The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/elizabeth-garrett/page/5/)
Cameron Pollack | Sun Photography Editor
"As you set out for Ithaka, hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discover," President Garrett said in her inauguration address.
The first female president of Cornell, Elizabeth Garrett succeeded President Emeritus David Skorton. Garrett assumed the presidency on July 1, 2015 and was inaugurated on Sept. 18, 2015. She was previously the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Southern California. Following a battle with colon cancer, Garrett died at the age of 52 on March 6, 2016.
Addressing over 100 students in Ujamaa Residential College, President Elizabeth Garrett and vice president for student and campus life Ryan Lombardi discussed the potential for a University-wide diversity course requirement, the need to increase Cornell’s diversity, and racial tensions on college campuses around the country.
Following a series of terrorist attacks in Paris Friday, the University confirmed Saturday that all known Cornellians currently working or studying in Paris are safe. The attacks, which left at least 129 dead, were part of a plot carried out by the Islamic State that included a mass shooting, hostage taking and several explosions, according to French officials. Approximately 20 students and staff members were in Paris at the time of the bombings, according to Lex Enrico Santí, the University’s coordinator for travel and safety. A double suicide bombing also occurred in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, killing 43 people. However, no Cornellians were known to be in Beirut at the time, Santí said. In response to the attacks, President Elizabeth Garrett released a statement Saturday decrying the acts of terrorism.
President Elizabeth Garrett addressed Cornell staff for the first time Friday afternoon, highlighting the importance of diversity and streamlining efforts to reduce staff members’ work burdens. Hosted by the Employee Assembly, Garrett’s address emphasized the importance of a cohesive body of staff and a multi-tiered effort to reduce unnecessary paperwork and burdensome processes. She began by thanking staff in the audience, saying, “You are not thanked often enough.”
“Your efforts support excellence in Cornell’s research, teaching and outreach, and you create an environment where faculty, students and staff together thrive,” Garrett said. Garrett emphasized the importance of staff roles across Cornell’s campus in realizing the University’s academic mission. “Whether we care for the campus grounds or maintain advanced research equipment, counsel students or manage payroll or process travel reimbursements, motivate donors or carry out the myriad of other ways and functions in which a research university operates, we are all engaged in the academic mission and the academic enterprise,” Garrett said.
The $350 health fee for students not enrolled in Cornell’s Student Health Plan will be included in eligible students’ financial aid packages for the next academic year, President Elizabeth Garrett said at Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting. “I am pleased to announce that for the next academic year and thereafter, we will include a $350 student healthcare allowance in the cost of attendance and in financial aid calculations,” Garrett said, attributing the success of the shift largely to student advocacy. Garrett and Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student and campus life, responded to student concerns in an open-forum question and answer session. In her first semester on campus, Garrett said she discerned themes in the demands coming from the student body and described administrative efforts, including the addition of the health fee to student aid packages, to address those recurrent concerns. Shivang Tayal ’16, S.A. international representative at large, said there are a number of international issues that have yet to be resolved.
Correction appended
President Elizabeth Garrett is embarking on a six-month tour, aspiring to connect with Cornellians across the nation and overseas and explore Cornell’s role as a “global university.”
Garrett’s presidential tour, which was organized by the Division of Alumni Affairs, includes 12 stops in locations including Washington D.C., Seattle, Mumbai, Beijing and Hong Kong, according to the University. Jim Mazza ’88, associate vice president for alumni affairs, said the tour will allow Garrett to interact directly with a diverse selection of alumni and discuss her vision for Cornell’s future. “Thanks to our close partnerships with, and the good work of, Cornell club volunteers around the globe, this tour promises to be a terrific opportunity to introduce our inspiring president to Cornellians far and wide,” Mazza said in a University press release. Garrett also said she is eager to connect with Cornellians nationally and internationally, both to present her priorities for Cornell and to receive feedback. “Cornell is a global university, and I want to connect with our alumni, families and friends in the places they now live and work,” Garrett said in the release.
President Elizabeth Garrett spoke about her commitment to supporting faculty, the student experience at Cornell and cross-campus collaboration in her inaugural State of the University Address Friday morning to attendees of the 65th joint Trustee-Council Annual Meeting. The theme of the weekend-long meeting was “Global Cornell,” according to Board of Trustees Chair Robert S. Harrison ’76, who opened the program. Cornell is at the vanguard of addressing numerous global challenges, with both students and faculty “making a difference on a global scale,” he said. Garrett echoed a similar vision of Cornell’s presence and growth on the global stage. Speaking first about faculty, Garrett announced that the University had raised $638 million for faculty support, including $59 million for faculty renewal, and announced a goal of hiring 80 to 100 new faculty members “and perhaps more in the coming years.”
“Our commitment to great faculty spans the disciplines,” Garrett said, referencing construction projects such as Klarman Hall that will benefit the humanities departments, as well as new grants for science, technology, engineering and mathematics research such as a recent grant of nearly $5 million awarded to The Center for Advanced Computing.
President Elizabeth Garrett called a bill proposed in Congress in September that would require schools to use a part of their endowments for financial aid “misconceived,” Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The bill, which is set to be filed this month, would require institutions of higher education with endowments larger than $1 billion to distribute some of that money in the form of need-based scholarships in order to maintain their tax-free status, according to the Bloomberg article. Representative Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who serves the 23rd district — which includes Ithaca — drafted the bill in order to “make college education more affordable for middle class families,” according to an article in The Lansing Star, written by the congressman’s office. “I care about ensuring [that] anyone with the desire to educate themselves can receive a fair chance at making that happen without being prevented because of the cost,” Reed said in the article. Although those who support the legislation have “their hearts in the right place … their methods won’t succeed for the goals they have in mind,” Garrett said during her interview with Bloomberg.
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After several months ripe with personnel fluctuations, the University has announced that it will restructure the presidential leadership team to include an executive vice president and chief financial officer, pending board of trustee approval of the position, according to a University press release. Garrett has appointed Joanne DeStefano, the current vice president for finance and chief financial officer, to fill the new position. The new position is intended to oversee all of Cornell’s risk-related units in efforts to maximize operational efficiencies, Garrett said in a University statement. In her new position, DeStefano will “continue oversight of Financial Affairs, the Investment Office and the Audit Office, and will share oversight with Provost Michael Kotlikoff of Information Technologies and Budget and Planning,” in keeping with her previous duties, according to the release. She will also take on oversight of Infrastructure, Properties and Planning, Risk Management and Insurance, Emergency Management/Business Continuity, Environmental Health and Safety and the Cornell University Police Department.
President Elizabeth Garrett garnered several media headlines after meeting reporters over breakfast at the Cornell Club in New York City on Thursday. In the meeting, Garrett delineated her stance on trigger warnings. “With respect to trigger warnings, first and foremost I am an absolute defender of academic freedom,” Garrett said, according to Politico New York. “And there are some professors, that before they teach a particular topic or book, want to talk to the students about that and put it in some context. And if they wish to do that, they have that right,” she said.
Approximately 50 students gathered for Cornell Organization for Labor Action’s teach-in in Warren Hall Wednesday, which aimed to raise awareness about alleged human rights violations at Weill Cornell Medicine in Education City, Qatar. Following the presentation, the students marched to President Elizabeth Garrett’s office to deliver a letter demanding a third-party investigation of Cornell’s Qatar campus. Wednesday afternoon’s teach-in and letter drop are the latest actions in COLA’s Weill Workers Suffer campaign, which demands that the University conducts an independent investigation of the labor practices at Cornell’s Qatar campus and that it upholds its mission of fair labor practices regardless of location. COLA has had difficulties investigating the workers’ conditions since any contact with human rights organizations would result in the workers’ deportations, according to COLA member Hadiyah Chowdhury ’18. However, a report about labor practices on Qatari satellite campuses that was sent to COLA from the International Trade Union Confederation in January 2015 has further motivated their campaign, she added.