PUBLISHER'S LETTER
From the publisher
Thomas W. Bruce See larger image
This, the eighth issue of Ezra magazine, is the most important we have published since our inauguration in the fall of 2008.
The reason is the theme of our cover story: Reinventing the University. And by that we mean not only Cornell, but the American research university in general. Most important, of course, is the application of the term to Cornell, and an ambitious program of regeneration that we call "Reimagining Cornell."
As Provost Kent Fuchs notes in his introduction to our cover story, Cornell's planning for reorganization and renewal was not a consequence of the national financial crisis; but the crisis did awaken Cornell to the need to focus and prioritize. The end result of the elaborate planning under way since 2008 -- directly involving over 200 faculty members, administrators and staff -- will be a university that will be more efficient and academically excellent by the time of our sesquicentennial in 2015.
Because Reimagining Cornell is essentially about people -- those who learn, teach and work at Cornell -- our cover story narrates our aspirations through the eyes of six students, each of whom is directly affected by the aspirations of Reimagining Cornell's core, an idea-filled strategic plan that will take us into the future.
And because the strategic plan confronts the core issues also affecting our peer research universities in the United States, we conclude our cover package with an essay by Glenn Altschuler, dean of the School of Continuing Education, that surveys the current national condition of U.S. higher education and the continuing stresses that are putting it at risk of losing its dominant status in the world.
I hope you will also read the final article in this issue, an End Note by undergraduate Katie Dreier, who provides a deeply affecting essay on the place that Cornell occupies in her life and in the lives of her family.
This is the most important issue of Ezra yet because it speaks to every Cornellian, past, present -- and future.