By ARIEL KAMINER
Elizabeth Garrett, the provost of the University of Southern California, will become the next president of Cornell University, the first woman to hold that position, Cornell announced on Tuesday.
Ms. Garrett, 51, will succeed David J. Skorton, who had previously announced that he planned to step down at the end of June to lead the Smithsonian Institution....
Elizabeth Garrett, the provost of the University of Southern California, will become the next president of Cornell University, the first woman to hold that position, Cornell announced on Tuesday.
Ms. Garrett, 51, will succeed David J. Skorton, who had previously announced that he planned to step down at the end of June to lead the Smithsonian Institution.
Announcing Ms. Garrett’s appointment, Robert S. Harrison, chairman of the Cornell board of trustees, said, “I could not be more certain that we have found the perfect person in Beth Garrett.”
At U.S.C., which is in the middle of Los Angeles, Ms. Garrett has held the second-highest-ranking position in the administration since October 2010, overseeing academic affairs for a university with a total of 41,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 17 professional schools, three hospitals and the largest number of international students of any institution in the country.
Given that it has half as many students as U.S.C. and is in the remote town of Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell is in some ways a smaller domain for Ms. Garrett. At the same time, it is a member of the Ivy League and a land-grant college, that, in collaboration with an Israeli university, is in the midst of building an ambitious new applied sciences campus in New York City.
“There are few universities in the world that are as complex and as ambitious,” Mr. Harrison said.
In a conversation with reporters on Tuesday, Ms. Garrett, who will become the university’s president on July 1, described Cornell’s history as “one of commitment to egalitarianism, to diversity.” She said she viewed her status as its first female president within that context.
“I think about some of the great women who have come before me who have laid a path I could follow,” she said. She specifically cited Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court, who earned her undergraduate degree at Cornell, and, Ms. Garrett said, “has always been a hero of mine.”
By appointing Ms. Garrett, Cornell became the sixth Ivy League school to name a woman as president; only Columbia University and Dartmouth College have not done so.
A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Virginia School of Law, Ms. Garrett has written extensively about democratic institutions and processes. She holds faculty appointments at U.S.C.’s law, public policy and business schools. She has a diverse political background, having served as a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall and having been appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on a tax reform panel.
Jan Rock Zubrow, who led Cornell’s presidential search committee, said it was Ms. Garrett’s record of “creating cross-disciplinary programs at U.S.C.” that most impressed the members of the panel.
Dr. Skorton, 64, who praised his successor, is stepping down after nine years as Cornell’s president. A practicing cardiologist and a professor of medicine and pediatrics as well as bioengineering, he has enjoyed considerable fund-raising success, adding $5 billion to the university’s resources.
His impact has been felt in other ways. After a Cornell undergraduate died in a fraternity ritual in February 2011, Dr. Skorton vowed to ban pledging rituals of any kind.
Perhaps most significantly, Dr. Skorton oversaw Cornell’s winning bid to build a new applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island in a project that involves close alliances with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and high-tech businesses based in New York. The creation of the new campus was made possible, in part, by $100 million in funding and $300 million worth of real estate from the city government. He will stay in office for Cornell’s 150th anniversary celebration next year.
Ms. Garrett said that she was looking forward to “switching hiking trails from the Santa Monica mountains to the gorges around Ithaca.” She added, “I was in Chicago before I went to Los Angeles, so I have some knowledge of winter.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/nyregion/in-a-first-for-cornell-a-woman-is-appointed-as-its-next-president.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&smtyp=aut&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id
Ms. Garrett, 51, will succeed David J. Skorton, who had previously announced that he planned to step down at the end of June to lead the Smithsonian Institution.
Announcing Ms. Garrett’s appointment, Robert S. Harrison, chairman of the Cornell board of trustees, said, “I could not be more certain that we have found the perfect person in Beth Garrett.”
At U.S.C., which is in the middle of Los Angeles, Ms. Garrett has held the second-highest-ranking position in the administration since October 2010, overseeing academic affairs for a university with a total of 41,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 17 professional schools, three hospitals and the largest number of international students of any institution in the country.
Given that it has half as many students as U.S.C. and is in the remote town of Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell is in some ways a smaller domain for Ms. Garrett. At the same time, it is a member of the Ivy League and a land-grant college, that, in collaboration with an Israeli university, is in the midst of building an ambitious new applied sciences campus in New York City.
“There are few universities in the world that are as complex and as ambitious,” Mr. Harrison said.
In a conversation with reporters on Tuesday, Ms. Garrett, who will become the university’s president on July 1, described Cornell’s history as “one of commitment to egalitarianism, to diversity.” She said she viewed her status as its first female president within that context.
“I think about some of the great women who have come before me who have laid a path I could follow,” she said. She specifically cited Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court, who earned her undergraduate degree at Cornell, and, Ms. Garrett said, “has always been a hero of mine.”
By appointing Ms. Garrett, Cornell became the sixth Ivy League school to name a woman as president; only Columbia University and Dartmouth College have not done so.
A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and the University of Virginia School of Law, Ms. Garrett has written extensively about democratic institutions and processes. She holds faculty appointments at U.S.C.’s law, public policy and business schools. She has a diverse political background, having served as a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall and having been appointed by President George W. Bush to serve on a tax reform panel.
Jan Rock Zubrow, who led Cornell’s presidential search committee, said it was Ms. Garrett’s record of “creating cross-disciplinary programs at U.S.C.” that most impressed the members of the panel.
Dr. Skorton, 64, who praised his successor, is stepping down after nine years as Cornell’s president. A practicing cardiologist and a professor of medicine and pediatrics as well as bioengineering, he has enjoyed considerable fund-raising success, adding $5 billion to the university’s resources.
His impact has been felt in other ways. After a Cornell undergraduate died in a fraternity ritual in February 2011, Dr. Skorton vowed to ban pledging rituals of any kind.
Perhaps most significantly, Dr. Skorton oversaw Cornell’s winning bid to build a new applied sciences campus on Roosevelt Island in a project that involves close alliances with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and high-tech businesses based in New York. The creation of the new campus was made possible, in part, by $100 million in funding and $300 million worth of real estate from the city government. He will stay in office for Cornell’s 150th anniversary celebration next year.
Ms. Garrett said that she was looking forward to “switching hiking trails from the Santa Monica mountains to the gorges around Ithaca.” She added, “I was in Chicago before I went to Los Angeles, so I have some knowledge of winter.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/nyregion/in-a-first-for-cornell-a-woman-is-appointed-as-its-next-president.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&smtyp=aut&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id