Trustee Ezra Cornell is scheduled to meet with the University Assembly (UA) at its open meeting Wednesday, Feb. 23, to speak about current town-gown issues under review by the Cornell Board of Trustees. The UA meeting is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. in the Willard Straight Hall Art Gallery.
As the UA begins to wind down its open agenda items and plan for the coming academic year (the UA has two additional open meetings this semester), one issue that has been on the minds of many of its members and the members of the other assemblies has been the state of relations between the campus and the Ithaca community. This comes into acute focus each spring as students, staff, faculty and area residents plan for the annual graduation activities. By placing this issue before the campus leadership early in the semester, we hope to help listen, think and act in a fashion that will result in a positive spring for the Class of 2000 and the members of the community.
In relation to these concerns, the wise 1995 inaugural words of President Rawlings echo each day in my mind: "Our mission is simple: teaching, research and community service." How else to help us discuss, define and understand our community service obligations than to hear from the ancestor of the university's founder, who always has had a strong commitment to both the Ithaca community and the university?
Also joining the UA Feb. 23 will be Andy Noel, the university's athletic director, who took over in August 1999 after the successful tenure of Charlie Moore. Noel has many new ideas and goals to communicate to the assembly leadership, and a meeting with the UA is a great first step.
Last spring, Dean of the Faculty Bob Cooke conducted a seminar in David L. Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall to revisit the question, "what is the relationship between scholarship and athletics at Cornell?" That event raised the issue of what we expect from our athletic programs and what they should expect from us. And the seminar touched upon the related question of whether the ancient Greek ideal of a balanced mind and body is still a valued goal in academia, or has contemporary American society made that question moot?
Of course neither Cornell nor Noel will be able lay such questions to rest, but it is the obligation of the various assemblies on campus to pose them and to start to define the answers.
Please join us for this discussion.
Sincerely,
Gary A. Brandt, chair of the University Assembly
| Cornell Chronicle Front Page | | Table of Contents | | Cornell News Service Home Page |