<
p class=”p1″>To the Editor:
In response to the recent letter to The Sun about the corporate backgrounds of several members of the Presidential Search Committee, I would suggest a different focus in thinking about the committee. The members, by definition really, love Cornell — they are giving their time and financial support to it and, at the same time, are putting up with complaints and criticisms from fellow alumni and others, all with good humor.
Why do they do this? Because they do love the University. And they love it because of their experience here as students; that experience was mainly as undergraduates. In other words, they spent four years immersed in this bastion of liberal arts education, and that is precisely the experience they want to see grow and flourish.
Cornell’s alumni are a vital, all-important bulwark against the great range, complexity and severity of the pressures on the University and its mission today; that mission is exactly what the Search Committee is committed to preserve.
Frank Robinson, Richard J. Schwartz director of the Johnson Museum from 1992-2011