COVER STORY
Action Teens, apples and the spirit of democracy: Cornell's culture of public engagement expands the definition of 'land grant'
Page 8 of 9
Professor Rebecca Stoltzfus chats with students about public engagement. See larger image
Making the connection
Stoltzfus' position as the provost's fellow for public engagement is part of the university's renewed engagement initiative: She works with and is a faculty fellow at Engaged Learning and Research, a universitywide center created in 2011 to strengthen the university's public engagement and public service mission. The center is being funded for its first three years through a gift from the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust (David Einhorn '91 and Cheryl Strauss Einhorn '91) and receives support from the Office of the Provost and the Division of Student and Academic Services.
The center serves as the core academic unit connecting public engagement with Cornell's educational mission, a mission that encompasses the work of plant breeders developing sweeter corn, juicier apples and hardier Brussels sprouts to improve the competitiveness of New York farmers; groundbreaking research in medicine, engineering, business, sustainability and law that saves lives, influences policy and spurs innovation; and the work of artists and designers, poets and philosophers – all of whom also contribute to the education of tomorrow's thought leaders, Cornell students.
"In the broadest sense," says CALS Dean Kathryn Boor, a professor of food science, "our land-grant mission provides key guiding principles that shape the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. From the classroom to the community, the creation and dissemination of 'knowledge with a public purpose' is a driving passion. Building on the land-grant legacy of applying research, teaching and extension to real-life challenges, we are addressing critical needs … across our full spectrum, from fundamental life science discovery to developing effective and sustainable strategies for feeding a population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050."
Access to the law and more
From left, Law School Dean Stewart Schwab, Legal Information Institute Director Thomas R. Bruce and emeritus professor of law and former Law School dean Peter Martin. Bruce and Martin co-founded the LII in 1992. See larger image
The broader definition of engagement encompasses many other parts of the university – even programs and efforts that were not launched or developed with the land-grant mission in mind.
More than half of all traffic to Cornell's Web domain is from people visiting pages of Cornell's Legal Information Institute (law.cornell.edu). Co-founded in 1992 by former Law School Dean Peter W. Martin, now the Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law Emeritus, and Thomas R. Bruce, then the law school's director of educational technologies, the institute "believes everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost."
"We were kind of just hot rodding," laughs Bruce, LII director, recalling early forays into putting legal code onto the Web as hypertext. "Let's put it up and see if anybody looks," he remembers thinking.
<<View entire story as one page>>