Panels recommend steps to strengthen university's land-grant mission

By Jacquie Powers

The Land Grant Mission Review Task Force has sent recommendations to the Cornell Board of Trustees and implementation has begun on some action steps, said Francille Firebaugh, vice provost for land grant affairs and special assistant to the president.

Martin

Firebaugh

Firebaugh presented the Cornell task force's findings to the trustees on Jan. 24, a year after five panels began reviewing the university's land-grant mission at the request of President Hunter Rawlings and Provost Biddy Martin. The informational report, which was applauded by the trustees, was mailed to department chairs last week.

"Cornell is fortunate to have faculty, staff and trustees committed to projecting contemporary land-grant missions for Cornell," Firebaugh said. "The outstanding work of the five panels gives us a strong base for strengthening current outreach programs and moving toward 'ownership' of the land-grant mission throughout the university."

Firebaugh said two common themes emerged from the five panels and from a review of their findings by a faculty forum, by the presidential commission that coordinated the work of the panels and by the Land Grant and Statutory Affairs Committee of the board of trustees. Those themes were to:

·clarify roles, responsibilities and status of the land-grant mission throughout the university; strengthen ties between research, undergraduate and graduate education and outreach; and establish structures to facilitate accessibility to Cornell's resources and to advance outreach; and

·strengthen entrepreneurship and relations with industry; develop effective partnerships; and seek new sources and strategies for funding outreach.

Firebaugh noted that while the two themes emerged from all five panels, the recommendations and action steps reported to the trustees focused on three of the panels: Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) Extension, Technology Transfer and Engineering Outreach. And, she said, progress was under way in implementing some of the recommendations.

Action steps from the other two panels -- the panel on outreach and extension in the colleges of Human Ecology, Agriculture and Life Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, as well as the panel on K-12 education -- will be developed later in the semester, Firebaugh said.

Martin praised the work of the five panels and the Presidential Oversight Commission, particularly the 72 participants from across the university faculty, staff and trustees.

"President Rawlings and I support the panels' recommendation that the university rededicate itself to its land-grant mission and reconceptualize its meaning in the 21st century," Martin said. "Further, we need to rearticulate the role of the liberal arts education in terms of democratic citizenship and contributions to the public good."

One major recommendation by the task force, which received support from Martin, was the appointment of a senior faculty member in the Provost's Office to advance outreach throughout Cornell.

"We will coordinate plans for an associate provost for outreach with our efforts to support technology transfer and partnerships with industry," Martin said.

Other action steps included:

• clarifying and communicating standards of excellence in outreach; evaluating outreach efforts;

• increasing linkages between service-learning (community-based) and outreach; expanding the discussion of the importance and expectations of service-learning and public scholarship;

• identifying incentives to encourage research translation to the public and increased integration of research, undergraduate and graduate education and outreach;

• combining the organization of the Cornell Research Foundation (CRF) and the Office of Economic Development (OED);

• better integrating CRF's patent and licensing function with the university;

• expanding collaborations with community colleges, especially through Cornell Cooperative Extension and ILR Extension;

• developing a comprehensive plan to increase state funding for core extension programs; and

• reviewing current Cornell endowed funds related to outreach, public service and public scholarship; considering feasibility of future individual and foundation gifts; including outreach and public service in the next capital campaign.

Martin said Robert Richardson, vice provost for research, already is working on the reorganization of CRF and OED. And Edward Lawler, dean of ILR, has created a college committee to develop an integrated plan to align the missions and activities of the college and the extension division. The committee also recommended that the dean take more direct leadership over extension and he has done that, creating a vision statement and a business plan to address the funding shortages facing extension, Martin added.

"The provost's staff and the academic deans share the belief expressed throughout the panel reports that increased entrepreneurship and relations with industry provide greater opportunities than we are currently seizing," Martin said. "The assessment now under way of our efforts in economic development, the new leadership in engineering, new strategies for partnership with industry that have been developed for the life sciences campaign and imminent changes in the leadership of the Cornell Research Foundation make this an opportune moment to consider how we can provide greater encouragement, incentives and rewards for entrepreneurial activity on the part of our faculty, how we can facilitate the transfer of their intellectual work and how we can most effectively organize our economic development and technology transfer activities."