Robert Barker/University Photography

Diana Daniels, chair of the Presidential Search Committee.

The formation of a search committee for Cornell University's 12th president began less than a month after President Jeffrey S. Lehman's sudden resignation on June 11, 2005. On July 5, Diana M. Daniels, vice chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees, was appointed chair of the Presidential Search Committee (PSC), and in short order two dozen Cornellians got down to work.

Committee membership eventually included 26 representatives from numerous Cornell constituencies, including trustees, faculty members, undergraduate students, graduate students, employees, the Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) and Graduate School of Medical Sciences, senior Cornell administration and alumni.

In August the PSC announced the selection of the national executive search firm of Korn/Ferry International to assist in the process of identifying and recruiting the strongest possible candidates.

From the outset Daniels made it clear that the committee would "seek advice from the entire Cornell community and from academic leaders throughout the nation and around the world on the characteristics that should be sought in a new Cornell president."

In this spirit of inclusiveness, PSC subcommittees held open meetings with faculty, staff and students on campus in Ithaca and at WCMC in New York City. Meetings and phone conferences also were 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. In addition, PSC members held a videoconference with medical faculty, students and staff in WCMC-Qatar.

A direct result of the PSC's meeting with the faculty was increased faculty involvement. Soon after the meeting, it was announced that faculty members on the committee would be increased to five from three with the addition of 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.

The original faculty members were professors Laura Brown, Department of English; Elizabeth Earle, Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics; and Juris Hartmanis, Department of Computer Science.

"We had equal votes and voices with the other representatives," said Avery. "Our role on the committee was to represent faculty interests, priorities and preferences as expressed to us as representatives. I feel that these views were taken seriously and weighed heavily in the selection process."

Daniels praised the committee's work.

"I do not think Cornell could have had a better search committee," she said. "I am also very appreciative of the work of the two advisory groups of deans and faculty, whose input in the process was invaluable. Everyone worked extremely hard to do the best job possible to find Cornell's 12th president -- and we succeeded."