Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Oct. 25) the formation of an Academic Initiatives Fund to finance the recruiting of new faculty who will forge creative, intellectual initiatives, particularly across disciplines.

Rawlings announced the establishment of the fund, with a gift of $8.4 million over five years, in his annual fall State of the University address to trustees, alumni and friends in the Alice Statler Auditorium, Statler Hall, on campus. The fund will create opportunities for universitywide collaboration to enhance the university's academic excellence in selected areas.

"This fund will help Cornell recruit the very best faculty members in academia," Rawlings said. "Those universities that can promote greater curricular coherence and more collaborative research across departmental and college lines will be best prepared for the 21st century."

The fund, to be administered by Rawlings and Provost Don M. Randel, will enable Cornell to recruit faculty members who will provide a catalyst for interdisciplinary initiatives, Rawlings said.

"This fund will enable us to view each faculty appointment as a strategic opportunity for the university," Randel said. "This broad view will increase institutional opportunity for new academic research and teaching programs and will help foster an atmosphere that nurtures excitement, ferment and scholarly enterprise in an era of constrained fiscal resources."

The fund, with a budget of up to $2.5 million in any of the next five years, will be used for:

• bridging funds for faculty salaries, until a faculty budget line becomes available;
• start-up costs associated with laboratories and research for the new faculty members recruited through the fund;
• programmatic funds for deans in select cases to provide an incentive for them to make an intercollege or interdisciplinary appointment.

"At a time when Cornell must keep the overall size of the faculty stable because of financial constraints, we cannot continue to view each appointment only in the context of a single department or college," Rawlings said. "To do so would limit our flexibility and diminish our ability to reinvigorate the university."

Most awards made through the fund will be for three to five years, until the faculty member moves to a faculty line vacated through attrition. Each year, the president and provost will review the appointments made through the fund and, if additional appointments can be made, propose new strategic areas for the coming academic year. Once areas are identified, deans will be asked to identify outstanding prospects and develop a plan to recruit them to Cornell.