President briefs trustees on upcoming priorities

Peter C. Meinig, chair of the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees, is flanked by President Hunter Rawlings, left, and James L. Broadhead, vice chairman, during the committee's May 22 open session in the Taylor Room of the Statler Hotel on campus. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Jacquie Powers

President Hunter Rawlings told members of the Cornell Board of Trustees at its regular meeting May 23 that the university has much to celebrate in the progress it has made over the past year to strengthen its academic mission. He added that much remains to be done, as he briefed trustees on the priorities he will focus on in the coming year.

The board also heard a report from Associate Provost Winnie Taylor on the university's progress toward greater diversity and was given some good news from Walter Cohen, vice provost and dean of the graduate school, on graduate enrollment.

"I am pleased to report that we have made great progress this year in our efforts to strengthen our academic mission," Rawlings said. "But while there is cause to celebrate the progress we have made, we must continue to build on those efforts in the years to come. There is still much to be done."

Rawlings outlined six priorities he will focus on in the year ahead:

• Creating greater academic synergy among the colleges. He pointed to the recent success in this area in statistics and economics but said he wants "to accelerate the process" and focus now on sociology, psychology and the biological sciences "in order to emphasize our strengths and gain greater cohesion."

• Strengthening undergraduate education and the living and learning environment for undergraduates. He pointed to the new residential initiative, in which all freshmen will be housed on North Campus in residence halls that offer enhanced programming, as the first step in that direction.

• Determining crucial research areas for focus. He said Cornell must decide which key research areas, such as materials science, the university will focus on and become top ranked. Those areas, he added, will become "enabling areas," enabling other research areas to develop from them. "This will ensure that we don't spread our resources too thinly," he added.

• Consolidating administrative units. He said consolidation already is under way among Cornell's 19 libraries, and admissions is starting a two-year phase-in plan to bring the department greater cohesion. These and other consolidations are planned to achieve greater operating capability and to better manage resources, he said.

• Improving relations with the State University of New York system. He noted that while those relations are "relatively better" than they were a year or two ago, improvement is needed in terms of allocation of state resources for Cornell.

• Developing the finest alumni affairs and development department in the country. "We need to further increase participation by our alumni and friends."

Rawlings concluded to a standing ovation from trustees, and board Chairman Harold Tanner thanked the president for presenting "a very excellent road map" for the coming years.

Taylor offered a summary of her annual "Inclusion Report," which she said this year focused primarily on the university's diversity efforts with respect to women and minority faculty members. She said the good news is that there no longer is an alarming, double-digit attrition rate among women and minority faculty members.

But, she said, "we still have a considerable challenge on our hands as we seek to increase diversity among our faculty. ... We are behind our peers."

Taylor's statistics show that the average percentage of women faculty at six of the university's peer institutions is 23.7 percent, while women represent 19 percent of Cornell's faculty. The average percentage of minority faculty at the peer institutions is 12.6, while minorities represent just 10.4 percent of Cornell's faculty.

Cohen pointed to positive news after 10 years of declining graduate school enrollment. He said total projected enrollment in the 1998-99 physical sciences entering class is 267, an increase of 105 over the current year; total enrollment for 1998-99 in the physical sciences is projected at 1,005, an increase of 80 over the current year. Projected 1998-99 enrollment for the entering class for all doctoral students is 596, an increase of 133 over the current year; total enrollment for 1998-99 for all doctoral students is projected at 2,766, an increase of 67 over the current year.

Cohen attributed part of the success to the fact that the university raised the target number of entering fellowships in the sciences and applied social sciences to 100 from about 20 in 1997. Those are in addition to the substantial number of fellowships allocated to the humanities and social sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences.