A University Faculty Forum on Social Sciences, jointly sponsored by Walter Cohen, dean of the Graduate School, and J. Robert Cooke, dean of the faculty, is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 7, in Hollis Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. It is open to faculty and members of the Cornell community.
The forum will focus on the preliminary administrative response, prepared by Cohen, to the Provost's Task Force Report on the Future of the Social Sciences at Cornell. The report was issued in January 1999. Cohen's response reads:
"The provost staff's initial evaluation of the social sciences report is favorable. The report contains many recommendations, and we are inclined to do something about most of them. The university has already taken action on one item: It has improved the infrastructure for the social sciences by increasing support for CISER.
"All other actions are pending. First, we're interested in setting up a committee to advise Bob Richardson, vice provost for research, on allocation of small grants to faculty applying for external funding. Second, all three of the interdisciplinary areas identified in the report seem promising. The report limits itself to the intellectual interest of each area, as is appropriate. We have now asked selected faculty involved in these areas to prepare budgets and the rationales for those budgets. Finally, we would like to establish a social sciences coordinating committee to advise the provost's office on matters that include but are not necessarily limited to support of Cornell's land grant mission; the adequacy of facilities; and the state of collaboration on a) faculty recruitment, promotion and retention, b) research and teaching, and c) graduate student recruitment and support.
"We are probably not prepared at this time to take action on the recommendations to create several unallocated endowed chairs and a substantial group of full-time research social scientists and postdocs. Finally, we took no position on the proposal to facilitate collaboration across divides."
The Provost's Task Force Report on the Future of the Social Sciences at Cornell is available on the web at www.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/index.html. Related documents will be posted under this site, and a Faculty Feedback mechanism is in place to accommodate faculty responses.
For more information on the forum, call 255-4843. Comments can be e-mailed to Cohen at dean_gradschool@cornell.edu.
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