President Lehman discusses Call to Engagement

Frank DiMeo/University Photography President Jeffrey Lehman

During his inauguration this past October, Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman announced a "Call to Engagement" for the greater Cornell community. At that time, and in the intervening months, he has asked Cornellians to join him in this "thoughtful consideration of a set of important questions that can help shape the long-term future for the university." Recently, the Chronicle asked the president about his Call to Engagement, and these are his responses. The president's Call to Engagement topics are listed below.

What prompted you to make this Call to Engagement?

Great universities evolve. As the surrounding society changes, they adapt, giving appropriate new expression to timeless values. The start of a new presidency provides a natural opportunity for us to consider how Cornell should evolve in the years ahead. We have a number of important initiatives under way, and before I suggest additions to that list of initiatives, I want to learn what other members of the Cornell community think about our direction. The Call to Engagement is designed to elicit reflections from people who love Cornell about how we might evolve between now and the university's sesquicentennial in 2015.

Who are you hoping will participate in this effort?

I am hoping that anyone who has an interest in Cornell will participate in the Call to Engagement in some way. We have sent the "call" to students, faculty, staff, alumni and trustees. We hope to encourage discussion in informal settings as well as in more formal group meetings to gain insights into these important issues.

When you term this exercise a discussion, what do you mean?

The questions posed in the "call" are difficult. They are the kind of problems about which reasonable, thoughtful people will disagree. Some of the value of this activity will come from the process of discussion -- talking, listening, attempting to understand why others might have a different perspective on an issue. It will most often take the form of insight and deepened understanding of complexity, rather than the identification of a clear and simple answer. I have chosen to describe the "call" as a discussion (rather than, for example, a strategic planning process) to minimize the risk that instrumental calculations or deadlines will artificially distort people's responses.

How should people frame their responses? For instance, are you looking for lists of solutions to problems, or a loose collection of ideas or something else?

I am very interested in how people think about these issues. I would appreciate responses that reveal how people understand the advantages and disadvantages of different courses of action, rather than just a "bottom line" list of action steps. I don't want people to feel a duty to engage all the questions; deeper responses to fewer questions will be more valuable than shallow responses to more questions. And I certainly welcome more general comments about the priorities and organization of the university that don't seem to fit with any of the questions I posed.

Are you pleased with the responses from the Cornell community that you've received so far?

The responses have been amazing. I have already read about 100 responses, and I am working my way through a few hundred more that have come in so far. I have been deeply impressed by the thoughtfulness of people's contributions and the passion that so many have for Cornell.

How will responses to the "call" be processed?

My staff is thanking respondents for their contributions as soon as we receive them. They are then assembling the responses in two ways -- I have one loose-leaf notebook that includes the responses just as they came in, chronologically, and I have a second loose-leaf notebook that groups all the responses to the first group of questions in one "chapter," all the responses to the second group in a second "chapter," and so on. I am reading the notebooks sporadically, as I have time, and discussing some of the ideas I am reading with different groups. I anticipate preparing a report to the community before next fall, summarizing what I have learned from the process.

Cornellians can respond to the Call to Engagement by taking part in the many formal and informal discussion groups planned during the coming months. Responses can be sent by e-mail to calltoengagement@cornell.edu or delivered to the President's Office in 300 Day Hall.

Questions for engagement

1.What should we be teaching our students? What intellectual dispositions, character traits and essential knowledge should we be nurturing? How can we inspire our undergraduate, graduate and professional students to become intellectual and moral leaders of their communities? How can we prepare them for well-rounded lives that incorporate artistic, athletic, cultural, humanitarian, political and social dimensions?

2.How should we be teaching? Have new technologies and research on how students learn created possibilities for better pedagogy, or are they mere distractions? What kind of mentorship, inside and outside the classroom, should we be providing our students at the different stages of their educations?

3.Whom should we be teaching? What mix of undergraduates, graduate students, professional students and nondegree students will best help Cornell achieve its educational mission?

4.Where should we be present? As our world has changed, we have added new places where we teach those who would earn Cornell degrees. How much should we be extending ourselves, our resources and our reputation around the globe?

5.What does our land-grant mission mean today? What forms of extension and public service are the best modern expression of Sen. Morrill's program for having outstanding universities contribute to the practical education of society? Should we do more to ensure that the fruits of our research become part of the fabric of the larger society?

6.How should we collaborate? We already collaborate with other great universities in the United States and around the world, on projects large and small. What other institutional partnerships, international and domestic, might permit a scale of endeavor that would allow us to accomplish things we cannot do alone? With whom might we collaborate, closer to home, to enhance the upstate New York economy and/or strengthen our ties to New York City?

7.Should we be identifying special domains of research emphasis where Cornell is unusually well situated to make enduring and significant contributions? Can such an identification be reconciled with the highly adaptive decentralization that has been one of the hallmarks of research innovation at Cornell? We have already identified some candidates for special emphasis: information science and computing technology, post-genomic life sciences and nanotechnology. Additional themes that have the potential to draw on multiple disciplines where Cornell has great strength might include: technology and society; race and religion; globalization's consequences; humanity's relationship to the natural and built environment; peace, liberty and security; and global health.

8.How should the university be organized? Our complex web of institutional structures and processes has, for the most part, provided a healthy mix of stability and flexibility. But are some features anachronisms? Do new forms of knowledge production and dissemination require different structures? Might organizational changes better enable faculty, students and staff to achieve their individual and institutional ambitions?