Q and A with Provost Biddy Martin

Q&A

Provost Biddy Martin focuses on the humanities

Cornell Provost Biddy Martin discusses Antigone, which was the 2003 new student reading project, with students outside Goldwin Smith Hall in August 2003. Frank DiMeo/University Photography

In December, you were named to serve on a 12-person Association of American Universities (AAU)/American Council of Learned Societies Humanities Steering Committee. What is the importance of your role on this committee?

The AAU and American Council of Learned Societies Humanities Steering Committee is charged with developing strategies to reinvigorate the humanities, which are perceived by some to have lost ground within the university and outside it to the sciences and to an emphasis on pre-professional studies. Every AAU university has been asked to hold a forum on its campus to discuss potential problems and opportunities in humanities disciplines. I am working with Peter Lepage, dean of Arts and Sciences, and Mohsen Mostafavi, dean of Architecture, Art and Planning, to organize a forum at Cornell in May. The forum will bring together humanists, scholars from other fields and academic administrators to discuss the significance of research and teaching in the arts and humanities, their relations with other disciplines, their status in higher education and their public perception.

What other efforts are taking place regarding the humanities at Cornell?

We are going to try to take a leadership position in the effort to give research and teaching in the humanities more visibility not only in the university, but in the eyes of the public and among our political leaders. We are establishing a team in the area of communications that will cover the humanities in more depth and help students and faculty coordinate and publicize activities so we can best take advantage of the extraordinary resources we have here at Cornell. The provost's office is working with the Office of Communications and Media Relations on this effort. Some of this increased visibility will include lobbying efforts in Congress to stress the importance of federal funding for the arts and humanities.

Is there a crisis in the humanities at Cornell and in higher education in general?

There is a perception of crisis in some quarters. In some colleges and universities, humanities fields have been hard hit by budget constraints, and where reductions have been made, shifts in students' choice of majors have sometimes appeared to justify reallocations to other fields -- but enrollments in humanities courses overall remain strong, here and elsewhere. The significance of the humanities to universities' mission and reputation, and to our students' education, is not always adequately recognized or promoted. Many social scientists would say the same about their fields. At Cornell, our humanities departments and graduate fields are among the strongest in the country and could well assume leadership in defining the most promising and generative work in the humanities, work that shows how necessary and compelling the appreciation and analysis of human cultural production really is, and that reinvigorates the study of language literature.

What other issues are front and center for you now?

President Jeffrey Lehman has named three areas of enormous societal significance in which Cornell can take the lead, not only in response to existing challenges, but in the very definition of the problems: life in the age of the genome, wisdom in the age of digital information, and sustainability in the age of development. I was asked to set up three separate task forces charged first with generating an inventory of research and teaching already under way on these themes and then with defining the scope of the initiatives, determining which questions Cornell faculty are best positioned to address, and helping us decide what investments to make in these areas. The task forces are made up of faculty from all the major disciplinary areas and have already begun this important work.

How does Cornell set its goals, with so many areas clamoring for resources?

In the rankings of faculty quality that matter to us, Cornell has numerous fields that are ranked in the top five or ten in the nation. We have as a goal that we remain in the top tier in those disciplines in which we have long been leaders, that we move some of our less highly ranked fields into the top tier and that we continue to lead in key interdisciplinary programs.

What's happening in the area of academic planning?

Inge Reichenbach [vice president for alumni affairs and development] and I will present a report on the relationship between academic and campaign planning to the board of trustees this Friday morning. I have been working with our deans for two years to define academic goals and priorities, develop a clear sense of our resource needs and make plans for the capital campaign that will help us renew what President Lehman has characterized as our "beloved" and "revolutionary" university. To realize the ambitious goals that our faculty has set for themselves and we have set for the institution requires that we undertake a major fund-raising campaign. The planning for that campaign is now well under way.

How will the new Life Sciences Technology Building and the priorities it sets by its very existence position Cornell for the future?

It testifies to the collaboration of scientists across disciplines and subdisciplines and to the creativity and initiative of a group of life scientists, under the leadership of [plant breeding and genetics Professor] Steve Tanksley, who began a grassroots effort in the late '90s to transform the life sciences at Cornell. As a result of the dedication and hard work of a faculty committee, led by Professor Steve Kresovich, and the superb administrative oversight provided by Vice Provost Kraig Adler, the plans for the building have stayed on course over a period of several years, and we look forward to this opportunity to celebrate the imagination of our faculty and administrative leaders. The building will provide unique opportunities for interactions among physical scientists and engineers, with life scientists working from the cell and molecular levels to the applied domains of biomedical engineering, cancer biology and nanomedicine. It will foster the growing number of critical collaborations between Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College faculty because of its scope and facilitation of translational biology. The conception and realization of this building represent our competitive advantage in the life sciences.

What additional strengths do you think Cornell University will have in 2015, the year of its sesquicentennial?

What has always distinguished it and distinguishes it now -- the quality of our faculty and students, the support of talented and dedicated staff, a unique combination of "classical and practical studies," or basic and applied research and teaching, a culture of collaboration and a beautiful and exciting campus. In addition, President Lehman has articulated a vision of Cornell as an exemplary citizen of a world full of opportunities and challenges. In 2015 I believe Cornell faculty and students will have made "transformative contributions" in the areas he has defined as our challenges for the sesquicentennial.

March 10, 2005