Members of the President's Council of Cornell Women (PCCW) celebrated the group's 10th anniversary by taking a close look at the future of education at PCCW's annual fall membership meeting in September in New York City.
President Hunter Rawlings lauded the group's mission and contributions in remarks at a dinner Sept. 15 honoring PCCW chairs and founding members. In its 10-year history, PCCW's members have contributed more than $28 million to Cornell programs that support women faculty, students and staff, including Cornell Tradition fellowships, a research grant support program, student career mentoring and gifts for athletic facilities.
Rawlings paid special tribute to trustees emeriti Lilyan Affinito '53 and Patricia Carry Stewart '50, founding leaders who worked with then-president Frank H.T. Rhodes in 1990 to establish PCCW.
Abby Joseph Cohen '73, bullish chief investment strategist at Goldman Sachs & Co. and one of Wall Street's most quoted experts, presented the dinner's keynote speech. She described the painful national economic downsizing that began in the late 1980s and continued through the early part of the 1990s. "We cleaned the slate" for the growth and booming economy that began in 1995, she said.
Unlike the aftermath of previous economic booms at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and in the 1950s, the past five years "have been unique in economic history" because there has not been a decrease in young people seeking college degrees, Cohen said. Today's new jobs are being created in areas in which there is an important "element of intellectual content." And this generation of young women will not face the glass ceiling that hindered the careers of their mothers, and so are going to college in even greater numbers than young men.
"I'm extremely enthusiastic about what happens next," Cohen said, while cautioning that the nation, both the private and public sectors, must continue to invest in education, retraining workers for jobs in the new economy, and in R&D.
Sheryl WuDunn '81, Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times, moderated the meeting's first panel Sept. 15, which focused on K-12 and teacher issues. Joining the discussion were Judith Fox '65, superintendent of the Byram Hills School District, Armonk, N.Y.; Michele Korf '74, executive producer and director of educational programming, WGBH Education Foundation; and Rhonda Weingarten '80, president of the United Federation of Teachers.
A glimpse at the future of undergraduate education at Cornell was provided at a panel Sept. 16 chaired by Dale Rogers Marshall '59, president of Wheaton College, that included Provost Biddy Martin; Patsy Brannon, dean of the College of Human Ecology, and Susan H. Murphy, vice president for student and academic affairs.
Describing the North and West campus initiatives, Murphy said Cornell is "going to a faculty-led student environment from a staff-led student environment," a move that provides unique opportunities and challenges.
Brannon described the shift in education from the "sage on a stage" to activity-based learning. There is much experiential learning going on at Cornell, she said, with many undergraduates actively involved in research. Learning takes place in an "asynchronous community" that uses e-mail and web-based sources.
While supporting new trends in teaching, Martin offered cautionary notes about the tendency for people in education to "oscillate between poles." A fundamental question should be what kind of "subjective self" should be enhanced through higher education. "I think we all need to think very hard at the beginning of the 21st century about how we inhabit time, and how we occupy time, how we are living in the here and now," she commented. A great lecture can stir self-reflection and awareness of the use of language, she said, arguing that traditional methods of teaching should not be abandoned while new methods are adopted.
During the question-and-answer period, members expressed concern about the heavy schedules and academic pressure students are enduring. Martin described the efforts of the curriculum committee in the College of Arts and Sciences to evaluate course requirements, class and exam schedules, and the fit of the academic clock to students' biorhythms.
The meeting ended with a networking luncheon with young alumnae. Jonelle Bradshaw '96, who recently started a consulting firm for small and medium sized businesses with Carolina Hammond '94 and Seema Patel '96, said the opportunity to meet with alumnae who have "real-world experience dealing with gender issues" helped her reevaluate parts of her life, as she found so many women had winding career paths.
Karin Klapper '96, former student trustee who is now with a private law firm in New York City, also appreciated the chance to meet with "a fabulous group of women."
PCCW chair Toby Kleban Levine '64 said, "Our immediate goals are to continue to support the women faculty and to work toward completing the endowment for the PCCW Leadership Campaign for Women, which we hope will enhance the lives of women at Cornell for many years in many ways. We also are studying some specific concerns that tend to affect women disproportionately: safe, affordable, convenient childcare and balanced eating behaviors. We've also just launched PCCW Connections http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/who/pccw/pccwsec/pccwcvote.html as an online mentoring activity for Cornell students and hope to see many dialogues initiated there."
PCCW will hold its spring meeting on campus March 30 to April 1.
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