President tells Reunion crowd of impressive alumni support

President Hunter Rawlings speaks to an enthusiastic Reunion 2000 audience in Bailey Hall June 10 during his State of the University address. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

By Roger Segelken

"The word is getting out," President Hunter Rawlings proclaimed. A top-ranked research university with an action-backed commitment to undergraduate education, an ambitious plan to build campus facilities and academic programs -- and with phenomenal support of alumni -- is attracting more eminent faculty members and more qualified students than ever before, the president told an audience of alums June 10 in a State of the University address.

Those alumni, returning to campus for Reunion 2000 with classes of years ending with fives and zeros, heard some multi-digit numbers that inspired applause for their fellow Cornellians, starting with $81.8 million. That record-breaking amount was raised in the Reunion campaign, the president said, pointing to the Class of 1980, which established a new dollar record for a 20th reunion class with $2.4 million raised, the Class of 1950, which raised a total of about $16 million, a record for a 50th reunion, and the Class of 1955 with $34.5 million, also a record.

Other college presidents "exult when they hit $10 [million] or $12 million for their reunions," Rawlings said. In the previous fiscal year, Cornell had raised $341 million in gifts from outside sources, "putting us second in the nation in fund raising and first in gifts from alumni and other individuals." This year, he said, "we successfully completed the Scholarship Challenge Campaign, raising more than $170 million in scholarship support and greatly increasing our endowment for undergraduate student aid."

Figures on the Fahrenheit scale were first on the audience's mind when a shirt-sleeved Cornell Board of Trustees chair Harold Tanner introduced the president in a steamy Bailey Hall. Referring to the planned $13 million in air-conditioning and other improvements to the ventilation-challenged auditorium, Tanner promised a more comfortable venue for the classes' next reunion: "Maybe the chair of the board (introducing the speaker) gets to wear a jacket to do so," Tanner said, crediting New York Gov. George Pataki for urging the state legislature to allocate funds for the state-owned building.

The trustee leader thanked alumni of the university "for the love that you show to it." And Tanner said, "The Rawlings years are very good for Cornell, and I suspect the best are yet to come."

Rawlings proceeded to list recent accomplishments and future plans:

·Cornell's commitment to undergraduate education is reflected in the North Campus improvements currently under way to "give freshmen a much more cohesive experience in and out of class," the president said. Planning is under way for a $200 million investment in the West Campus, he said, to increase faculty involvement "and create a richer intellectual atmosphere for roughly 1,800 sophomores and upper-class students who choose to live on campus." He mentioned a Knight Foundation grant and a $100 million gift Cornell received last fall.

·Scheduled for an October rededication, Lincoln Hall is in the midst of extensive renovations and expansion that will give, he said, "our outstanding Department of Music the high-quality facilities it needs." A new Millstein Hall will replace the cramped and unsightly Rand Hall, Rawlings said, providing "a suitable home for our highly acclaimed undergraduate program in architecture as well as a stunning new gateway to the campus."

·As the land-grant university for the state, Cornell will lead the nation in research and teaching for the "new biology that will be the hallmark of the 21st century," Rawlings said. The university has hired two plant biochemists who specialize in "proteomics," a cutting-edge extension of genomics that, "allows the direct and accurate examination of gene expression by characterizing a cell's actual protein complement," the president explained.

·Also attracted by the university's focus on genomics are other distinguished researchers, the president said, mentioning geneticist Gunter Theissen from the Max Planck Institute, Rasmus Nielsen, a statistical genomics expert from Harvard, and computational biologist Golan Yona, who will leave Stanford to join the Cornell faculty in January.

·An emphasis on undergraduate education "and our commitment to making Cornell the best research university for undergraduate education in the nation gave us an outstanding year in admissions," Rawlings said of the incoming Class of 2004. More than 20,000 applicants hoped to join that class, enabling admissions officers to be much more selective and producing an acceptance rate of 30 percent (compared to 37 percent four years ago) plus, what Rawlings called, "a high class problem": so many highly qualified students accepted Cornell's offer of admission that the freshman class is slightly overenrolled.

·Even more impressive were the statistics from Weill-Cornell Medical College, where a $300 million campaign was completed and a renovated Whitney Pavilion recently dedicated. Education at Cornell's medical college is so sought after, Rawlings said, that the school received 6,344 applications for the 101 places in the next entering class.

"As good as a Cornell education is today, it is poised for dramatic improvement over the next few years," Rawlings said. "Our alumni have contributed mightily to Cornell's advance, through their achievements, their generosity and their unfailing support."

By then, a late-morning breeze was sweeping through the hall's open doors and windows. The president invited the audience to follow him to the next event on the Reunion schedule, the dedication on the Arts Quad of a time capsule containing alumni and class letters and other memorabilia, The capsule would be "buried" in the underground archives of Kroch Library, he explained, and everyone at the Reunion could sign a scroll before the lid was closed. The capsule is to be opened 100 years in the future, at Reunion 2100.

"All of you, who have been so much a part of Cornell's past and present," he said, "are a vital part of Cornell's future."