Search committee details qualifications, challenges for next CU president

By Jacquie Powers

Cornell's Presidential Search Committee has issued a document outlining the challenges and opportunities for the university's next president, as well as qualifications the ideal candidate should demonstrate.

The eight-page document, "The Cornell Opportunity," was developed based on input from Cornell faculty, students, staff and alumni over the past several months, as well as input from other friends of the university and community leaders in Ithaca and beyond, according to Edwin H. Morgens, chair of the Presidential Search Committee. The complete text of "The Cornell Opportunity" is available electronically at http://trustees.cornell.edu/search/opportunity.htm.

"The search committee has used the summer months to good advantage, working diligently to move the search process forward," Morgens said. "We are very pleased with the response received to date as we continue to identify the best possible candidate to serve as Cornell's 11th president."

That candidate, according to the document, should be "an inspired and inspiring leader, with proven skills, including: A public persona ... Academic leadership experience ... A courageous leader ... Documented success as a fund-raiser ... An excellent recruiter of outstanding faculty and staff ... Significant personal intellectual achievement ... Commitment to the full range of student life and learning issues ... A broad interest in the academy ... Experience and success with diversity ... Experience with academic medical center, hospital and medical school management and strategy ... Commitment to outreach and extension commensurate with a land-grant university ... Experience in and comfort with political settings; ability to work well with community and elected officials ... Experience managing in a complex administrative and financial setting ... A commitment to staff development ... A track record as an entrepreneur ... Confidence in his/her own leadership style."

President Hunter Rawlings announced in March that he would resign effective June 30, 2003, and assume a full-time professorship in the university's Department of Classics.

In the document, the search committee identifies five key challenges for the next president, including:

• Keeping the Faith and Staying the Course: Inspiring the Cornell Community and Raising Funds for Investment: "To maintain its leadership position and fulfill its vision of being a preeminent research university and the best research university for undergraduate education in the country, Cornell will need to raise significant investment funds in a challenging new environment. ... The next president of Cornell must understand the competitive framework, advance the strategic agenda, inspire the long-term loyalty of the Cornell community and conduct the next capital campaign. The president should have aspirations as large as the aspirations of this great university and must communicate them powerfully to the entire Cornell community."

• The Strategic Agenda -- The Best Undergraduate Education in a Great Research University: "During President Rawlings' tenure, he and the university articulated a modern variation on its historic mission, to build the best undergraduate education in a great research university in the United States. The cornerstones of the strategy for achieving this vision are: (1) developing strategic science, (2) improving the undergraduate living and learning environment and (3) building the faculty of the future. While much progress has been made, the next president of Cornell will need to support these efforts and further the agenda by focusing on the humanities and social sciences on the Ithaca campus and enhancing the leadership position of the Cornell Weill Medical College."

• Enhancing Diversity: "Cornell will need its next president to provide personal leadership in diversity. The university seeks to improve its record: to build a more diverse community of students, faculty and staff; to add strength to the academic study of ethnic and gender issues; and to make the campuses richer in their cultural appeal."

• Fostering Collaboration Across Cornell's Colleges/Creating a New Partnership With New York State: "One of Cornell's key strengths is its broad range of study. Cornell's academic disciplines, however, are housed in 13 different colleges, which create barriers to collaboration. Further complicating this situation are the contract and endowed funding differences among the colleges. As New York state funding has just kept pace with inflation, it has been harder for the contract colleges to continue to fund their academic programs at competitive levels. Because many of the strategic sciences are based in both contract and endowed colleges, Cornell's success in research will rely heavily on the ability of the faculty to cross college boundaries and on Cornell's ability to secure additional funding from New York state. ... The next president will need to work with the provost and the deans to create incentives for collaboration and remove administrative and cultural barriers. Additionally, the next president will need to assess and, as necessary, redefine and revitalize Cornell's partnership with New York state and the State University of New York in ways that may combine state and private resources in new and innovative ways."

• A Managerial Agenda: "Cornell's layers have been its strength, but they add costs, a requirement for greater consultation and, on occasion, inefficiency. In addition to the array of conventional managerial tasks, the university has identified three broad areas as challenges for the immediate future." They include workforce planning and rationalization; information technology; and encouraging entrepreneurship.

Morgens noted that the committee does not plan to comment further on where the search process stands. "In order to attract the very best candidates, the committee must exercise extreme caution so as not to compromise the confidentiality that we intend to provide to all prospective candidates," he said.