Dale R. Corson served Cornell as professor and chair of the Department of Physics, dean of the College of Engineering, provost of the university and, from 1969 to 1977, as its eighth president -- weathering Vietnam War protests and the Willard Straight takeover while building the university's position as one of the great research institutions. He was the second president of Cornell to be drawn from its faculty.

His varied career included discovering a missing element in the periodic table and wartime development of new radar techniques. Later he joined the staff of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, with the responsibility of organizing the Sandia Laboratory. After joining the Cornell faculty in 1946, he helped design the university's first synchrotron. In retirement he created the unusually accurate sundial displayed on the Engineering Quad, and helped to found the Kendal at Ithaca retirement community.

All that and more can be found in "The Legacy of Dale R. Corson," produced by J. Robert Cooke, professor emeritus of biological and environmental engineering and former dean of the university faculty. After a short biographical sketch by Corson about his early years, the book documents his Cornell career with lectures, letters, documents and many photos. An accompanying DVD includes photos and videos.

The book and Web-quality versions of the videos may be viewed online at http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/3613. Printed copies and the DVD can be ordered from Internet-First University Press, Ithaca, NY 14853.