Janet Reno will give Sage Chapel sermon Nov. 9 during her visit

Undergraduate Kelley Hess '05, right, thanks former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in Olin Library cafe, Nov. 3, for taking time to write a note of encouragement to Hess' Cornell classmate, Brian O'Reilly '05, who is on leave with a critical medical condition. The note from Reno will appear in a care package prepared by a number of O'Reilly's friends at Cornell. Reno had been speaking to staff, faculty and students in the cafe during a morning event hosted by Cornell University Library. The Cornell alumna and Rhodes professor spoke about books and poetry that have inspired her and informed her thinking throughout her life. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

Justice is the hallmark of Janet Reno's life work and "Justice" is the title of her final public talk as a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 University Professor. The former U.S. attorney general and Class of 1960 Cornell graduate will deliver her talk as a sermon Sunday, Nov. 9, at 11 a.m. in Sage Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

Reno's campus stay this year began Nov. 3 and continues through Nov. 15, and she will keep to the pace she set on her inaugural visit in 2001 as a Rhodes professor. She is the featured participant in a Cornell symposium, titled "Rethinking the Criminalization of Youth," to be held today, Nov. 6, and Friday, Nov. 7, on campus. At the symposium, she will join eminent scholars from around the nation for an intensive examination of the American juvenile justice system and the death penalty. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jane Powers at the Family Life Development Center, 255-3993 or e-mail jlp5@cornell.edu. (Read the calendar symposium listing.)

In fact, Reno's final visit as a Rhodes professor finds her engaged with the Cornell community at practically every level and across several disciplines. She is meeting informally with undergraduate women in Balch Hall, where she was once a resident, and with students who are organizing a group for Women in Politics at Cornell. In addition, she is participating in at least a dozen classes ranging from human ecology, law and psychology to history and anthropology.

A graduate of Cornell with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, Reno was the nation's first female U.S. attorney general. She served in that capacity for almost eight years during the Clinton administration, and her term was the longest for an attorney general since before the Civil War. In 2001, Reno returned to Cornell to deliver the senior convocation address during that year's commencement activities.

The Rhodes Class of '56 University Professorship is overseen by the Cornell A.D. White Professors-at-Large Program. Rhodes professors appointed since the program was inaugurated in 2000 include: architect Richard Meier, a 1956 Cornell alumnus; biomedical scientist Edward M. Scolnick, president of Merck Research Laboratories; and TV personality and science educator Bill Nye, a 1977 Cornell alumnus who visited campus in October.