Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings announced today (Oct. 23, 1998) that he will ask the Cornell Board of Trustees to approve the investment of more than $400 million over the next 10 years in a bold new program to transform undergraduate education on campus.

Half of that $400 million investment will be for the creation of new scholarship endowments to ensure that Cornell can perpetuate its historic mandate to provide financial aid to those who need it. The remainder will be "to enhance the living and learning environment for undergraduates," Rawlings said in his annual State of the University message today.

In combination with faculty efforts already under way to re-examine and rethink broad areas of the undergraduate curriculum, "Cornell will offer a unique undergraduate experience: research-oriented but educationally grounded; intellectually focused and residentially based; faculty-driven but student-centered and affordable. In short, we offer a distinctive undergraduate experience available nowhere else," Rawlings told members of the Cornell Board of Trustees and University Council gathered in the Alice Statler Auditorium on campus for their annual joint meeting.

Rawlings has made transforming the undergraduate experience at Cornell one of his top priorities. He told the approximately 900 alumni and friends who filled the auditorium that his three new initiatives will drive that transformation. Those initiatives include:

• Major programmatic and architectural changes planned for North Campus, which will become, by 2001, the home of all Cornell's freshmen.
• Major rethinking of residential life for upper-class students on West Campus, "that will link living and learning -- and emphasize strong faculty participation."
• A historic, $200 million scholarship campaign announced today "that will keep Cornell affordable to the very best students in the nation, regardless of their financial circumstances."

As part of the $200 million campaign for scholarship endowment, he reported that the university has received a $50 million challenge grant toward that goal. The challenge grant will provide $1 for every $3 raised for the campaign.

Thus far, Rawlings announced, a total of $70.2 million has been committed toward the $150 million needed to complete the campaign. Two families have made $10 million gifts to the campaign.

George D. and Harriet W. Cornell have pledged a $10 million leadership gift to support the campaign. George Cornell is a descendant of the university's founder, Ezra Cornell.

Trustee Allan Tessler is establishing a $10 million trust, the Tessler Family Scholarship Fund, to support the campaign.

Rawlings noted that national media like U.S. News & World Report are catching on to "Cornell's true quality," as Cornell this year jumped from number 14 to number 6 in the magazine's latest college rankings.

And, he added, "In a year when the Carnegie Commission's Boyer Report has strongly chastised research universities for neglecting their undergraduates, Cornell has demonstrated that it is a great place for undergraduate education."

As evidence he pointed to the Hughes Scholars Program, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which has helped some 500 Cornell undergraduates participate in research over the past several years. The institute recently announced that it will award Cornell $2.2 million over the next four years to continue and expand the Hughes Scholars Program and the Cornell Institute for High School Biology Teachers.

He also pointed to:

• Cornell undergraduates who are working on the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission, the Athena Project to build the next generation Mars lander and rover, and the Comet Nucleus Tour Mission.
• Cornell's food science student team, which won the 1998 Institute of Food Technologists' national food competition last June, for the third time in four years.
• Cornell engineering students who, "for the second year in a row, designed, built and raced the winning Formula SAE car in an international competition, prevailing over competitors from 90 other top engineering schools."

Rawlings said that "Cornell does a superb job of teaching undergraduates, not in spite of the research that goes on here, but because of it. The Presidential Research Scholars Program, a $5.45 million effort now in its second year, has brought to Cornell 102 of the nation's top high school students by offering them the opportunity to conduct paid, part-time research with a faculty mentor throughout their four years on campus."

Rawlings said a Cornell education is unique. "Our excellence in research and scholarship gives a special character to our teaching -- and opens opportunities for our students that make a Cornell education distinctive." But, Rawlings said, there is room for improvement.

"As good as we are in undergraduate education, we aim to become even better -- in fact, the best research university for undergraduate education in this country." The new initiatives and financial commitment will provide the foundation for that improvement, Rawlings said.

He said one area in which Cornell needs to improve is in the relationship between student and faculty mentor.

He has appointed Mary J. Sansalone, professor of structural engineering, to lead these efforts. Sansalone, one of Cornell's Weiss Presidential Fellows as well as winner of the national "Teacher of the Year Award" of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, officially will assume her new post as vice provost in June 1999. But, Rawlings said, she already is considering incentives that would encourage faculty members to excel in advising and mentoring as well as in teaching and research.

The new North and West Campus residential plans also will help transform undergraduate education.

With Rawlings' first initiative, the $65 million North Campus plan, the goal is to house all freshmen together "so that they can build a sense of identity as a class, and, through faculty mentoring and other initiatives, have a successful freshman experience."

The second initiative, on West Campus, will create more housing opportunities for upper-class students in residential colleges with a unique Cornell flavor. The houses will have a high level of faculty involvement and career and academically linked programming.

Rawlings' third initiative is the new fund-raising campaign for scholarship support.

He noted that at its meeting last March, the board of trustees made Cornell's commitment to need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid a standing policy rather than something to be voted on yearly. Now, he said, Cornell has developed a plan to enable the university to maintain need-blind admissions while safeguarding its long-term financial strength.

He noted that while Cornell's effort was announced just days before the American Council on Education (ACE) is set to launch its nationwide "College Is Possible" campaign, Cornell's plan "builds upon the principle of inclusiveness" that has been part of the university from its inception.