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Search Committee sets open meeting schedule and reports on process

Cornell's Presidential Search Committee, charged with conducting a search for the university's next president, announced April 24 that it will hold four open meetings over the next few weeks to receive input from the campus community. The first open meeting, for all students at Cornell in Ithaca, was held April 30 in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. Read the story.

Edwin H. Morgens, vice chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees and chair of the search committee, released the following report on the search process, April 24.

Searching for Cornell's 11th president

The Search: A Process of Inclusion:

The Presidential Search Committee will strive throughout the search -- and particularly in the early stage -- to ensure that its process is inclusive. In addition to the broadly representative composition of the committee itself, the committee will send letters to all faculty, staff, students and alumni seeking their input.

To assist in the process of obtaining input from the campus community, the search committee has established several subcommittees. The subcommittees will work specifically with faculty, staff, students, alumni and the Weill Cornell Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences community. In addition, members of the subcommittees will host open meetings in Ithaca and at the medical college. The following events are scheduled:

The purpose of the open meetings is to solicit input on what attributes the next president should have to lead Cornell through the completion of its previously articulated strategic priorities; to identify what type of individual would be able to bring his or her own vision into this context; and to identify any other challenges or opportunities Cornell is facing that need to be part of the incoming president's priorities for the university.

In addition to the open meetings, search committee members will meet with senior administrators and deans to solicit the same type of input as will be invited from other campus constituencies. A significant portion of the May 2002 board of trustees meeting will allow trustees the opportunity to answer these questions, as well.

Based on the input received during this initial phase of its work, the search committee will develop a "case statement" -- to be made available to the public -- that will articulate the characteristics Cornell seeks in its next president. Once that document is created, the committee will begin the confidential process of researching and identifying prospects.

The Presidential Search Committee:

The Presidential Search Committee is comprised of 19 members plus two advisers. The committee includes board-elected trustees; faculty, employee, student and alumni members of the board of trustees; as well as additional distinguished members of the faculty from Ithaca and the Weill Cornell Medical College, a graduate student and a representative of the senior administration.

Members of the Presidential Search Committee

Trustee members:
Edwin H. Morgens, chair; Leslie C. Barkemeyer, student-elected trustee; J. Thomas Clark; Diana M. Daniels; Michael V. Esposito, employee-elected trustee; Samuel C. Fleming; Barbara B. Friedman; William E. Fry, faculty-elected trustee; Myra M. Hart; Peter C. Meinig, chair-elect of the board; Rebecca Q. Morgan; Andrew M. Paul; Harold Tanner, current chair of the board; and Jan Rock Zubrow, alumni-elected trustee.

Non-trustee members:
Patrick M. Carr, graduate student; Harold G. Craighead, faculty; Kenneth A. McClane Jr., faculty; Ralph Nachman, M.D., Medical College faculty; Inge T. Reichenbach, university administration.

Advisers:
Sanford I. Weill, trustee emeritus and chair of Cornell's Weill Medical College Board of Overseers, and Stephen H. Weiss, trustee and board chair emeritus.

Executive secretary:
Barbara L. Krause, assistant secretary of the corporation and associate university counsel.

Subcommittees for constituency groups:
Faculty: H. Craighead, W. Fry, K. McClane, D. Daniels and M. Hart.
Students: L. Barkemeyer, P. Carr, A. Paul and J. Zubrow.
Staff: M. Esposito, L. Barkemeyer, T. Clark and S. Fleming.
Alumni: I. Reichenbach, T. Clark, B. Morgan and J. Zubrow.
Medical College: R. Nachman, D. Daniels, B. Friedman and H. Tanner.

The Search Firm: Isaacson, Miller:

The search committee has selected the national search firm of Isaacson, Miller (Boston, Mass.) to assist it in identifying and recruiting the strongest possible candidates. Staffing Cornell's search are John Isaacson, president and managing director, and Barbara Stevens, vice president and director.

Isaacson received his B.A. from Dartmouth in 1968; he studied politics, philosophy and economics at University College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship and graduated in 1970. He received his J.D. from Harvard in 1973. He had a lengthy career in public service in Massachusetts before founding Isaacson, Miller in 1982.

Stevens attended Wellesley College and received her B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley. She has been with Isaacson, Miller since early 2000 and previously held senior administrative positions at Yale University (associate director for community and state relations), University of Pennsylvania (executive assistant and chief of staff to the president) and Georgetown University (executive director of administrative excellence).

Isaacson, Miller is affiliated with the Washington Advisory Group, an association of 15 of the most distinguished and accomplished scientific and academic leaders in the nation.

How to Contact the Presidential Search Committee:

People wishing to contact the Presidential Search Committee may do so by writing to the following address:

Presidential Search Committee
P.O. Box 4688
Ithaca, N.Y. 14852-4688

Comments may also be sent via e-mail to cu-pres-search@cornell.edu. A web site devoted to the search is under construction and will be available in the near future.

The Importance of Confidentiality:

All of the advice the search committee has received and Cornell's own past experience indicate that a confidential process is critical to a successful search. The best candidates will not appear for an open or compromised search. Toward that end, all members of the Presidential Search Committee and the staff supporting the committee have signed a confidentiality agreement.

The Search Committee is comfortable that the significant efforts to obtain input at the beginning of the process, as well as the broad representation of campus constituencies among the membership of the committee itself, will allow the committee to consider all community voices throughout the search process.

May 2, 2002

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