The Cornell Class of '56 has inaugurated a newly endowed professorship honoring Cornell President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes that is aimed to enrich the undergraduate experience at the university.

Architect Richard Meier, a 1956 alumnus of Cornell, and biomedical scientist Edward M. Scolnick have been appointed the first Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professors through 2005. Meier will visit Cornell Oct. 30-Nov. 3 and again in April 2001. Scolnick will be visiting campus Feb. 6-9, 2001.

"We wanted to commemorate our 40th reunion and a great Cornell president with something that would endure and serve the Cornell community, particularly the undergraduates," said Ernie Stern, Class of '56 president. "We wanted to create a prestigious position that would attract high-level leaders at the peaks of their careers who would meet with students and share their hard-won knowledge and proven insights."

Meier and Scolnick represent exactly the type of leaders Stern and his classmembers envisioned when creating the newly endowed professorships -- people at the height of their careers in scholarship, public life, government, international affairs, health, nutrition, agriculture, business, industry, the professions, the arts, communication or any comparable field.

Rhodes Class of '56 Professorships are awarded for a period of one to five years, and appointees are considered full members of the Cornell faculty. According to the mission statement, the professorships are designed to "strengthen the undergraduate experience at Cornell by bringing to the university individuals from every walk of life who represent excellence of achievement and to create opportunities for interaction with undergraduates."

During each year of their appointment, Rhodes professors will visit the campus for a minimum of two weeks. The Rhodes Class of '56 chair is overseen by the Cornell A.D. White Professors-at-Large Program. Meier, who began his architectural career with private commissions in 1963, shifted his direction after the success of his design for the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1967. In 1979, he completed The Atheneum in Indiana; in 1983, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; followed by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Des Moines Art Center. In 1984, at age 49, he was the youngest architect to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, his profession's highest accolade. Since then, Meier's notable designs have included the Getty Center; the Camden Medical Center in Singapore; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain; the City Hall and Central Library of The Hague; the Federal Building and Courthouse in Phoenix, Ariz., and in Islip, N.Y.; and Church of the Year 2000 in Rome, among others.

Scolnick is president of Merck Research Laboratories and executive vice president of science and technology within Merck and Co. Inc. He also is a widely respected scholar in his primary field of virology; particularly protein synthesis, cancer biology, molecular virology, as well as combinatorial chemistry and rational drug design. He began his scientific career as an independent researcher within the National Institutes of Health, became head of the NIH Genetics Section and eventually NIH chief of the Laboratory of Tumor Virus Genetics until he joined Merck Research Laboratories in 1982. Under Scolnick's leadership, and with a seven-year clinical research program with the World Health Organization, Merck discovered the drug Mectizan, which prevents river blindness, caused by a parasitic worm endemic to Africa. In 1987, Merck decided to donate Mectizan free to all people affected by river blindness, for as long as necessary. Scolnick has served on academic committees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine and the Jefferson Medical College. He has published nearly 200 scientific articles and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

For further information about the Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professorships, contact Geri Jones at (607) 255-0832.