The search for Cornell University's next president is moving apace. Candidate recommendations, many from Cornell faculty, continue to arrive daily.

"So far I've gotten more recommendations from faculty members than any other single group," said Ezra Cornell, Presidential Search Committee (PSC) member and life trustee. "I received three from faculty in the last 24 hours alone."

This month the committee will continue to seek input from Cornell administrators and deans in small forums. Meetings also will be held with Cornell faculty from the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and Shoals Marine Laboratory on Appledore Island in the Gulf of Maine.

A master list of all candidates is being compiled, and from these an A-list of top candidates, including sitting provosts and university presidents, will be established. Committee members are now getting their first look at the confidential lists.

"I am pleased with the tremendous outpouring of interest in the search, based on the many suggestions forwarded to the search committee by members of the Cornell community, as well as the many friends of Cornell," said Diana M. Daniels, search committee chair. "The conversations about the search with faculty, staff, students, trustees, alumni and academic leaders of other institutions of higher learning have been powerful reminders of what a great institution Cornell is -- the dialogue has been challenging, dynamic and positive."

In an open meeting at Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) in New York City on Sept. 7, PSC members listened to comments from the medical college faculty; see http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept05/NYC.searchcomm.html. On Sept. 21 the PSC will hold another open forum in New York City via videoconferencing, this time with medical faculty, students and staff in WCMC-Qatar.

In October, the 24-member search committee will break into teams and fan out across the country to visit a selected list of prime candidates and resources. On Saturday, Oct. 15, the boards of the Cornell Association of Class Officers (CACO) and the Cornell Alumni Federation will meet with PSC members from 9 to 10:30 a.m. in the amphitheater in the Statler Hotel.

Recently it was announced that two additional faculty members, Rosemary Avery, a professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, and Richard Schuler, a professor in the Department of Economics and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, are joining the PSC. See http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept05/faculty.search.deb.html.

That brings to five the total number of faculty members serving on the committee. Among them is Laura Brown, the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English, who joined the faculty at Cornell in 1981 and has been a member of the Department of English for more than 20 years.

"My experience of the search process has been that conversation on the committee has been open, and that the interviews and information-gathering that we have under way have been and continue to be productive," said Brown, who served through the spring of 2005 as chair of the English department.

Brown said that common themes that have emerged in the search thus far include "the need for leadership and communication abilities in the new president; for an individual who has experience in a complex institutional setting; and for a president who can serve not only the immediate needs of the university but its long-term future."

Brown has twice been a recipient of the Society for the Humanities at Cornell faculty fellowship and is widely known and recognized as a scholar and critic of the English 18th century. Brown studies the role of women in the literary imagination, the relationship between literature and history, the nature of culture, the emergence of imperialist thought and the effects of ideas of racial difference. She has been active in promoting new approaches to the study of the English 18th century, most notably in her co-edited collection, "The New Eighteenth Century: Theory, Politics, English Literature," which helped to sponsor a re-evaluation of 18th-century materials.

For a complete description of all PSC members, visit the search committee Web site at http://www.cornell.edu/presidentsearch/.