CU trustees, councilors accept Lehman's 'three challenges'

By Roger Segelken

President Jeffrey Lehman's vision for Cornell as a transnational university and his enunciation of three challenges -- to excel in "life" (the Genomics and New Life Sciences initiatives), "wisdom" (information technologies) and "sustainability" -- resonated favorably with trustees and council members who heard his Oct. 29 State of the University address. Read coverage of the speech.

Trustee Chairman Peter C. Meinig, who had introduced Lehman to the Statler Auditorium gathering, said after the address that the challenges "are an important way to renew Cornell's beloved traditions -- if we all do our work well," adding that "everyone in the room will have to roll up our sleeves and help."

One newly elected member of the University Council, Regina Little-Durham '78, was encouraged to hear Lehman link genomics studies to potential advances in medicine. "Where we are headed (in life sciences research) in terms of the future, he's right on," said Little-Durham, the vice president of a Washington, D.C., health care consulting firm.

Trustee emeritus Michael W.N. Chiu also saw genomics and life sciences as an important path to Cornell's future. "For years we have excelled in life sciences and physical sciences," said the 1996 graduate of the Hotel School, "and right now there are only eight or ten universities in the United States with similar resources." But President Lehman's vision to combine the efforts of three Cornell colleges (Agriculture and Life Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and the Medical college), if fully implemented, Chiu said, could place Cornell among the top two or three such institutions. "Now the challenge is to better integrate these efforts."

One faculty member of the board of trustees, professor of plant breeding Elizabeth Earle, said the president's three challenges "will be helpful in framing many of the things we are already doing, and in developing priorities for building the future of Cornell. Of course there will be hard choices ahead in selecting and funding specific areas of emphasis within the themes," she said.

"President Lehman has picked the three most important areas" as challenges for university research and teaching, according to University Council member Richard D. Bulman. The retired New York City businessman contrasted Lehman's vision with that of previous presidents and said he liked "the broader philosophical approach."

Student trustee Jacqueline Koppell said: "I think President Lehman has a sound plan for Cornell. It is ambitious and will take Cornell to greater heights in all areas of the university."

Council member Rudolf W. Muenster thought Cornell can make the greatest contributions in the area of sustainability, but he worried about what might happen to "the Cornell experience" if transnational means building academic programs around the globe. The 1962 Hotel School graduate recalled the advice of a mentor, hotelier Conrad Hilton, when Muenster was trying to learn the business as an undergraduate at UCLA. "Transfer to Cornell," Hilton told Muenster, and he's glad he did (even though Cornell tuition was four times more than the California state school's at the time and he had to sell his $170 car and work hard to pay the bills)."The professors here are tops," he said, and transplanted programs abroad can never substitute for the experience of living and learning on the campus where an institution is based.

Muenster had this advice for today's Cornell students: "Remember, you're not coming here to please your parents. You are here to improve your ability to absorb knowledge, to learn how to improve our world."