Cayuga Community College makes changes in administration

At a board of trustees meeting Thursday, CCC president Brian Durant officially welcomed Marie Nellenback, who was assigned to the role earlier this month. Durant, Nellenback and many other employees and trustees were at the college's Fulton campus, as the meeting was being simulcasted with the Auburn campus.

New roles at the college were created after Daniel DoBell, the former vice president for administration and treasurer, resigned earlier this year. When CCC has a major departure, that gives rise to a review of the institution's structure, Durant said previously. Durant said Thursday that evaluation is still ongoing.

Nellenback had formerly been CCC's comptroller, and two people from within the comptroller's office have taken over some of her former duties. Durant said Nellenback began taking on some of DoBell's former duties after he left.

"I'm really looking forward to moving forward in a senior role at the college," she said. "I've always appreciated the fact that at Cayuga you have an input into decisions. Because we're nice and small, you can talk to everyone, and I look forward to being able to do that more in this role, affecting the future of the college."

Kelly Albrecht and Jacqueline Caputa are now serving as acting assistant CFOs. Durant said after the meeting there isn't a definite set time for how long Nellenback, Albrecht and Caputa will be in the roles.

In other news

• The college approved a policy on consensual relationships involving staff.

The policy includes that professional staff and other college personnel are prohibited from romantic relationships with students they have "current supervisory, instructional or other professional responsibility" over. Consensual relationships between professional staff or other college personnel or staff or personnel and students they no longer have current responsibility over "are strong discouraged," the policy said. 

"CCC professional staff and other college personnel exercise power and authority over students and employees whom they have current supervisory, instructional or other professional responsibility, which creates a power imbalance. This makes consent within any romantic relationship between a supervisor and employee or between a professional staff or other college personnel and a student problematic and may impede the real or perceived freedom of the student or employee to terminate or alter the relationship," the policy said. 

Durant said that the policy was required by SUNY of all of its institutions. The college already had a policy in place for conflicts of interests, he said.

"This particular policy is one that I think further defines and reflects in a much more thorough way, covering from a policy perspective, an institutional awareness," he said.