While Cornell faces a $200 million budget shortfall and University-wide budget cuts, the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is continuing to expand. The Qatari campus, which is largely funded by a non-profit organization established by the Qatari government, expects a larger budget and expanded research program next year.

Cornell’s campus in Qatar, a small nation on the Persian Gulf, was established in 2002. It has not yet reached its “full maturity,” said Stephen Cohen, the associate provost of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

“Overall, the student body is still growing and faculty is growing,” he said.

I am in my last semester at Cornell, so perhaps it’s not surprising that I find myself missing Cornell even before I have left with my coveted degree in hand. As I stroll across the Arts Quad under the watchful eyes of Ezra Cornell and A.D. White, I am fiercely proud to call myself a Cornellian. And yet, this sense of nostalgia raises a profound question: Do we share a common conception of what it means to be a Cornellian?

Quite frankly, the more I ponder the question, the more I’m convinced that it is overly simplistic and risks missing the point. Cornell is more than the sum of its parts, and its multifaceted nature ensures that each of us has a slightly different understanding of what it means to be a Cornellian.

After 43 years as professor and administrator of the Weill Cornell Medical College, Dr. Daniel R. Alonso announced his retirement as dean of the school’s Qatar campus. When he leaves this January, he will be replaced by Deputy Dean Dr. Javaid Sheikh. Alonso’s retirement comes shortly after the graduation of WCMC-Q’s first class in May.

“He brought really bold vision to the project,” said Dr. Carol Storey-Johnson, senior associate dean of education, WCMC in Manhattan. “He had faith in the project at a time when people weren’t sure it would work.”