The University announced last week that Prof. Laura Brown, English, will become the next Provost for Undergraduate Education in July. The announcement came almost four months after Brown's predecessor, Michelle Moody-Adams, accepted the position as Dean of Columbia College.

Brown is currently the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English. Throughout her 28 years at Cornell, she has served as a director of the graduate program and chaired the English department from 2002 to 2005. She was also involved in the Provost's Committee on the Status of Women about 20 years ago and recently served on the Faculty Senate.

In the face of the current economic downturn and New York’s fiscal woes, President Skorton recently asserted the need to “reconfigure” our beloved Cornell. The time is opportune to rethink how departments and colleges are positioned across East Hill. By doing so, we can not only streamline the University’s budget and cut through the Big Red Tape, but also improve the undergraduate experience and strengthen Cornell’s role as a land-grant institution.

Nowhere is this need greater than in the applied social sciences. Today, applied programs featuring faculty in the fields of economics, psychology, government, business and sociology are found in all three of the undergraduate contract colleges in an inefficient mix of departments and students.