Over the summer, four departments in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) on the Ithaca campus merged with their Geneva-based sister departments: entomology (Ithaca and Geneva), food science (Ithaca) and food science and technology (Geneva), horticulture (Ithaca) and horticultural sciences (Geneva), and plant pathology and plant microbe-biology (Ithaca and Geneva).

The departments will be known as: the Departments of Entomology; of Food Science; of Horticulture; and of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology.

Although the Ithaca and New York State Agricultural Experiment Station departments have been working collaboratively for many years and developed strategic plans in concert, the college's "reimagining" effort provided an opportunity to unite the program areas and combine for full advantage the resources offered on both campuses.

"When we looked at the number of faculty and staff in these various programmatic areas, they represented perhaps the largest concentration of personnel in each of these areas of nearly any place in the world, but it wasn't fully coordinated," says Jan Nyrop, senior associate dean of CALS.

"It really made sense to capitalize on the fact that the departments were already planning together and that the distinctions between the two locations were blurring a bit in terms of teaching and the types of research being done. We wanted to build on that and really come out with an even stronger entity by formally saying it's one."

Max Pfeffer, CALS senior associate dean, said the simplified structure will be "less confusing to potential students and also to others who are looking to partner with Cornell. They'll look from the outside world and now find one, unified Department of Entomology or one Department of Food Science."

While there was concern among faculty members that the mergers could dilute the character of the individual departments, Pfeffer says that the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

"The spirit of the way we're approaching this is lots of faculty input and careful consideration of different possibilities."

Marvin Pritts, chair of the newly formed Department of Horticulture, views the reorganization as a valuable and logical evolution: "Geneva and Ithaca have been getting together on a regular basis for years for retreats and curriculum planning and extension coordination. The thought of formally merging didn't scare anybody because they've been collaborating for a long time."

He added that a larger department not only has the advantages of flexibility and adaptability, but that faculty will have new opportunities for collaboration in research and outreach as well as for teaching.

"The Geneva faculty, traditionally, have not been able to be as involved in teaching as their Ithaca counterparts," Pritts said. "But with newer technologies they will be able to take a more active teaching role, benefiting the students since they will have a greater breadth of faculty to learn from and courses to engage in."

Ellen Leventry is a communications specialist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.