PUBLISHER'S LETTER
From the publisher
Thomas W. Bruce, vice president for university communications. See larger image
Cornell's Ithaca campus is about to experience a tectonic shift. In the coming decade, as the baby boom generation hit their 60s and 70s, the university will need to hire as many as 1,000 new faculty members, including 100 in the humanities, due to the retirement of more than half of our most distinguished teachers, scholars and scientists.
This and the next three issues of Ezra will focus on this impending renewal of Cornell's faculty – perhaps the most dramatic change in the face of the academic staff in our university's history. Nearly half of our faculty members are over age 55. The College of Arts and Sciences has the oldest faculty in its history, with about 20 percent of faculty members over age 65. "We are hiring our future reputation," G. Peter Lepage, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, observed recently.
You may have read that Cornell has established a $100 million Cornell Faculty Renewal Fund to begin hiring immediately, following a period of financial downturn that forced us to implement a universitywide hiring pause. In our Viewpoint article, Provost Kent Fuchs discusses the unprecedented rate of hiring that lies before us, and the opportunity it brings "to refocus, reprioritize and create new initiatives that will define Cornell's future."
In coming issues you will read about what makes Cornell such an academic magnet: The vision and dedication brought to the campus by faculty researchers and teachers in the life sciences, arts and humanities, and engineering. In this issue the discipline is the physical sciences, and the enormous energy – and, dare I say it, genius – brought to scientific investigation by one individual, and how this in turn brings the best minds – whether researchers or graduate students – to the Ithaca campus.
We also are planning other stories on how this unprecedented hiring will maintain diversity in the faculty as a whole. And central to our stories is the research and teaching by current faculty members that future leadership will want to emulate. Another quote from Dean Lepage that succinctly sums up not only the challenges facing the university but also the themes that Ezra will portray: "It's scary to have your most famous people leave. But it's also a tremendous opportunity."
Thomas W. Bruce
Vice President, University Communications