I revised the NonConventional Imaging Survey course but more as a matter of expediency and personal interest (because students had not enrolled in Photoinstrumentation courses)rather than academic necessity.

I continued to divert consulting fees that would normally accrue to me personally, to support my RIT/SPAS/IPT/high speed lab instead. The idea is that these funds can then be used to support my personal professional research activities and also to be able to use some of these funds to support student activities.

Last year I planned and again participated in a group project with Rus, Glenn , Scott, and Nitin, as well as Michael Peres and Bill Fisher and Bill DuBois. This was the scheduling and offering of a Workshop for High School and Community College teachers dealing with the technical aspects of photography and imaging. This workshop attracted twenty teachers from all over the United States and was organized at almost no direct cost to the School. The faculty involved donated their time, their cars, and their enthusiasm to make these major recruiting events happen. This was the fourth time we voluntarily presented this activity. The program was offered and organized without much encouragement from me but I am gratified that the job got done nevertheless. I still don't think that, in spite of the significant impact it has had in our Freshman enrollment, there is much College or School recognition for it.

I again contributed to the Photo Expo '96 SPAS booth in NYC, and to several visiting groups of high school students and other visitors. These are listed in greater detail in the report on activities.

In addition to the above activity, my individual recruiting efforts have included the forwarding of approximately 500 individual referrals to the Admissions Office from people all over the world requesting information about SPAS photography programs.

One of the major contributions that I think I have made to this School and Department over the years has been that which is associated with my relationships with professional organizations.

Last year I again stated that my relationship with TPSA, the Technical Photography Student Association, declined over past years and this past year the trend continued. Partly this is the case due to my own shortcomings and partly due to a much greater degree of student organization and independence. They essentially want to do "their own thing" and it really does not seem that an advisor's input is needed, appreciated or called for. I hope that this coming year the new Exec Board of the club will work more closely with me than previous committees have over the last few years.

I was also unsuccessful in being included in the program for the 1999 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women where I had proposed to make a lecture/demonstration of scanning photography.

Last year I again submitted an application to the SPIE for support of my activities connected with TPSA and again my application was not supported favorably. My plan is to try again. Although I have successfully obtained SPIE grants in the past, I have been unsuccessful for the last four years.

An activity that brought much personal satisfaction, and, I believe, much personal and school and department recognition, has been my continued coordination of the PhotoForum and the Fotored photography-oriented mail lists. The PhotoForum, now in its fifth year of operation (it was started with the able assistance of Profs. Kraus and LeVant in March of 1994) is a e-mail list housed in our School and serving its worldwide audience that now comprises about 800 subscribers (up from 750 last year). The member's gallery that I installed two years ago is working well and there were about 500 images exhibited in it over the course of the year. I update the gallery with 12 new photographs every week. The series gallery and also the one dedicated to students are doing reasonably well and I managed to highlight the photographs from 6 different educational institutions over the last year.

Fotored, the Spanish language photography list that I started three years ago , is also thriving and has about 300 members worldwide. Traffic volume on this list equals and often surpasses that on the larger PhotoForum list.

My "service" contributions to the School and my colleagues might include a periodic sherry hour to try maintain a friendly working environment, increase morale and to bring faculty together. I "improved" the atmosphere of some of these "parties" with live music provided by student musicians that I hired. Again, I kept track of how much money it costs me to subsidize out of my personal "pocket" these R&R events and the coffee "service" in the faculty conference room and it came to a total of about $500 for the year. The coffee operation continues to generate a much lower level of return than it has been the case in the past. In previous years the "profits" from the coffee easily subsidized the R&R events but these days the income is marginal at best.

Although I decided to try to get more involved in the MFA program, a combination of circumstances prevented me from participating in the Fall "walk through". Given current developments there seems that a "gulf" has developed that is even deeper than it was in the past. It was my deep desire that this program would reinstate a practice that was commonly practiced in the past and that was that most MFA students were required to complete the Materials and Processes of Photography course. Under the current direction I believe that MFA graduates are, by and large, ill prepared to exploit, control or teach others about fundamental "technical" photographic principles and operating procedures.

Two years ago I mentioned I would lead an initiative into establishing a pilot MS program in Imaging Technology. I did not do this last year. The reason was partly lack of interest on my part and partly due to the turmoil created in the School by the changes and unnerving uncertainties in the college and school administration.

Something that occupied many members of the IPT faculty was the identification and welcome into the "fold" of a new faculty member. He is Bruce Kahn. Everyone on the faculty contributed generously of their time and knowledge to help him become acclimate to our group.

I expected a large influx of new students in the program and while this did not materialize we again had a full section of Photo 1. The IPT faculty are to be commended for the efforts they have made over the past year in terms of attracting new students and keeping "old" ones. There was, however, a significant loss of students who transferred out of the department. Typically the reason was that they were looking for more "shooting" than they perceived the IPT program could deliver.

My publications record has declined slightly as I predicted last year but is still within the guidelines set forth in last year's plan. This decline is partly the result of the extra demands that quasi-administrative responsibilities bring to me. These have continued to adversely affect both my teaching and potential publications and professional presentations activities.

As for participation in exhibits, publications and related activities my goal for each of the coming 5 years was to publish at least one article per year and participate in one exhibition each year. This goal was reached and significantly exceeded with articles having been published in the BPA Journal, the SPIE OE Reports, Fotomundo, etc. and exhibitions of my photographs were held in Mexico, Korea, Fort Lauderdale, etc. as attested to by the summary of accomplishments attached to this document.

In addition I planned on conducting extensive personal research and after 30 years with this Institution attempt to qualify for my first sabbatical experience. I did not do this. This was impossible in light of the significant changes that took place at the College and the School and the Department. While I will plan for this at some future date it is not something I will probably ever achieve.

I proposed a SPAS faculty exhibition of work on the Web again last year. Again, last year this plan failed. I still believe that it is very important (and very time consuming) to maintain a strong and visible presence on the Web. A major chunk of my time on a daily basis is devoted to keeping the name of the School and the Department fresh in the mind of any audience that might encourage students to consider studying here, consider the possibility of hiring one of our graduates, or be a benefactor to the Institute, the School, the Department or the High Speed laboratory.

I have assisted several colleagues to set-up their own webpages and plan to continue to provide this kind of assistance. My goal last year was to assist with one faculty website set-up per each of the coming 5 years. Last year I exceeded this goal by 300% by helping three SPAS faculty members establish a web presence.

I again tried to get assistance from the NSF to help fund a lecture/exhibition/workshop tour to South America but I was unsuccessful. On the other hand, my efforts within the States were successful and I participated in the FotoFusion Conference in Palm Beach and was just informed that I was again invited to be a guest presenter at this national conference.

I am a Board member of the Media Art Teachers Association (of NY State) Mike Townsend of Lewiston/Porter HS is President.

I am on the Board of Directors of The Photographic Historical Society and worked with them to establish and now coordinate a small web presence through my page. I did the same for the Media Art Teachers Association of NY State.

Reviewing some other items vis-a-vis last year's plans, last year I planned t o ask my colleagues to substitute for me on a more regular basis at Chairs meetings. I did so but the plan did not lead to any fruitful development since the whole administrative structure of the College was changed. I am deeply indebted to all the faculty who volunteered to participate in what turned out to be a useless exercise. I appreciate their for their generosity and cooperative spirit.

On a similar vein, I had proposed to conduct a vote of confidence within the IPT department faculty this Fall. Due to the external changes that affected the IPT department as well as the others this became a moot point. Transition at this point is out of their hands unless encouraged and facilitated by external administrative units. How this will be done and/or implemented is currently unknown.

I have continued to arrange to obtain the Nikon Small World exhibit and install it in the Dr. Ron Francis Photographic Chemistry laboratory.

I worked on various committees over the last year. I think these met the "general" requirement of providing service to the Institute by participation in committees. They included:

CIAS Academic Conduct Committee - Joe Noga
SPAS Full Professors Committee - Howard Lester
RIT Handicapped Advisory Committee - M. Giardino and V. Vanderzell
Fuji Scholarship Committee - Michael Peres
Chairmen's Committee - Nancy Stuart
and several others whose name or function I don't recall - one is a K12 advisement committee of some kind with Bob Clark of Science as Chairman I believe.

And, from the inter-school relations point of view I will continue to be a strong advocate for a separation between the traditional arts programs (such as Painting, Printmaking, Ceramics, etc> and the photography/imaging/graphic arts aspects of the College. My point of view was not supported by a large majority of my colleagues in the past. Therefore, as I mentioned above, I plan on spending more time in more productive activities than those associated with planning for the future of the School or College since my views obviously are in absolute conflict with those of my friends.

However, since I have agreed to new responsibilities of administrative chairman. I will add the duties associated with this assignment to my other, specific departmental, responsibilities while trying to encourage and facilitate the job of the program chairmen in terms of establishing and maintaining a storing industrial and professional and educational presence. The program chairs, are, after all, the keepers of the programs and the flame of each instructional "unit" as it is developed, planned, designed, fostered, maintained and celebrated by their faculty. I hope to be able to serve and to generally look after the operations of these groups and to represent them fairly and effectively in the various committees where I am privileged to act and speak in their behalf. The best thing I believe I can do is to help the program chairs to the best of the Institute's financial support possibilities and to stay out of the way and not impede their progress by meddling into their educational activities. I hope I will remember this personal objective for the years to come.

Finally, I would like to again acknowledge the tremendous level of support and help of my colleagues both in my teaching and professional activities. Without their good-will and cooperation there would be a far different atmosphere in the IPT Department and the other BS and BFA and MFA Departments as well.

 
ACCOUNTING OF TEACHING ACTIVITIES
 
Winter 1996-97 (962)                            course     credit enrollment 
   course title                                 number     hours 
 
1. PHOTOINSTRUMENTATION APPLICATIONS SEMINAR    2076 402 01    4   5 
2. SPECIAL EFFECTS PHOTOGRAPHY                  2076 408 01    4  14
3. PHOTO TECH COOP                              0920 499 01    0   2 
 
Spring 1996-97 (962)                            course     credit enrollment
   course title                                 number     hours
 
1. SURVEY OF NON-CONVENTIONAL IMAGING           2076 503 01    3  18
2. PHOTO TECH COOP                              2076 499 01    0   3 
 
Fall   1996-97 (962)                            course     credit enrollment
   course title                                 number     hours
 
1. HIGH SPEED/TIME LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY            2076 511 01    3  22 
2. PHOTO TECH COOP                              2076 499 01    0   4 
 

I also supervised the enrollment and completion of COOP work experiences for all of the IPT students during the Summer Quarter as well as provided guest lectures to courses within and outside the IPT department in several instances.

Again, to examine supporting evidence for the claims of activities made below and for a record of professional lectures, high school visitations and presentations, individual and group exhibitions, etc. that are made below simply request: Record of Professional Activities