Among those signing the SUNY affiliation agreement at Cornell June 12 are, from left, Hunter Rawlings, president of Cornell; Bruce Longo, dean of information technology at the College of Technology at Alfred; Joseph Kennedy, president of the College of Technology at Canton; and Kenneth Wing, president of the College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill. Charles Harrington/University Photography
As New York state's land-grant university, Cornell, from its inception, has been resolute in its commitment to serving the state's needs with regard to agricultural education and research.
Traditionally, the university has provided agriculture-related training primarily to its own undergraduate and graduate students; within the past 30 years, however, it has broadened its reach by encouraging and enabling qualified students from agriculture and technology colleges within the State University of New York (SUNY) system to transfer into Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) after receiving two-year associate's degrees.
So, linkages between Cornell and the state's ag/tech colleges are nothing new. What is new is an agreement, just signed by the colleges' leaders, that formally affirms and strengthens those ties.
On June 12, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and presidents and administrators from six SUNY colleges gathered in the Statler Hotel on the Cornell campus to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding and Principles of Affiliation" -- an agreement to expand educational opportunities for students at the participating campuses and further develop electronic technology and distance-education capabilities.
Besides CALS, the participating institutions are the College of Technology at Alfred, College of Technology at Canton, College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, College of Technology at Delhi, College of Agriculture and Technology at Morrisville and Suffolk County Community College. Each of these schools offers training in agriculture and/or technology.
"It is a terrific day, from my standpoint, for the State University of New York, for the peer institutions represented here and for Cornell," Rawlings said, noting that the affiliation agreement "reaffirms the positive relationships between the university and the state university system."
He added that the agreement "allows us the opportunity to do together that which would be much more difficult to do alone. This is especially important at a time when resources are scarce and when revenues are tight."
As outlined in the agreement, the affiliation can enhance efficiency while adding breadth and depth to the curriculum. For example, this fall Cornell animal science professors John Pollak and Tony Oltenacu will simultaneously offer an animal science course to students at Cornell and Cobleskill.
Jay J. Dinga, ranking minority member of the New York State Assembly Committee on Higher Education, said, "I think what we're describing here today -- the integration, the shared resources, the distance learning . . . is not just a cost savings measure; this is the wave of the educational future. "He added, "What is going to develop out of this, I think, is going to change the face of higher education in New York state."
Also speaking at the ceremony were Peter D. Salins, interim SUNY provost, and Donald R. Davidsen, commissioner of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.
Salins described the SUNY system's diversity and the importance of alliances among its members and with other colleges and universities within the state.
"[SUNY] has got to be the most heterogenous system of higher education in the United States," Salins said. "Few state university systems span across as many sectors as ours -- community colleges, colleges of arts and sciences and specialized colleges of technology. [The affiliation agreement] is a historic instance of cooperation among these institutions."
Davidsen pointed out the economic importance of agriculture to New York state and the nation and hailed the affiliation agreement as a means of providing training for the next century.
Daryl B. Lund, Cornell's Ronald P. Lynch Dean of CALS, noted that 70 students from SUNY ag and tech colleges applied to transfer to Cornell for the fall of 1997; of those, 54 were admitted (77 percent), and 41 have accepted (76 percent).
He also noted that the affiliation agreement supports funding initiatives. The partner institutions will seek new funding opportunities from outside sources for programs, planning and development, he said, and CALS will work to involve the partners in a regional Kellogg Foundation-sponsored consortium for food systems education.
SUNY Cobleskill President Kenneth E. Wing predicted that the partnership "will be a powerful force for cooperation and for meeting the needs of New York state agriculture, still the No. 1 industry in the state."
Rawlings summarized Cornell's position this way: "We at Cornell are completely behind this set of agreements; we believe in it philosophically, we believe in it pragmatically, and we will work as hard as we can to make it a success."