David I. Stewart, who has been at Cornell University for 21 years, including the past 15 as director of community relations, will retire from that position in mid-November.

"David leaves behind an unprecedented record that has been widely recognized, both here on campus and at many of our sister institutions around the country," said Henrik N. Dullea, vice president for university relations. "The director of community relations role here at Cornell can be challenging indeed."

Dullea announced that John Gutenberger, assistant director of community relations, will succeed Stewart as community relations director.

"When I made my decision in August, it was based primarily on a desire to do many of the things I have not found time to do lately, including international travel," Stewart said.

Stewart came to Cornell in 1979 as director of the News and Feature Service. Prior to that, he was assistant to the president of Tompkins Cortland Community College. In 1984, he was named associate director of university relations and directed the merger of news operations that operated on the state and endowed sides of the university. Under his guidance, the news operation won several national and state awards. Later, he was named assistant to the vice president for university relations and was appointed Cornell's first full-time director of community relations in 1986.

In the late 1980s, Stewart initiated the Cornell Community Report , which was mailed to every household in Tompkins County. Community Reportwas also the name of a television program about Cornell and the community, for which he served as executive producer and co-anchor.

Stewart was instrumental in reviving a dormant Collegetown Neighborhood Council in the mid 1990s, partly in response to loud parties and large crowds that were taking place in Collegetown during the week leading up to Cornell commencement. In addition to re-energizing the neighborhood council, Stewart has worked with fraternities and sororities in the Collegetown cleanups every fall and spring.

For the past decade, Stewart organized and coordinated the university's product-licensing program. He served on the 14-member task force established by the Collegiate Licensing Company that drafted the code of conduct for manufacturers of collegiate apparel.

"David's meetings with leaders of the student anti-sweatshop movement on campus during the two years the task force was at work helped create a level of communication and trust with students that was not evident on other campuses that struggled with the sweatshop movement," Dullea said.

Stewart's areas of communication responsibilities over the years have included campus construction, environmental and transportation issues. He also coordinated Cornell's bimonthly roundtable meetings with local government leaders.

A graduate of Ithaca College, Stewart has been a radio and television news reporter and disc jockey at several stations, including in Albany, Binghamton and Malone; at WTKO and WHCU in Ithaca; and the former Northeast Radio Network, where he was news director and anchor of the statewide "Weather Roundup." Since 1994, Stewart has been host of "Good Growing" with Joe Lockwood on radio and TV, and his voice is heard on radio and television commercials and public-service announcements across the state. For several years, he has been the public-address announcer at Cornell's commencement ceremony.

Stewart serves on a number of community boards and is a trustee of Ithaca College. His service to the community ranges from the Ithaca Downtown Partnership board, on which he represents Cornell, to the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, where he served as a board member and committee chair. He was instrumental in the community's hosting of the Empire State Games, serving on the local organizing committees in 1989 and 1995. He is also a long-time member of the Ithaca Community Fireworks Committee. A resident of Ithaca since 1963, Stewart was chairman of the Community Advisory Committee for the New York State Urban Development Corp. in the early 1970s.

Stewart also has served as an officer, board member and conference organizer for the SUNY Council on University Affairs and Development and as a presenter at conferences of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. And, he has been Santa Claus throughout the community, from day-care centers to nursing homes and local service clubs.