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My column today was motivated by a current controversy on our campus and by the larger issues it represents. Articles in the Cornell Review’s orientation issue have once again put issues of civility, diversity, and free speech squarely before our campus community and the greater Cornell family. The views as expressed in the Review articles — one focused on minority students and one satirically linking Muslims to terrorism — were clearly at odds with the values of our university.

The current controversy raises three broad issues:

1. How should we as a campus respond to writings and other forms of speech that target certain groups within our campus community in ways that many find offensive?

The GPSA met in the Big Red Barn yesterday for their first meeting of the semester to discuss the agenda for the upcoming year.

The Campus Code of Conduct is quickly passing the remaining hurdles on its way to final implementation. Yesterday, in a letter to Rodney Orme, employee chair of the University Assembly, President David Skorton endorsed the current version of the Code.

“I look forward to working with the Judicial Administrator to employ law students in the prosecution of violations to the Code,” Skorton wrote.

The letter — which came just five days after the U.A. re-passed the code — further thanked the Codes and Judicial Committee and the U.A. for their many hours of work in helping to revise the Code since Skorton first rejected it in February.

“We have work to do,” said President David Skorton on Oct. 26, 2006 when he officially announced the launch of Cornell’s capital campaign.

Less than a year later, it seems the administration has taken its president’s words to heart, having raised $1.72 billion out of the proposed $4 billion over five years.

“The campaign has made very strong progress since our public launch last October,” said Jim Mazza, campaign director. “During the past fiscal year, which ended June 30, Cornell had its most successful fundraising year in its history, with $754.8 million in new gifts and commitments, with nearly $300 million designated to priorities on the Ithaca campus and the balance to initiatives at Weill Cornell Medical College.

President David J. Skorton requested the crowd who gathered to listen his second annual staff address yesterday afternoon in Alice Statler Auditorium to call him “David.” The only exceptions, he noted, were the vice presidents in the audience who he requested to say, “Good afternoon, Your Immenseness” in exchange for their salaries. The laughter that followed set the tone for the next hour, which included both Skorton’s speech and his responses to a compilation of questions and concerns of Cornell employees.

Skorton’s speech was filled with praise for the Cornell community’s recent and upcoming achievements, awards and projects. He noted the ever-unfinished nature of success and the often under-appreciated role of Cornell employees in these institutional successes.

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The Sun recently sat down with Prof. Robin Davisson, biomedical sciences, to talk to the new first lady of Cornell about living in Donlon, singing in the shower, research, who she would like to invite to dinner, scuba diving, writing haikus and more.

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The Sun: What do you bring to the table for Cornell? Why did the selection committee choose you?

David Skorton: Well, you would have to ask the selection committee to be fair because I didn’t make the choice. They did. I’m very honored that they did. I can tell you what I think I have to offer the campus. I have been in higher education administration for 14 years at VP or president level at Iowa, and so I have a certain amount of administrative experience. I have a good handle on why universities exist, who the very important stakeholders and constituencies are in universities. I’ve had my chance to make plenty of mistakes in administration over the years. Hopefully I’ve learned from them.