1

~( . College of Arts and -Sciences

Office of the Dean
Cornell Universjty
....:====.:-=~---~ . . _--------
147 Goldwin Smith Hall

[uIy 24, 20u>

Dear Colleagues,

",ou will find attached to this letter the draft report I requested from the Ad Hoc Committee for
I\cedemic Planning, chaired hy Walter Cohen. A tremendous amount of work went into this
report. I want to take this opportunity to thank the committee for an extraordinary effort on very
~hort notice.

1want to emphasize that this is a preliminary version. Anything mentioned in the report remains
open for discussion, and there may well be things omitted that should not be. I have asked
jieparbnent chairs to organize discussions within their departments, and to report back to me and
the committee. Also I will be organizing at least one faculty meeting in September to discuss the
i ."report. The committee must submit the final report to the provost (and to us) by the end of
September.

I also want to emphasize the continuing importance of our academic-planning discussion. It is too
soon to say how serious our ultimate budget cuts will be, but it is certain that we face further cuts
and that they eouId well be lar er than the more than 6% cut we had to absorb this year (2009-10)
- east 0 0 every 20 of our fae ty poSItions. t is essential that our plan for achieving
I arm y sea eIDlC p annmg. e committee's report is an important
tontribution to that process. The deans will consider its recommendations along with responses
bd suggestions from department chairs and faculty in detennining what changes wiU best meet
'&>llege needs going forward.

l<"s you will see, the report covers a broad range of topics. Some ideas have immediate relevance
to our work on the budget, while others are for the longer term, and will have little immediate
impact. Still other ideas, like the summer semester for undergraduates, must be dealt with at the
'university level. I asked the committee to think broadly and into the future, and they did just that.

While all of the recommendations and discussions are up for debate, it is important to understand
that reductions themselves are unavoidable. Consequently, serious objections, criticisms, and
arguments will include alternative and constructive suggestions for achieving reductions.

I have attached to this letter a list of questions that come up about the report and answers to them.
I hope this will help clarify some of the report's implications. I look forward to discussing the
report with you at a meeting in September.

ConleII University is all equal opporrnniry, affirmative.::l.icm trluCSlDrlWld cmplD)"Cf.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How will this report affect budget cutting this year?

We certainly must deal with further budget cuts this year. Most of that cutting
will likely be unrelate~ or only indirectly related to this report since the report is
focused, at my request, on the long-term structure of the college, several years
out. Much of the report is most relevant to the healing process that will come
once we finish a couple of years of budget balancing.

The long-term impact of the report depends upon which of its ideas the deans
decide to work on; the ultimate budget plan will come from the deans. Such
decisions will be made in consultation with departments and the faculty, who
will also play central roles in implementing any ideas.

2. What should my colleagues and I focus on?

The decision to place highest priority on the large departments in each of the
four main intellectual areas of the College has a significant impact on the overall
direction of the report and of potential allocation choices in the coming years,
Departments should consider the merits of this position. There are many
plausible alternatives including, for example (in no particular order): 1) favoring
of
the departments with the most distinguished records regardless size or area,
l

or favoring areas of traditional strength, on the grounds that it's easier to

maintain ilistinction than to achieve it; 2) giving special weight to departments
with unusually heavy teaching burdens, on the grounds that they are already
under pressure; 3) emphasizing interdisciplinarity, on the grounds that this is the
wave of the future; 4) emphasizing disciplines (even more than the committee
report), on the grounds that this is the unique role of colleges of arts and sciences
within higher education; 5) sparing small departments, on the grounds that even
small changes have a much larger proportional impact; 6) cutting uniformly,
across the board, on the grounds that we should protect the status quo. And so
on. We are seeking the best result under difficult circumstances.
3. My department is not listed among the small-but-excellent departments in
category two. Does that mean my department falls into category three? Also, if
this scheme is adopted, will category-two and category-three departments
receive bigger cuts than category-one departments?

The list of category-two departments is illustrative, not comprehensive.

Furthermore, the classification of departments into categories two and three
would require further discussion and analysis under the proposed scheme. The
report stresses the importance of strength in the category-one departments. What
that implies about the budget for such a department will depend in detail upon
the current state of the department. On average, category-one departments
would likely get smaller-than-average cuts, but some could well have larger-
than-average cuts. Again these are long-term considerations; what will happen
this year is hard to say at this lime.

4. What else should my colleagues focus on?

Instructional issues-especially an adequate balance of small and large courses,

where this is not aheady the case.

5. My colleagues and I remain deeply opposed to the idea of divisions (or of a

merged ethnic studies program). What can/should we do about this?

For now, nothing. These proposals would require more resources (to do well)
and far more discussion within the college than we can manage in ~e next few
years. On the other hand, such ideas were proposed to address important issues.
We should think about some of these issues wi\:hin the context of OUI current
structure.
,.
6. How are we to interpret the concerns about productivity? In particular, does
this mean stiifer standards for tenure-a major concern among assistant
professors? .

The committee and the deans are in unanimous agreement that tenure standards
should remain unchanged, neither higher nor lower. Productivity more generally
is a concern given that the faculty will bear more responsibility in coming years.

•
7. The report focuses on professorial faculty cuts, since this represents the
majority of the budget. It also emphasizes the importance of maintaining
support for doctoral students. Does this mean that there should be deeper cuts
in the faculty than in the doctoral student population? Alternatively or in
addition, would this imply deeper cuts in the staff, the lecturers,
miscellaneous expenses?

The committee does not systematically address this issue. Hence, this is a good
topic for departments to think through.

8. What happens next?

The formal schedule is as follows. After the departments report back in

September, the committee will decide how it wants to revise the report in
response to what they have heard. Additional material concerning
administrative functions will be added (college and department staff are working
on this now), as will a discussion written by me about implementation. This final
version must be delivered to the provost by September 30. University-level
decisions will follow sometime afterwards, hopefully not too much later.
Meanwhile, independent of this formal process, the college will begin work on
the immediate budget challenge, focusing initially on ideas that do not depend
on university decisions. This work will fully involve the departments. Some of
these issues are mentioned elsewhere in this FAQ.
 DRAFT

Report of the Ad Hoc Committee for

Academic Planning

College of Arts and Sciences

June 30,2009

1
 Table of Contents

I. Overview ..• 3

n. Principles, .. 7

m. Scenarios •.. 10

IV. Facnlty Qnality ••• 17

V. Teacbing Quality: Enbancing Instruction in tbe Face of Budget

Cuts •.. 21

VI. Conclusion ..• 25

Appendix 1: Committee Membersbip ... 26

Appendix 2: Wby Retain Biology witbin Botb tbe College of Arts and
Sciences and tbe College of Agricnlture and Life Sciences? .•. 27

Appendix 3: A Division of Literatnres, Cultures and Languages ...

29

Appendix 4: Arts and Sciences Policy on tbe Use of Undergradnate

TAs ... 38

Appendix 5: Consultants ... 39

2
I. Overview

Cornell University currently faces a financial crisis of unprecedented proportion, with a

structural budget deficit estimated at 15-20%. To belp assess how to close this deficit in
the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), Dean Peter Lepage formed "a faculty committee
to develop recommendati~ns, in consultation with the faculty and department chairs, for
academic planning in response to the 10-18% budget cut we expect over the next 2-3
years" (February 18 e-mail to College chairs; see Appendix 1 for committee
membership). In the same vein, Provost Kent Fuchs subsequently asked each college to
create a task force to propose how the college should be reshaped to "maintain and
enhance focused excellence in the context ofa total budget reduction of 15%" (May 12
version). That is the task that confronted our committee.

This task: has been particularly unpleasant. because a budget reduction of 15% has
potentially dire consequences for A&S. The College is already quite lean, and most of
our current budget is allocated as salary for core activities. More than 70% of our budget
is salaries for people who teach. and more than 50% is salaries for tenure-track faculty,
Moreover, A&S has already undergone significant consolidation of non-academic
expenditures: for instance, half of our 25 department/program managers are in charge of
tw'o or more departments/programs. Hence, the only way to reduce the budget by 15% is
through significant reductions in the size of the tenure-track faculty. -

These cuts will be all-the-more painful given that almost every"department in the College
is smaller than the average size of its counterparts at our peer institutions. Although
Cornell University is large relative to many peer universities, A&S is small relative to
peer colleges ofafts and sciences. This is due in large part to Cornett's havrng an
unusually large number of colleges; other colleges at Cornell are also small relative to
their peer colleges. In tenns oftenure·track faculty, the College is roughly 11% smaller
than our private competitors (lvy League plus a few oilier schools), and 33% smaller tlian
our public competitors. Given the strong correlation betw'een department size and
department ranking, it is hard to imagine significant reductions in faculty that do not
severely damage our ability to compete. Furthermore, once damaged, reputations can be
extremely difficult to rebuild. '

Our committee was asked to take a long-run perspective. In other words, our charge was
not to identify ways to achieve a 15% budget reduction over the next couple of years.
Presumably that will take place wherever opportunities arise, with djstortions remedied as
soon as possible once Cornell emerges from this Clis~. Inste{d, our charge was to assess
what A&S ought to look like in 5-10 years. once it has reached its new equilibrium with a
15% smaller budget.

As a first step in addressing this long-teon question, we developed our vision for the
University and for the role of the College within that vision. This vision will then inform
our recomTDendations.

3
 A. Our Vision for Cornell and the Role of the College of Arts and Sciences
within this Vision

Cornell was founded with a special mission and special structure that set it apart then-
and set it apart now-from other leading schools. On one hand, Cornell i~ an endowO)l
Ivy League universi with I Lea ue re utation for research and liberal-
e ucatioD. n the other hand, Cornell is a public land- ant univers' committed to
research and e llcation at serve the pub iC good.

Within !his vision, the College of Arts and Sciences has three key functions.

First, Cornell has a reputation as an elite research university. The College plays a central
role in generating this reputation. a reputation that is essential to Cornell t 5 continued
excellence. Almost all leading research universities have a college of arts and sciences.
and indeed it is the only college that is found at nearly all leading research universities.
(MIT and Cal Tech are the sole exceptions in not having a college of arts and sciences,
but they operate on a rather different model. Indeed, they label themselves "institutes"
( rather than "universities.") Moreover, the vast majority of prominent core disciplines are
housed in arts and sciences, both at ComeU and at other leadmg research universities.
Among the disciplines ranked by Us. News & World Report, the ones that correlate most
closely with overall academic ranking are those in arts and sciences. Our research
reputation remains a crucial variable in our attempts to recruit and retain faculty, and is
perhaps the number one determinant of whether job offers are accepted. Our research
reputation also permits us to attract top post-docs. graduate students, and undergraduates
to Cornell.

Second, Cornell has a reputation for providing one of the best liberal-arts educations in
the context of a research institution, and the College is the primary home for liberal-arts
students at Cornell..Excellence in liberal~arts education within a research institution is
perhaps the hallmark of the Ivy League universities and a few other leading private
schools. Our excellence attracts outstanding undergraduates to A&S. For instance, over
the past five years, almost 50% of applications to Cornell were applications to the

-
College.

Third, A&S provides high-quality teaching in core disciplines to serve both our own
liberal-art'i majors and the broader University community. The College offers the
foundational courses in science, math, languages, and composition for most
undergraduate programs across campus. Although A&S contains rougWy 1/3 of Cornell
faculty and students, it conducts about 45% of all under aduate teac' at Cornell
(measure yenrollments. Indeed, the College provides about 1.5 times as much
teaching as its stUdents conswne from all colleges. It is as if the A&S faculty were
providing all of the teaching for 6000 undergraduates, rather than the 4000 actually
enrolled m tlie College.

4
 B. Some General Concerns

The subsequent sections describe our specific recommendations. In Section II, we detail.
some general principles that should govern allocation ofcuts within the College. In
Section IIl, we describe how these principles might play out under various scenarios. In
Section N, we offer recommendations-beyond allocation decisions-fof how A&S can
maintain an exceUent faculty with fewer resources. And in Section V, we offer
recommendations with respect to teaching. These sections are followed by a very brief
conclusion and a series of appendixes keyed to relevant points in the main text.

Before turning to the specific recommendations, we end this overview section with a
short discussion of some general concerns that we believe should be kept in mind. Some
of these are treated at greater length in subsequent sections.

1. Diversity. Any redirection of resources or change in College policy

should work to preserve (and continue to improve) the balance and diversity of A&S
faculty.

2. Cross-college Collaboration. In light of the small department sizes in

A&S as well as other colleges, there are ~at advantages to cross-college collaboration.
Biology has led the way in making such links. Similar opportunities exist in the sociat
sciences, where the issue of department size is especially pronounced within the College
and where there are many faculty in other colleges. There might also be possibilities in
the creative arts. In our view, A&S should take a more active role in promoting and
coordinating cross-eollege collaboration.

3. Increased Oversight. A theme in many of our discussions with

College faculty was the need for increased oversight of the faculty to ensure that
resources are allocated in a way that promotes continuing excellence in research and
teaching. The Dean's office should pay more attention to faculty productivity, and
resources should be targeted at more productive faculty. The Dean's office should also
pay more attention to departmental planning. in terms of both recruiting strategy and
curriculum (quality and equity). And department chairs and full professors should pay
more attention to the assistant and associate professors in their departments, to help them
develop and prosper as productive members of Cornell.

4. Coverage. Even with our current budget, many departments in A&S

can barely cover everything that they "need" to cover. With budget cuts. we'll need to
abandon the notion that each department must fully cover its discipline/area. If the budget
reductions are especially severe. we may even be faced with the extremely painful
necessity of abandoning the notion that the College must cover all of its traditional
disciplines.

5
 5. Research Resources and the Library. The Library is a major research
resource, and its acquisitions budget must be protected during this process. Monographs
must continue 10 be boughl regularly, because unlike many journals where back issues
can be obtained later if needed, a missed monograph can be lost forever. In addition, it is
vital that Cornell's Library remain in the Borrow Direct consortium.

6. Omissions. The Committee decided-not to make recommendations

about various issues mentioned in the charge-among them distribution requirements,
majors and minors, and, with a couple of exceptions, graduate education. We discussed
these topics but omitted them from this report for various reasons-time pressure, lack of
obvious financial savings, uncertainty about whether significant reorganization was
warranted on academic grounds, and, perhaps, difficulty in addressing the potential
problems without a more precise idea of the scale of the cuts.

7. Transparency. We applaud the University administration for

communicating and working with the faculty during the current crisis. We encourage it to
provide even more transparency as we move forward, especially about the underlying
so Dfllie crisis. erhaps the main conclusioD from our analysis is tbat.reductions on
the scale antICipated bythe University, however 'udiciously chosen, will do rna'or
amage to ven e e consequences, 1 IS unportant at e ae ty know
r merely facing brutal cuts to get through the crisis--after which we will
grow back to, or close to, 2008-09 Ievels--or are instead confronting a long-term change
in the nature and quality of the College (and University). In our discussions with A&S
faculty this spring, we found widespread disbelief that there would need to be long-run
cuts, and confusion as to why. Hence, continued candor on these issues will clearly be
critical for maintaining faculty morale.

6
 n. Principles
A. Emphasis on Research and Its Integration with Teaching

Cornell is a preeminent research university. Cornell A&S faculty led the Mars Explorer
project, played an important role in the development of critical theory in literary and
cultural studies and discovered acid rain in North America and demonstrated its major
effects on lake and forest ecosystems. Cornell founded the :first chair of musicology at an
American university and is the birthplace of both the Philosophical Review and the
Physical Review. While difficult economic times may demand that we change the shape
of the College, any evolution should be directed toward maintaining, or even
strengthening, A&S's standing as a superb locus of research.

Teaching and advising are also central missions of the University. They are closely
integrated with research: decisions relating to research programs have a direct impact on
teaching, and vice versa. Graduate students must encounter an intellectually rich
environment, and under raduates should :find at Cornell an array of courses that allows
them to explore far-ran 'n mtere an . t the ISCI es that inspire
them.
, - n a practical level, even when reshaping the College requires that some areas
receive less emphasis than they have in the past. we must make certain that basic teaching·
needs are met

B. Maintaining Excellence

Disciplines in the College fall into four major areas-arts and humanities, biological
sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences. In order to be a College of Arts and
Sciences, rather than a specialized institute, A&S must have excellent departments in .
each of these four areas. There may. however, be peaks and valleys within those areas.
These peaks and valleys may be across departments, so that certain departments are
excellent. while others, at least in the short term, are only very good. Similarly, individual
departments may find that the strongest program is achieved not b bern com rehensive
,-::) l2..ut by selecting specific topics for emphasis. deed, SOIDe departments that are
significantly smaller than their peers (for instance, Psychology and Sociology) have
already achieved prominence in sub-fields by being deep in those areas while abandoning

-
others. .

the College must contract, it should take care that certain components remain excellent
Uniform cuts across the board are not be recommended, as the are a recipe for
weakness across e oard. Such an approach. if the cuts were deep. coul amage A&S
profoundly. perhaps even irreparably. Rather, the College must ensure that a core of
departments remains strong and that current excellence is retained wherever possible.
,

7
 A1J we survel' A&S, several subjects stand out as cornerstones of the liberal arts. These
are Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, Government, History, Math and Physics.
In addition, these fields have the largest graduate enrollments both at Cornell and at other
similar institutions, and every outstanding peer institution is excellent in most or all of
these subjects. Any reconfiguration of the College must strive to sustain its current
' strength in these departments. Those that are superb should remain superb; those that ar
(
very good should not be allowed to decline.

I...--"t the same time. there are certain departments in A&S that have eamed a reputation for
excellence in scholarship and teaching, and in which doctoral students nationally have
steady opportunities for placement. Some of these are among the cornerstone departments
mentioned above. Others are smaller disciplines, almost always represented at peer
institutions as well. such as Astronomy. Linguistics. Music and Philosophy. These
departments give the College its texture. and we should make every effort to preserve
their extraordinary scholarship.

In the remaining departments, which are very good by national standards, we should
strive, at the very least, to preserve the ability to teach essential undergraduate courses. In
the longer term, when A&S is able to rebuild, we expect that the measures laid out above
will have sustained the College as a leading institution that will attract scholars in all
fields, including those most affected by the current financial crisis.

Different levels of cuts will be tolerable from department to department: some larger
departments may be able to sustain larger cuts and remain strong, while others may not
be able to do so. Certain departments, such as Economics, have undergraduate I
enrollments that stretch their current teaching capacity. In such cases, priority should be
given to meeting these teaching demands.

C. Equity in teaching loads

Given the expected increase in Wldergraduate enrollment and more substantial decrease
in the size of the instructional staff, each faculty member will, on average, be teaching
more students.,As a result, man de artments will be encouraged to teach lar or courses.
This increased d means ac to teac ergra uate
ecture courses on a regular asiS. ermore, every departmennttsl'lUtrltt1llr....!ll1mlmtltlr
·tfifcIergraduate enrouments. 'Ilifs-is particularly relevant to departments that now su:f'feI
from a curious disconnect-appealing to graduate students, but not to undergraduates.
These departments have the power to reach undergraduates, and should design courses
that do so.

IlbroughoU! this report "Biology" refers to the three biology departments in A&S-Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology (EEB), Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG) and Neurobiology and Behavior
(NBB)-as a unit. See also Appendix 2.

8
 D. Interdisciplinarity

The previous discussion has emphasized disciplines. In the same spiri~ ~e recommend
that all faculty hires possess disciplinary expertise. On the other hand, interdisciplinarity
and interdepartmental connections are important features of Cornell's intellectual climate,
and are not to be sacrificed owing to economic pressure. Indeed. interdisciplinary and
interdepartmental collaboration is more important than ever in the face ofcuts. Such
collaboration will he increasingly important, especially in small departments, to hiring
decisions, graduate admissions and curriculum.

E. Language,

Cornell is renowned as an institution that comes closer than most of its peers to being a
place where any person can find instruction in any language. Language learning is a
crucial part of a liberal arts education and, in some cases, of graduate study. The College
must strive to preserve the unique breadth of its language programs, ensuring that
diversity of languages taught is not compromised by cuts. Similarly, in considering cuts,
we must recognize the value offoreign language study not only to undergraduate
education but also to research.

9
 Ill. Scenarios

There are but two ways to meet the anticipated budget shortfalls-increasing resources or
decreasing expenditures. In the following, we first discuss the limited options for
increasing resources and then tum to the most significant means of decreasing
expenditures-reducing the faculty at either the University or the College level.

A. Increasing Resources

After much discussion. the committee has identified only one mechanism for
significantly increasing resources-teaching more students. Th~ University does not have
the infrastructure e.g. residence halls, classrooms to increase under nate enrollme t
si,gnificantly during the Fa) an Spnng semesters; however, a University-wide expansion
oithe Summer semester bas considerable revenue· eneraM tential. One possibility
wo e an ap on a artrnouth's successful D-plan, which was originally
" developed to meet the increased enrollments generated by the transition to coeducation.
In such a plan, undergraduate students might be required to enroll for one Summer
semester (out of four), while taking one FaIl or Spring semester off. ~s plan effectively
increases educational capacity. and thus tuition revenue b 14%.2 Of course, this
additional revenue will improve e u get situation only if it is not accompanied by an
expansion of the faculty. In other words, summer·semester classes would be staffed by
our current faculty perhaps by re uirin all facul to teach one Summer semester every
four;aears, with a Fall or Spring semester off, like the undergraduates, unng e
r prec iog or subsequent year.

Although tempting from a business perspective, a mandatory expansion of the academic

calendar is not without risk. The effect of a required Summer semester on Cornell's
ability to attract top students (and top faculty) is unknown. Additionally, careful planning
would be required to avoid scheduling problems, particularly for highly sequential
majors. For these reasons and others, the implementation of a successful, University-
wide, mandatory Summer semester would likely require a number of years.

B. Decreasing Expenditures through Faculty Reduction

Cost reductions will likely have to be made at all levels, including faculty, staff, and
graduate students (both graduate fellowships and teaching assistantships). in the
following, we consider only the effects of cost reductions at the professorial faculty level.
(Further administrative efficiencies in the College are being explored by an

:IEach undergraduate would enroll for seven semesters, rather than the current eight, during the standard
Fall-5pring academic year. All other things being equal, this would result in a decrease in the
undergraduate population during Fall and Spring. But the total number of undergraduates on campus during
these two semesters would remain unchanged, owing to a compensatory increase in class size. All students
would take their eighth semester during the Summer, thereby producing a total undergraduate population
sn the size ofilie current one and hence an increase of In, or 14%, in the number of undergraduates.

10
administrative functions committee composed of several department managers and
College staff.)

1. ~acnlty Reductions through University Reorganization. The

Committee believes that there are real opportunities for reorganization and consolidation
at the University Level. BYJeorganizing areas of study that span colleges and either
placing their combined resources within a single college or creating new structures for
cross-college cooperation. Cornell could use the resources devoted to these areas more
efficiently and to greater effect. Importantly, this reorganization could strengthen the
University's reputation in a number of areas while potentially enabling significant cost
savings. Although recommendations along these lines are outside our charter, we mention
these opportunities to stimulate thought and discussion.

Perhaps most strikingly, the social sciences-particularly economics and sociology-a}e

studied in a large number of departments and colleges on campus. Although different
departments have different areas of specialization, mscbanisms that encourage
cooperation in teaching, faculty recruitment, and graduate education should be explored.
The committee does not propose such collaboration as a means of reducing A&S's
invesbDent in the social sciences beyond what budget cuts necessitate. Rather. we hope to )
capitalize upon cross-college possibilities to improvc the absolute standing of the social
sciences in both the College and the University during this time of shrinking resources.

All areas of the basic biological sciences in A&S are already organized in a successful
cross-college structure (with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: CALS). and
we did not identify any specific areas for consolidation. The topic is addressed further in
Appcndix 2. Nevertheless, this area must also be examined for new opportunities that
might lead to cost·saving reductions.

Thc visual arts are also spread across several colleges at Cornell, and include the study of
history and theory, as well as practice. As part of a broader film-and-visual studies
program, film studies (currently in Theater. Film and Dance) might be brought together
with Art History and Visual Studies; film making (currently also in Theater, Film and
Dance) might be joined with photography and digital media (Architecture. Art and
Planning: AAP). In the longer term, a larger umbrella structure that integrated theory and
practice might be envisioned (on the model of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton).
Such a structure might encompass architecture (AAP). landscape architecture (CALS). art
(AAP). and design (Human Ecology). Close links could theo be forged witb Theater,
Dance. Creative Writing, Music. and the History of Art.

Finally. physics is studied both in A&S (physics) and in the College of Engineering
(Applied Physics). Although there are pedagogical reasons for offering a physics-related
major in both colleges, there may be opportunities for consolidation across the colleges.

11
 Importantly, the Committee stresses that the study of the physical, biological and social
sciences are central to any college of arts and sciences. The transfer of any of these fields
outside of the College would weaken A&S irreparably.

Although this establishment of priorities emphasizes the relative contributions of

departments' research reputations to the standing of the University, cost reductions
should not compromise the teaching mission afthe College or the University. A&S plays
a central, indeed disproportionate, role in undergraduate education on campus (Section
1A), and injudicious cost-cutting would have far-reaching consequences. Plans for faculty
reduction should take into account the reality that some departments currently have an
unusually large responsibility for teaching in the College (as measured, for example, by
undergraduate enrollment per faculty FTE): this contribution to teaching should be
considered in the allocation of faculty reductions across departments.

A&S must make strategic investments in its faculty to ensure that it is positioned at the
intellectual forefront in the coming decades. As a consequence, it should place less
priority on graduate fields that are experiencing nationally declining enrollments.

Finally, we unequivocally state Out support for the College's already-unequivocal policy
th~ reductiQD~ the professorial faculty should not be achieved by cbanging the

I expectations for tenure.

----- 3. Effect of Faculty Reductions on the College. The preceding proposals

are deliberately quite general. Nevertheless, they lead logically to a number of
conclusions about the relative weight of reductions across departments. To investigate the
effects of these priorities and to test their robustness and efficacy, we conducted a simple
experiment. Members of the Committee were asked to prepare anonymous numerical
models of A&S after 10%. 15% and 20% redu~tions in professorial faculty FTEs. For
convenience, the calculations assumed a College of24 departments (i.e. a number of
departments were combined for computational simplicity) and ignored short-term
consequences (i.e. the departurelbiring of specific faculty). The averaged results of this
exercise are presented in Figure 1.

12
 The identities of individual departments have heen ruppressed for at least two reasons.
First, the Committee wishes to emphasize the general effects on the College, not the
specific effects on individual departments. Second, we did this solely as an exercise, not
as a reconunendation. Hence, identification of individual departments (or amalgamations
ofdepartments) in the graph did not seem helpful. That said, although the Committee
members differed. in their specific recommendations, there were significant
commonalities across th~ir models. But even in the absence of such commonalities, an
outcome of this sort is inevitable as long as the reductions are stratified (and thus not
across the board).
100.,-----------------,

l
UJ 80
G: Averaged
Reduction
Models
!Dim 10%
~ 15%
~ 20%

o
Depanment
Fig. 1: Model of the relative sizes of departments in the College of Arts
& Sciences after 10%, 15% and 20"10 reductions in faculty FTEs. This
model was obtained by averaging the anonymous models prepared by
individual members of the Committee. The departments are presented in
order of their predicted reductions in the 10% model.

What is apparent from Figure 1 is that every department is cut under each scenario (10%,
15% and 20%). Even the lowest level of cost cutting considered by the Committee (10%)
will have a dramatic, and possibly devastating, effect on a number of departments in
A&S. The least affected departments may experience cuts that are 50 percent of the
average, whereas the most affected departments can be expected to experience cuts that
are many times larger than the average. For example, consider the effects of a 15%
College-wide faculty cost reduction. As shown by Figure 1, this ''moderate'' level ofcuts
can be expected to cause-more than lltof College departments to shrink by 25.,
~ercent or mor:e. The majority of departments (> 90%) will experience reductions of
0% or more. At the highest level of cost reductions (20%), most models predict the
disappearance of 2-4 existing departments (not evident from Figure 1 because of
averaging), and reductions of at least 25% for an additional 3-4 departments. Maintaining
the strength of the College in the face of significant reductions will necessarily shift
investment away from emerging interdisciplinary areas and, to some extent, from smaller
departments, including departments that are. currently considered central to a liberal arts
education in any leading university.

13
 4. Mechanisms for Offsetting the Impact of Faculty Reductions. As a
leading research university, Cornell must remain at the intellectual forefront-its faculty
continuously expanding current knowledge and pioneering new fields ofinquiry. Implicit
in this statement-and of particular urgency given the warning at the end of the previous
paragraph-is the importance of interdisciplinary scholarship and research that transcend
existing intellectual boundaries. To retain a positiou ofleadership, Cornell must evolve;
the Cornell of the future l:annot be the Cornell of the past

For the foreseeable future. such intellectual diversification cannot be driven by an

expansion of the faculty. In the face ofdecreasing resources and near-certain faculty
reductions. Cornell and the College must identify strategies that promote
diversification of the intellectual portfolio of Arts and Sciences while also
maintaining a standard of excellence in both research and teaching.

Wjth this in mind, the Committee concluded that there were a number of reasons to
consider the crea n of tar er organizational units in A&S articul om the
stan pornt of the faculty. Especl y es a . g resources,larger units have an
iilherent advantage over Smaller units in obtaining resources. Larger units are also more
flexible. For example, since larger units hire more often than smaller units, they are in a
better position to respond to targets of opportunity. Furthermore, larger units afe more
capable of making strategic investments in emerging areas than smaller units, in part
because they more routinely can make hires and hence are less reliant on the judgment of
College-level administrators.

From a College and a University level as well, a number of considerations favor the
creation of larger organizational units. Perhaps most importantly, larger units enable
more uniform quality control of faculty hiring, promotion, and retention decisions. The
strength of the University lies in the strength of its faculty, and inadequate expert review
of tenure decisions could harm A&S for decades. Larger units also enable more efficient
teaching, in part by identifying commonalities in the curriculum across a number of
subfields.

In spite of these structural advantages. the process of creating larger units from smaller
ones is a delicate undertaking. Even in a time of constant resomces. the emergence of
new areas can be seen as a threat to well-established fields. Similarly, faculty in emerging
fields may worry about a loss offield identity after consolidation. Nevertheless, the
College must adopt an organizational structure that promotes both intellectual diversity
and a standard of excellence.

In what follows. we outline a number of opportunities to strengthen the College in the

face of declining budgets. while also presenting mechanisms to allay concerns.

14
 a..Creation of a Literatures, Cultures and Languages Unit.
This unit could be either a disciplinary organization, liIriited to hteratures and languages,
or a multidisciplinary one, drawing on a wider range of the humanities. In the former
case, an obvious move would be the creation of a division of Modem (i.e. post-Classical)
Continental European Languages and Literatures. consisting of Comparative Literature
(mainly. though not exclusively. conc£ffi.ed with European languages), German,
Romance Studies, Russian, and perhaps the (admittedly multidisciplinary) graduate field
of Medieval Studies. Such a unit would he slightly smaller than the English Department.
In the case of a multidisciplinai-y unit. the division could also include four
multidisciplinary departments-Asian Studies, Classics. Near Eastern Studies, and
Theatre. Film and Dance-thereby making it much larger than the English Department.

.In addition to the general reasoDs..ptesenfed earlier. the strongest argument.f.oUhe

amalgamatjon gfeepartmeats that specialize, partly. or mainly, in literature is intellectual.
First, there is the logic of disciplinary coherence: the College strives to have one
department for each discipline. Second, it is in Cornell's interest to evolve to address the
growing importance of world literature. Especially in modem literature (where Cornell,
like every other school, has its largest investment), but also in earlier eras. a significant
shift away from a regional or even continental view of literary study is now visible. This
shift shows no sign of abating. and it would be intellectually beneficial to bring faculty
together to foster this shift within A&S. Cornell has llilusual geographical and linguistic
range (especially in Asia but also in the Middle East and Africa) compared to most other
leading schools. and is thus well positioned to take advantage of this direction in literary
and cultural studies.

Since the creation of such a unit is very controversial, the advantages and disadvantages
of this proposal are discussed at length in Appendix
-.-:::===
3.:
b. Creation of Solely Joint-Appointment Interdisciplinary
Departments. To obtain the benefits of larger operational units while also reducing
concerns that a department that is interdisciplinary, or that already draws partly on jointly
appointed faculty. would lose its identity through consolidation, the College should
consider the creation of sQIelyjo;nt-appointment depm:tments. The Committee envisions
a structure in which each faculty member is aDpojnteQ.-te bofh a home dj'icip/inarv
department (e.g. Sociology or History). which would oversee promotion, and the
interdisciplinary department~. Science and Technology Studies----S&TS). Some
"candidates for this model, in di erent ways, are Asian Studies, Comparative Literature
and Near Eastern Studies, as well as S&TS. For example, this structure would improve
connections between S&TS and the social sciences. In the case of Comparative
Literature, where the majority of the faculty already have their primary appointments in
other departments. such a structure would regularize conunitment of time to
undergraduate instruction and administration in the department while drawing on the
already-existing strongly comparative character of the College's literature faculty. In
effect, this strategy would enable the reduction of faculty lines without sacrificing quality
or reputation. Joint appointees would dedicate a portion-perhaps half---Qf their teaching

15
responsibility to the disciplinary department. which could thus staff its curriculum in part
with its new joint appointees and sustain a corresponding reduction in the number of its
non-joint appointees. '.
c. Creation of an Ethnic Studies Unit. T~uld combine-
Latino Studies Asian American S ' e' , , 'cana
es Center and AmeriCan Indian Program. These units are all fairly small and, in
~on with virtually all other departments anll programs. likely to become smaller still,
Since these programs have a great deal in common intellectually. consclidation may help
preserve them in the face of decreasing resources.

16
IV. Faculty Quality

The various possible scenarios just surveyed can acquire their full potential value, of
course, only in the context of ongoing serious attention to distinction in research and
teaching. In this section, we offer recommendations-beyond allocation decisions-for
how A&S can maintain a:n excellent faculty with fewer resources. If the College is to
shrink, it must use the avalIable talents of the faculty as efficiently as possible to enhance
the level of accomplishment, and hence the reputation, of both A&S and Cornell.

It is therefore important to have guidelines that can follow and fairly measure the
scholarly achievements of each faculty member in research, teaching, and service. In
part, this means implementing a fonnal process 10 track and facilitate faculty
development. In part, this means developing objective indices to measure that
development. Such information is essential to promotions and salary increments, as well
as to retention decisions. We recognize that some of the following measures/guidelines
are already well understood and can vary not only across broad disciplinary groupings
(humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, life sciences) but even within a single
discipline.

A. Suggestions for Reviews of TCDure-track Faculty, Prior to-Tenure Review

1. Senior Faculty Menlor. As explained by lbe A&S Chair's Handbook,

"A formal mentoring scheme for untenured professors is now required of all
departments." The chair should appoint at least one tenured faculty member from the
home department (preferably a full professor) to serve as "senior mentor" for an
uolenured faculty member. The cboice of menlor{s) should be decided by the chair in
consultation with the uolenured faculty member and the tenured faculty of the
department. A compilation of resources related to faculty mentoring and retention is also
available at: bttp:llwww.advance.comell.eduiADVANCE Resources/retention.html.
Each department chair is strongly encouraged to develop good mentoring practices to he
emulated by other senior faculty.

2. Reviews by the Department Chair. It bas proved extremely useful in a

number of departments to have yearly reviews prior to both the 3rd -year and tenure
reviews. The annual reviews are less formal than the other two. They are intended to help
the untenured individual understand what slhe needs to do in order to have the strongest
possible case at the time of the 3rd._year and tenure reviews. 1bis includes encouragement
to apply for extramural grants and fellowships in support of research endeavors. The
chair meets with the junior faculty and the mentor(s) together. The chair then prepares a
letter summarizing the meeting, to be signed by all the participants. The junior faculty
member's signature indicates receipt of the review, not necessarily assent to its contents;
Slbe has the opportunity to add a letter of explanation if desired. Letters prepared prior to
rd
the 3 .year and tenure reviews are kept in the .department files to assist later in the
rd
preparation of the 3 -year and tenure reviews, which are sent to the Dean's office.

17
 a. General Topics To Cover at the Meeting and in the Letter.
Research, teaching (in the context of the long-range, 4-5 year teaching plan for the
department; see Section VJ, service (department, College, University; discipline-related,
including editorships, membership on editorial boards, officerships in national and
international societies, reviewing, grants panels, society boards, meeting organizer) and
"Other" accomplishments (e.g. awards, outreach). For a junior faculty member in
particular, the primary emphasis will be on research and teaching.

b. Special Recognition. One pwpose of these reviews is to

recognize junior faculty who are "rising stars" and reward them with greater-than-
average salary raises, increased space (where appropriate) and/or early consideration for
promotion to Associate Professor.

B. Suggestions for Reviews of Associate Professors

1. Reviews by the Department Chair. Chairs are responsible for

monitoring the progress of all associate professors toward promotion. In at least some
depamnents, this involves either an annual or a biennial review with each associate
professor prior to the consideration for promotion to full professor. (When the chair is
him/herself an associate professor. this meeting should be held by the senior associate
dean, who will call upon one or more senior members of the department as appropriate.)
This is meant to help the associate professor present the strongest possible case for
promotion in a timely manner. General topics to cover at the meeting include research,
teaching, and service as discussed above for assistant professors.

a. Special Recognition. As with junior faculty reviews, one

pwposc of these reviews is to recognize faculty who deserve greater-than-average salary
raises, increased space (where appropriate) and/or early consideration for promotion, in
this case to full professor.

b. Long-term Associate Professors. Associate professors who are

stalled in rank. may be asked to do more teaching andlor service in support of the
department's overall obligations. Remedies should not be prescriptive and punishing. In
most cases, interventions should be designed to enable individuals to resume a productive
scholarly life and teach a range of courses. If a faculty member neither engages in further
research nor provides additional teaching (e.g. by offering more lecture courses) and/or
service, the case should be reviewed by the chair in consultation with the dean.

C. Suggestions for Reviews of Full Professors

1. Reviews by the Department Chair. It could prove extremely useful

for the department chair to have a meeting every 3-5 years with each full professor to
discuss and review the professor's accomplishments, long range goals and plans in
research, teaching and service, as discussed above for assistant and associate professors.

18
 a. Special Recognition. Again, one purpose of such reviews is to
recognize faculty who deserve greater-than-average salary raises, space (where
appropriate) andlor titles (e.g. endowed professorships),

b. Lack of Research. Full professors with either scaled-back or

non-existent research programs may be asked to do more teaching and/or service. A13 with
stalled associate profess6rs, the remedies should not be prescriptive and pWlishing.
Again, the goal is to enable individuals to regain their ability to resume a productive
scholarly life and teach a range of courses. Again as with associate professors, if a faculty
member neither engages in further research nor provides additional teaching (e,g. by
offering more lecture courses) and/or service. the case should be reviewed by the chair in
consultation with the dean,

D. Research Metrics

As stated at the beginning of this section, we recognize that measures of scholarly

achievement vary across both broad disciplinary groupings and even within a single
discipline. We urge each department. in consultation with the Dean's office. to develop a
clear set of metrics that remain relevant at all stages of evaluation of a faculty member's
career, Chairs, in consultation with their faculty and deans, may periodically choose to
refine the applicable metries to reflect evolving standards in their disciplines. Also. as
individual faculty downsize their research programs over time. chairs (again in
consultation with deans) may want to consider providing incentives to such faculty for
teaching large lecture courses, to help them move to new roles in the department's
mission and to remain productive, (See Section V.)

E. Garnering Increased Outside Funding

The College should create additional incentives for faculty to apply for outside funding.
These might include some informal return on indirect costs to the faculty principal
investigator and/or department through increases in facility research funds and/or summer
salary, access to seed funds for the preparation of grant applications, additional top-offs
on outside fellowships. etc.

F. Strong Departmental Leadership: Chair and Associate Chair

The above requires strong departmental leadership and might require having both a chair
and associate chair, depending on the size of the department. It is sometimes the case that
the associate chair is also the director of graduate studies: this strategy serves to connect a
graduate field more fully with the department that serves as its administrative home. The
leadership of each department should possess excellence in research. teaching and
administration. Ideally, a single individual, the chair. will have all these traits. but
combinations of chair plus associate chair in large departments could together have them.
When only a chair is appropriate, it would be helpful for that individual to be assisted
during the ~ast year of her or his term by the incoming chair. who could be designated

19
associate chair for that period oftime. Longer-term associate chairs also receive training
that can fully prepare them to be chairs jf and when they assume the post.

G. Faculty Searcb Committees

Search committee members should be cboseD to be as competent and well informed as

possible in the area ofth<rsearch. Professorial faculty with active research programs
should make up the majority of the search committees. The College should consider the
value of including on search committees faculty from outside the home department,
especially in cases where a faculty position might provide an important bridge to another
department or college. The perspectives offered by such "outsiders" worked extremely
well for hires in the New Life Sciences Initiative, a process in which each faculty position
was viewed as a strategic hire for the entire University. In addition, the College should
work to increase racial and gender diversity in faculty candidates through mechanisms
such as committee diversity traiping or requirements for reasonable diversity among
candidates brought to campus.

20
V. Teaching QuaUty: Euhancing Instruction in the Face of Budget Cuts

In this section, we suggest how the College can enhance teaching in the face of budget
cuts. As we Doted earlier, decreased faculty size along with increased student numbers
will mean more teaching by faculty-at a minimum, the teaching of larger classes. The
CQmmittee accordingly recommended that aU A&S faculty regularly teach undergraduate
lecture courses s!U\S-te-share this grQViOng responsibility equitabl~. Faculty cuts may also
limit the number or range of courses that can he offered in a given year. To minimize the
damage to smdents' education (and to faculty scholarship), we offer several proposals.

A. Departmental Teaching Plans

Each department should establish a rolling,long-range (4-5 year) teaching plan. to be

revisited and adjusted every year. It should have a balance between introductory and
advanced courses, including large lecture courses. upper-level courses in sub-disciplinary
areas that could enroll both upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students,
and seminar courses on specialized topics that change each time offered and could appeal
to both upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. This long-range «rolling" plan
should allow a department to plan staffing well in advance.

B. Class Sizes

Although everyone recognizes the need for larger classes in general, it is crucial for
undergraduates to experience some smaller classes durins. their time at Cornell.
Freshman writing seminars and language classes serve part of this goal, but upper-level
undergraduates also greatly benefit from the experience of small classes in their majors.
Hence, we recommend that departments aim for a bifurcation of their classes into large
and small sizes. In..o ther words, rather than having 40-50 students in each class, the ..

~ -
College should aim to enroll 75 or more students in some classes. and 15-25 in others.

C. Teaching Assistants, Graduate and Undergraduate

A13 we noted above, there will undoubtedly be pressure to cut graduate TAships. We urge
!be College to resist this pressure as much as possible. Support for graduate students is
dsential to both the teaching and the research m1sslons of the College. The number of
graduate TAships provided by A&S has already decreased. Any further cut could
severely impede both of the College's missions. First, it could seriously undermine
teaching, thereby limiting both the ability ofundergraduates to obtain individualized
assistance with course material and the number of students who can be accommodated,
especially in laboratory courses. Graduate TAs play critical roles in our instructional
mission. while gaining teaching experience essential to their ability to obtain future
faculty positions. Second, it has the potential to decimate graduate programs. This is a
problem in all disciplines, but particularly in the physical and biological sciences, where
graduate students playa critical role in the productivity of the labs, including in the
ability to produce research results that justify future extramural funding. TAsrnps
supplement the externally-financed graduate research assistantships on which such

21
students are typically supported in their later years and thus are crucial to the funding
packages offered to prospective and incoming students. (The considerations in item "b"
are equally an argument for the University to protect graduate fellowships from cuts,
again as much as possible.)

Even if graduate TAships are protected from further cuts, the projected lack of growth in
(or cuts to) mculty and instructional staff will increase teaching demands on faculty and
- .;..... .~. it harder for them to attend adequately to individual students.
The Committee therefore advises departments to cansmer we use otundergraaua~e 'lAs
where .their use would he appropriate. Undergraduate TAs can provide significant help
by assisting graduate TAs in labs and autotutorial sessions, by holding office bours in
which they explain materials to individual students in the course who have specific
questions, and, under carefully prescribed conditions, by grading objective tests. (See
more on tests and grading below.) Departments should have the option of using
undergraduate TAs in these ways. or not (and of using them to grade permissible work, or
not). at their discretion. Undergraduate TAs already successfully support courses in other
Comell colleges (e.g. CALS), as well as at other institutions, and their assistance in A&S
courses would be in accord with existing University guidelines. Undergraduate TAs
should be selected on the basis of previous performance. According to current A&S
guidelines, an undergraduate TA of a lab course must have earned a grade of A in the
course, be a major in the subject with at least an A- average and have taken coursework
more advanced than the course in which slhe is assisting, or have an overall average of
3.3. (Departments could add further restrictions if they wished.) In addition to providing
instructional support, undergraduate TAs themselves benefit from the experience of
explaining the course's concepts to their peers. Although we believe that TAing provides
a valuable learning experience for these top undergraduates (and, indeed. they are given
course credit in some Colleges-e.g. CALS), we endorse the current A&S policy that
undergraduate TAs should be paid but should not receive course credit for their work.

Grading of course raises special concerns. First, competence and judgment:

undergraduate TAs should be allowed to grade only items that are purely objective (e.g.
multiple choice or true/false questions). Second, confidentiality (since undergraduate
T As would be assisting in grading their peers): any exam papers graded by
undergraduates should be identified only by student ill number rather than name. In
addition, College policy prohibits undergraduates from computing grades.

As far as we have been able to detennine in a search of A&S legislation, everything we

are proposing is alreedy permitted by College policy. (See Appendix 4.) If any ofthese
suggestions should tum out to contravene policies that we have overlooked, however, we
recommend that the A&S faculty consider changing those policies.

D. Language and Distribution Requirements

We recommend that the College faculty allow students to meet the foreign language
requirement and the distribution requirements away from Cornell. The current policy
mandates that students obtain at least 3 credits of foreign language instruction at Cornell.

22
The Conunittee recommends abolishing the requirement that the course be taken at
Cornell, rather than at another college or university. The relevant Cornell department
would have to approve the external COUIse, preferably before it is taken. Similarly,
tIansfer students can already satisfy distribution requirements with credits obtained at
another institution, provided the course work is done during the academic year. We
reconunend that this option be extended to all students. Additionally, the possibility of
transfer students meeting-tbe distribution requirement with summer session credit from
their previous schools should be explored.

E. The 34-Course Graduation Requirement

We recommend changing this requirement from "120 credits and 34 courses" to. simply,
120 credits. 11le Committee has been unable to find anyone whQ sy'p...ports, or Can even
plausibly explain, the current rcq:uirement pf34 courses. Hence, we recommend its -
abolItion. n the e111Illnation of any course requirement is thought to be too extreme, a
reduction from 34 to 32 courses would be an acceptable compromise.

F. Incentives for Teaching Large Lecture Courses

1. Large lecture courses vary tremendously in quality and are widely

viewed as onerous teaching assignments. We could sustain their excellence and offer
higWy visible leadership (to universities nationwide) by minimizing disincentives and
providing incentives to attract top teachers to staff these courses. Large lecture courses
can be jewels in our crown rather than borin exercises for s
facWty, but orily conditions are such that our best sch.Q!ms compete to teach them

2. Disincentives for teaching a large introductory lecture course flow from

high enrollments. One hundred fifty students require more time than 25. Given the broad
scope ofthe material, a professor must also teach "out-of-expertise" at least part of the
time. In addition, the teacher receives large volumes of student emails and office visits,
especially before exams; the students in the class often need certain types of patience and
attention. Although the large lecture course is sometimes provided with staff support to
free the instructor of administrative burdens that teachers of other courses normally have,
the demands of such teaching, semester after semester, can exact costs from a professor's
academic and personal life, This needs to be compensated. in order to attract and retain
top instructors in these classes. The introductory large lecture course is the first exposure
of many students to a particular discipline. It requires a particularly talented. professor to
spark (rather than kill) interest in that field and to Jay the groundwork for more advanced
studies in the discipline.

3, Excellence in large lecture courses can be motivated with endowed

teaching professorships, their recipients chosen by administrators, faculty, and students
for 3-5 year terms. Endowed teaching professorships could be named for a single major
donor or one-by-one for individuals. In addition to offering prestige, these professorships
might include a study leave at the conclusion of the professorship, funds to support a
student (undergraduate or graduate) or postdoctoral associate in disciplines where this is

23
relevant, administrative support in service to the professor's scholarly program or
summer salary.

24
VI. Conclusion

We wish to thank the many people who met with us or otherwise assisted us in the
preparation ofthis report. See Appendix 5.

25
 Appendix 1
Committee Membership

Aodrew Bass, Neurobiology and Behavior

Walter Cohen, Comparative Literaturel chair
Kathleen Gemmell, Dean's office
Melissa Hines, Chemistry-and Chemical Biology
Michael Jones-Correa, Government
Ted O'Donoghue, Economics
Ritchie Patterson, Physics
Annette Richards, Music
Joho Smillie, Math
Nick Sturgeon, Philosophy
Mariana Wolfner, Molecular Biology and Genetics

26
 Appendix Z
Why Retain Biology within Both the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences?

Biology is a discipline with great breadth and hence is especially vulnerable to

fragmentation. Cornell's administrative structure accentuates this danger: biology is
located in several colleges-or divisioll£-A&S, Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS),
Veterinary Medicine, Human Ecology, Engineering, and Computing and Information
Science. In 1999, then-President Hunter Rawlings mandated that Cornell retain a single
cross-college undergraduate Biology major as one way of keeping biology unified. The
Biology teaching program, administered by the Office of Undergraduate Biology, is very
strong and remains the teaching focus of the several separate biology departments. The
three biology departments with both A&S and CALS faculty focus their research and
upper-level teaching on different disciplines within biology-Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology (EEB), Molecular Biology and Genetics (MEG), and Neurobiology. and
Behavior (NBB). All three departments play major teaching roles in the (single) Biology
major. (lbe sole A&S faculty member in Plant Biology also contributes.) For example,
the required (or new Clcore") Biology courses all are taught by faculty in the three
A&S/CALS departments. In addition to forming part of the Biology major, these courses
serve premedical students and majors in several other colleges. Faculty in the joint
A&S/CALS biology departments continne to work together along with others to keep
Biology teaching up to date in light of the rapid expansion of knowledge in the discipline.
For example. two sequential cross-college task forces were appointed by A&S Dean
Lepage and CALS Dean Henry to oversee this reorganization. The first, headed by Ron
Harris-Warrick (CALSINBB), proposed a new curriculum. The second, headed by Ron
Hoy (A&SINBB). currently oversees the implementation of this new curriculum.

Realizing that the forces likely to fragment biology here are especially strong and that
such fragmentation would seriously hamper both tbe research and teaching of this
discipline, we need to continue to build in linkages like a single Biology major and
departments that are rooted in both colleges (by containing both A&S and CALS faculty).
To place anyone of those departments (EEB, MBG and NEB) entirely within either A&S
or CALS would undermine the University's goal offonning bridges across colleges. The
move ofEEB. MBG and NEB entirely into CALS would also pose a special problem for
educating undergraduates from A&S. A basic, foundational approach to biology
flourishes best in an environment unconstrained by a strong applied mission. This
environment would be lost if all, or even part, of basic biology were housed entirely
within CALS, whose mission includes a strong commitment to nurturing translational
applications of biology rather than biological discovery for the sake of knowledge alone.
A biology connection to A&S provides Biology courses and research with immediate
linkages to the physical and social sciences as well as the humanities, all within A&S.
Moreover. A&S plays an especially prominent role in the premedical undergraduate
curriculum: Physics. Math, and Chemistry. together with Biology, all have representation
within A&S and aU contribute to meeting premed requirements. Biology is an essential
component.of a Liberal Arts education and for this reason must be represented in A&S.

27
Yet it would be an equally bad mistake to house allor, again, even palt, of basic biology
entirely in A&S. There are growing linkages between basic and applied research,
linkages that increasingly hlur the distinction between them for both A&S and CALS
faculty. These linkages, which range from the ecological to the biomedical realms of
inquiry, are a particular strength of Cornell and would be in jeopardy if all of basic
biology moved to A&S. It would also be a loss to both A&S and CALS if undergraduates
were to have access to the-Siology major through only one college. Both faculty and
students benefit greatly from their ability to approach biological sciences either from an
arts and sciences perspective or from an agriculture and life sciences perspective. Indeed,
a mingling of students coming from both directions provides the intellectual environment
that is unique to Cornell and one of the institution's greatest strengths.

In sum, the collaboration of A&S and CALS faculty side-by-side within single
departments continues to be a fruitful endeavor and a successful organization that is
exemplary of cross-college collaborative efforts and of the growing integration of basic
and applied biology. It is a successful model for other disciplines. To move Cornell's
cross-college biology departmenu entirely into either college on purely administrative
grounds would endanger a weB-functioning organization possessing national and .
international renown. Such a move could exact a great cost, potentially destroying a
system that is widely admired for its research and its excellence in undergraduate and
graduate teaching. The need to keep biology squarely in both colleges is in keeping with
the essential role that is played by basic biology in a Liberal Arts education (A&S), and
the value of synergy between basic and applied biology (CALS).

28
 Appendix 3
A Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages

TIris appendix attempts to provide a comprehensive summary of the information and

arguments the Committee received in the course of its work. The idea is to establish a
documentary record that might be of continuing usc. regardless of how. or even whether,
the matter is resolved in t1re short tenn.

I. The Organization of the Humanities

The structure of the humanities at Cornell is pretty much what you find at other leading
universities with strong humanities programs. That is, we cover nearly all of the same
areas, in similarly named and defined departments. In fact, Table I at the end of this
appendix suggests that, if anything, Cornell is slightly reluctant to grant departmental
status in the humanities and that its humanities departments tend to be relatively
encompassing in scope (Romance Studies rather than separate French, Italian, and
Spanish departments; Asian Studies rather than narrower East Asian Studies
departments).l The picture is very different if we compare the humanities with the other
broad areas typical of colleges ofarts and sciences-the social, biological and physical
sciences. In each of these other groupings, one finds a relatively small number of
departments generally organized along commonly recognized disciplinary lines (though
the situation in biology is much more unsettled than in the other two categories). By
comparison, humanities departments tend to be smaller, and they are less systematically
defined by discipline. From a disciplinary perspective, philosophy, history, the history of
art, music and religion look pretty much like departments elsewhere in arts and sciences,
though, with the exception of history, they tend to be smaller. It is otherwise with
literature, which is divided up into multiple free-standing departments (at Cornell:
Comparative Literature, English, German, Romance Studies, and Russian) or located in
interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary, departments (again at Cornell: Asian Studies,
Classics, Near Eastern Studies, and Theatre, Film, and Dance; also Africana Studies,
located outside the College and not limited to the humanities).

The dividing lines that separate disciplines are of course fuzzy and ever changing. In
general, however, a discipline is characterized by shared questions. theories. methods,
materials, and bodies of knowledge. From this perspective, one certainly could not claim
an absolute distinction between the humanities, or even literary study, and other broad
divisions of arts and sciences. It is nonetheless clear that there is a tendency to rely less
on disciplinary distinctions in the humanities than elsewhere. The reasons are multiple.

J Of the ten private universities and one public university with leading humanities
programs included in Table 1, all eleven have departments covering all or part of 10
fields-Asian Studies, Classics, English. German, History, History of Art, Music,
Philosophy, Romance Studies and Slavic Studies. Nearly all have Near Eastern Studies,
Comparative Literature and Religion. (Comeillacks the last oftbese.) Theater/Filrn and
African American Studies come next. Most schools have 13-14 departments, as does
Cornell. The others have more.

29
At least the following principles seem to be at work, bowever, in the departmental
affiliations of literature.

A. An emphasis on post-Classieal Europe and its American settler colonies. Only

literatures focused on these periods and regions are eligible to have their own
departments.
'-
B. In this first group, the use of language as the basis for departmental
differentiation. This model contrasts with the organization of literatures from other
continents, as well as with other text-based disciplines (histo!}', philosopby), which cover
mucb or all of the world. The same breadth (as in histo!}' or philosophy) also
characterizes the social sciences.

c. Elsewhere. where investment is much lower (above all in Asian Studies),

recourse to geography, cultural affinity, and, more loosely, disciplinary similarity as the
basis for multidisciplinary departments. Cultural influence and regional division, rather
than linguistic linkage (the latter seen, for instance, in Romance Studies), would seem to
account for the co-presence in a given department of Greek and Latin; Sumerian,
Egyptian, Persian, Hebrew, and Turkish; or Sanskrit, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, Korean,
and Indonesian. Disciplinary contiguity seems to be at work in the grouping of literature,
linguistics, religion, philosophy, history. archaeology, and art history (or, to take a very
different case, theater. film, and dance).

II. Arguments for a Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages

The intellectual arguments for such a division appear in the body of this report. There are.
in addition. several administrative rationales for some form of consolidation. though
these at times come up against barriers that require modification of the intellectual
considerations.

A. On average. smaller departments experience a higher degree of internal tension

than larger units. This is so because a single difficult colleague or a single personality
conflict between two faculty members can be enough to derail the entire operation.
Happily, that currently seems not to be the case. It is ofcourse unclear. however, whether
this situation can be maintained, given the persistence ofthe underlying structural
problero.

B. It is harder for College-level administrators to make marginal allocation

decisions for small units than for large ones.

C. There are, however, too many literary critics to place in a single department,
possibly even in two departments. English already has the largest number of professorial
faculty in the College and perhaps the University. Even if the idea were to bring together
the remaining literary critics alone, and espeeially if a plan included the muitidisciplinaI}'
departments. a single large department would be at best unwieldy. This is one reason for
thinking iIi tenns of a division rather than a department

30
 D. Another reason for opting for a division is the sorry national record resulting
from the consolidation of multiple literature departments into a single large departmental
entity. Briefly. such units have had great trouble in avoiding internal warfare, even at fine
scbools sucb as ue San Diego and ue Santa Cruz. No top university in the bumanities
has gone this route. One-8tanford-has opted for a divisional structure, however (on
whicb, more below).
'-
E. Still a third basis for preferring a division to a department is the likelihood of a
loss of traditional departmental identity and autonomy, with a consequent loss of external
-standing, upon the elimination of departmental status. It is not clear whether the
preservation of the graduate field system would be sufficient to protect Cornell from this
problem, even in graduate admissions and piacemen~ and especially in faculty
recruitment and retention. .

F. But even in a divisional structure, English would be likely to exercise

disproportionate weight. This is an important ground for excluding it, unless the
remaining units were amalgamated into departments of comparable size, a solution,
however, clearly at odds with the goal of maintaining departmental identity.

Ill. Arguments against a Division of Literatures, Cultures and languages

The vast majority of faculty who have commented on the idea of a division have strongly
opposed it This in itself is significant, since such opposition reduces the likelihood that a
division. if implemented, would succeed. It is not in itself a decisive consideration,
however. Two-thirds of the faculty in the former biology division opposed its dissolution
Ca dissolution that created a smaller number oflarger departments). The quality of basic
biology at Cornell has improved since then, though opinions preswnably would differ
about whether there's a causal relationship. In any case. numerous specific objections
have been made to a division.

A. Faculty in multidisciplinary departments who are not literary critics would be

marginalized or shunted effto other departments, in either scenario undermining faculty
collegiality and long-established working relationships. Further, multidisciplinary
departments are not part even of the Stanford model.

B. Similarly, the cross-disciplinary activities within such departments would be

hamstrung, precisely at a time when we claim to be favoring interdisciplinary work.

c. The national trend is to disaggregate, not aggregate, multidisciplinary, area-

based humanities departments.

D. Even with the inclusion of the multidisciplinary departments, the division

could not be said meaningfully to ·encompass languages, literatures, and cultures, since
much scholarship on culture is conducted outside these departments (Anthropology,
History ofArt, Music, etc.),

31
 E. The exclusion of English from even a purely literary division focusing on
European languages has no obvious intellectual logic.

F. Collaboration between intra-divisional and extra-divisional departments would

be impeded.

G. Creation of a division would foster internal competition for lines and doctoral
students.

H. By channeling access to the deans through the director, a division would put
the included departments at a relative disadvantage compared. to other departments.

I. The director of the division could undemocratically favor some areas at the
expense of other.;, even emphasizing areas that had little support from the faculty-with
the result that collaboration might actually decrease.

J. The purpose of amalgamation, or at least the ultimate effect, would almost

certainly be steeper cuts in divisional departments than elsewhere. especially given the
planning committee's emphasis on core departments.

K. A division produces no immediate savings but almost certainly immediate

expenses. Even in the long run. the likelihood of increased bureaucratic expenses is
extremely \Ullikely to produce offsetting academic efficiencies. And if increased
bureaucracy proves necessary, it is not clear that this is the best place for it (as opposed
to, for instance. a director of language instruction).

L. Establisrunent of a division would sap the morale of the affected faculty

generally, and in particular make it difficult to find effective chairs for the weakened
individual departments.

M. A division would make it harder to recruit and retain distinguished faculty.

N. The humanities as a whole would be downgraded.

o. The intellectual collaboration across departments envisioned in the divisional

proposal already occurs to a considerable extent-through the graduate field system. area
studies programs, fonnal interdepartmental programs, and conferences. among others. An
easy example. out of ignorance previously cited as a lac\Ula. is the Mediterranean Studies
Colloquium that brings together Classics and Near Eastern Studies. Obviously. not all
possible connections h~ve heen established. but the outstanding informal
interdepartmental culture of the humanities plus the evidence of formal collaboration
suggest that other initiatives can be approached as they have been in the past.

P. The informal meetings of humanities chairs this past year provide a satisfactory
basis for pursuing the goals imagined for a division. including those mentioned above.

32
 For instance, we could convert these into regular events, with the participation of an
associate dean, for the pwpose of fostering systematic collaboration.

Q. To the extent that we need still more collaboration across departments in, for
instance, hiring, or require large-scale strategic planning, the deans ought to be able to
handle the task.

R Alternatively, the College-level administrative problems posed by many small

departments could be remedied by appointing an associate dean of humanities (along
with associate deans of the social and natural sciences).

S. The Stanford experience has been a failure. It has certainly not inspired
imitation elsewhere.

[ i j h e Stanford Model I
Since part of this debate turns on wl1at has occurred at Stanford, it may be useful to
provide some detail about and internal judgments of the situation there.

A. According to Roland Greene (the outgoing director of the Division of

Literatures, Cultures and Languages, Professor of English and Comparative Literatme,
and current Chair of German), the issue of a division initially arose (almost. decade
ago?) when the fnreign literature and language departments had gotten too small and
weak to make effective cases for themselves. It is not entirely clear how this situation
came about-deliherate administrative starvation, (un)benign administrative neglect, poor
departmental leadership, relative decline due to growth in other areas but not in these,
etc.? In any case, the initial administrative proposal was for a single department, and this
provoked overwhelming opposition. The next effort involved resurrection of a previously
existing "shell" division and the establishment of a multidepartmental hiring committee,
which identified at least one candidate for a senior position in each of the departments.
Eacb of these candidates was then rejected by the relevant department. The third try
produced the Division in something close to its current form. Ibis proposal was
overwhelmingly approved by the relevant faculty members. It is not clear whether so
high a level of support emerged in part out of fear that any alternative was likely to be
worse. Classics opted out on the grounds that it is an interdisciplinary department. Its
non-participation has produced some regret, at least from outside the Division. Asian
Languages was initially included. The faculty in the department seem to have been
divided on the matter, in any case, it later withdrew. This too has occasioned regret, from
inside the Division. The Division currently consists of the Departments of Comparntive
Literature, French and Italian, German Studies, Iberian and Latin American Cultures, and
Slavic Languages and Litera1ure&--<i little over SO professnrial faculty in all. In addition,
it houses the Language Center (foreign language teaching), the Research Unit (more on
this below), and Structured Liberal Education (a residence-based freshman curriculum for
aheut 100 students per year).

33
 B. Of the five departments in the Division, all but German have been successful in
making senior hires, often multiple senior hires. According to Greene, these four other
departments are all stronger than when they entered the Division. German's most recent
effort foundered on spousal considerations. It has the first priority for a senior hire in the
Division, though of course the timing of that hire has now beeo pushed back by the
financial crisis. Again according to Greene, if the faculty in the Division were given a
choice of going back to the pre-Division days or retaining the Division. 90010 would vote
for retention (as would.Greene). Inquiries to the four department chairs besides Greene
produced three responses, from Russell Berman. a Gennanist currently Chair of
Comparative Litemture~ from Joan Ramon Resina, formerly of the Cornell Romance
Studies Department and currently Chair of the Department of Iberian and Latin American
Cultures; and from Gregory Freidin, Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures and
former acting director of the Division (when Greene was on leave). All wrote in favor of
the Division as currently constituted.

c. The Research Unit oitbe Division, which expends $200,000 per year, is
designed to promote collaborative work that leads to a product. That product cannot be
simply a speaker or a. conference, though such activities can be part of the collaboration.
The collaboration must involve at least one member of the Division; the other member or
members can be from outside the Division. In practice, this has led to a number of edited
volumes that have supplemented the sole-authored books of assistant professors when
they came up for tenure. In addition. a recent project has led to the establishment of a
literature-and-philosophy major that exists as a track in a number of departments-not just
those in the Division plus Philosophy, but also Classics and others. The web site gives
some indication of additional activities along these lines.

D. An interdepartmental committee establishes the priorities for hiring within the

Division. In principle, current chairs are excluded from the committee. In practice, this
isn't always the case.

E. An interdepartmental committee composed of the current DOS's oversees

graduate admissions. In principle, this committee reviews departmental admissions
recommendations. In practice, it always ratifies them. More important, only halftbe
Division's graduate fellowships are allocated to the departments in advance. The others
are competed for on an annual basis. Again according to Greene, this raises the quality of
the graduate student population, since in any given year a particular field may have an
unusually strong (or weak) applicant pool, and adjustments can be made on the fly.

F. Each department has a support staff of only one because much of the
administrative work is carried out at the Division level. The Division administration also
handles a lot of the administrative work for some departments not in the Division. All
four Stanford informants agree that the result bas been improved administration.

G. In short, the Division is something of a luxury model. On a faculty FTE basis,

it is an expensive, rather than a cost-saving, approach. Greene thinks this is one reason
why it hasn't been emulated.

34
 H. Bennan argues that the limitations of the Division model stem partly from
integration (increased bureaucracy, weaker chairs who don't adequately champion
departmental needs) and partly from the failure to take integration far enough
(departmental insularity). Berman praises the Division for fostering "the gradual
development of a non-balkanized intellectual culture among faculty and especially among
graduate students; hence some greater professionalization. The Division has been an
appropriate form for the emerging redefinition of scholarship in interdisciplinary terms."

I. Resina says of the Division, as currently constituted: "I would say that it is
excellent. The departments retain a significant amount of autonomy, their own profile,
little intervention in their internal matters and activities, and draw the benefit of an
efficient centralization of common services. Governance is fairly representative and
democratic ...• but this may also have to do with the fact that Roland [Greene] strikes a
very professional note as Head of the Division who keeps open the channels of
conununication and, to my knowledge, represents the Division's interests and positions
faithfully and loyally. The position, however, could produce more authoritarian
leadership, given the accumulation of decision power.... it is something to take into
consideration when formalizing such a role in a coal,irion of departments that serve
academically related but culturally very different areas." Resina also reports that the
Division has allowed him intellectual contacts that might not have been otherwise
available. In this context, however, he notes that the move of the Cornell Romance
Studies Department to Morrill Hall a decade ago weakened that department's links with
the other Western European literature departments, that physical contiguity is important
to the success of the Division, and that the absence of such contiguity at Cornell [unless
and until a new humanities building is completed] argues against a divisional model. He
is also more generally skeptical about whether such a model would work at Cornell,
given the weak legacy ofjoint ventures among the literature departments, and worries
that such a move could undennine attention to the historical and cultural specificity of
individual areas.

J. Freidin sees various advantages of a division over small foreign language

departments-the "ability to hire highly competent, professional central staff and remove
the burden of training secretaries and administrators from the shoulder of the faculty; ...
get more power in the university over the always limited resources. A unit roughly the
size of English or History commands attention and is taken seriously. Although the
national and/or area-studies model is not yet dead (Russia, Latin America, Middle East,
etc.), there are new emerging supranational cultural networks and boundaries. A
[division] would be better suited to deal with the new intellectual and theoretical
challenges. Develop a more consistent profile and make oneself more visible to students
and faculty as a source of knowledge production .... A better mentoring environment for
younger faculty and more of a critical mass for graduate students."

K. As part of the CUll'ent review ofthe Division; the original proposal of a single
department again emerged (from the deans). Unsurprisingly, this is proving widely,
though not universally, unpopular. Freidin and Resina are strongly opposed, for example;
Berman is Supportive. It seems likely that the Division, and hence departments, will be

35
 retained, but that a matrix structure will be introduced (favored by Greene and Berman,
nn evaluation form Freidin or Resina). Faculty in the Division would have a second, non-
departmental affiliation to wbich they would be responsible for courses and the like.
Affiliations are likely to be in. research group-philosopby and literature, poetics, trans-
American studies, the novel, and so on. New majors. minors, and perhaps graduate
degrees could also be developed. The idea is to make of the Division not a holding
company for rump versions of national literature departments, but a structure that
supports current projects and directions in literary study.

Table 1
Humanities Departments at Leading Institutions

School BerkeleY Brown Chica~o Columbia Cornell Duke Harvard Penn Princeton Stanford Yale Totals

Dent
African X X (Xl X X 4-5
American
Asian X X X X X X X X X X X II
Studies
Classics X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Como Lit X X X 100 X X X X X X 9-10
En~ish X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Gennan X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Historv X X X X X X X X X X X 11
History of X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Art
Music X X X X X X X X X X X 11
NearEastcm X X X X X X X X X X 10
Pbiloso h X X X X X X X X X X X 11
ReJicioD X X X X (Xl X X X X 8·10
Romance X X X X X X X X X X X 11
Studies
Slavic X X X X X X X X X X X 11
TheaterlFilm X X 00 X X X X I (X 6-8
Totals 20 19 14 14+ 13-1' 13 16-17 13 I' 14 17

Notes
l. The table excludes any program with only one or two core faculty and lots ofjoint
appoinbnents, adjuncts, visitors, etc., even if it grants the BA and PhD.
2. Brackets indicate uncertainty about whether or not to include a program. for a
variety ofreasons. This uncertainty is reflected in the frequent recourse to
mnnerical ranges rather than exact counts.
3. The department titles generally, but not always, follow Cornell usage.
4. The total number of humanities departments for each school may include several
not listed abovo-either because the school divides a single Cornell department
into several departments (mainly Asian Studies and Romance Studies) or because
it has one or more less common departrnents--American Civilization, Celtic,
Ethnic Studies, Rhetoric, Scandinavian.
5. The table excludes Linguistics, sometimes treated as a humanities department.
All of these schools have Linguistics departments.

36
6. History of Science dep.-euts are similarly omitted, because Cornell's S&TS is,
as with Linguistics, treated as a social science.
7. Cornell's Africana Studies Center concerns more than African American studies,
is independent of A&S. and does not offer the PhD. African American Studies is
considered a social science at Berkeley.
8. Asian Studies usually means East Asian studies alone, only rarely including South
Asian and Southeast Asian studies as well.
9. Comparative Literature is part ofEnglish at Columbia. It is composed entirely, or
almost entirely, ofjoint appointments at Berkeley. Chicago. and Stanford. It is a
program, not a dep.-eut, at Penn.
10. History is sometimes considered a social science.
11. Near Eastern studies is limited to the Ancient Near East at Brown, combined with
Asian Studies at Duke, and located with South Asian Studies (and a bit of African
Studies) at Columbia.
12. Religion is sometimes found in a university's divinity school.
13. Romance Studies covers. at a minimum. French., Italian, and Spanish. All schools
in the table cover all three languages, in from one to three departments.
14. Slavic Studies sometimes is limited to Russian.
15. Theater and Film may be together or separate; they may be housed outside arts
and sciences; they may be heavily dependent onjoint appointments; they mayor
may not offer a research doctorate.

37
 Appendix 4
Arts and Sciences Policy on tbe Use of Undergraduate TA,

1979 College faculty legislation prohibits using undergraduates as full teaching

assistants. In particular it prohibits undergraduates from leading discussion sessions or
labs, from being solely responsible for any aspect of"teaching" in a course, and from any
evaluative grading. Undetgraduates may serve as a) lab assistants, i.e. as helpers and
explainers of actual lab procedures and material; b) tutors (with office hours) for
individual students with particular problems or questionsi c) hired graders for objective
exams or as examiners in pass/fail exams that students take in auto-tutorial courses before
they proceed to the next unit. In this last case, students may repeat any exam they fail
with a full TA or the instructor. Undergraduate assistants may not compute an actual
exam or course grade for an individual student

38
•

Appendix 5
Consultants

The following people and groups assisted or consulted with the Committee. People are
listed by name no more than once, though they may have attended multiple meetings.
Apologies for any erroneous inclusions or exclusions.

I. Group Meetings

A&S faculty
A&S chairs
A&S humanities chairs, some twice
College of Engineering Deans
The Life Sciences Task Force (with a report from the CALS Strategic Advisory
Committee)
The Social Sciences Task Force
College faculty recently hired above the entry level (for the most part), 3 meetings
Christopher Anderson
Elizabeth Anker
Karen Bennett
Kimberly Bowes
Jeremy Braddock
Theodore Brennan
Eric Cheyfitz
Paul Chirik
Laurent Dubreuil
Scott Emr
Joe Fetcho
Yuval Grossman
Michelle Kosch
Lee Kraus
Fredrik Logevall
Patrizia McBride
Suzanne Mettler
Justin Moore
Eric Rebillard
Kenneth Roberts
Kerry Shaw
Nicolas Van de Walle
Haiping Yan

II. Individual or Very Small Group Meetings with Current and Former
Administrators of College Departments, of the College and of the University

Glenn Altschuler
Jonathan Culler

39
Brett de Bary
KaushikBasu
Charles Brittain
David Devries
David Easley
Ronald Ehrenberg
Grant Farred
David Harris
Stephen Hilgartner
Peter Hohendahl ..
Ronald Hoy
Isabel Hun
Kim Hyde (Baine & Co., outside consultant to Comen)
Stephen Kresovich ,.
Dominick Lacapra
Peter Lepage
Timothy Murray •
Derk Pereboom
Alison Power
Paul Sawyer
Harry Shaw
Saul Teukolsky
Amy Villarejo
Ira Wasserman

ID. General Assistance

A&S Dean's office staff

IV. Electronic communications

Numerous (including a report from each College department chair)

40