Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings was elected vice-chair of the Association of American Universities (AAU) at its annual fall meeting Oct. 23 at the University of Maryland.

He will serve a one-year term and then assume the chairmanship of the association in October 2002, succeeding Robert Berdahl, president of the University of California-Berkeley, who was elected chair at the Oct. 23 meeting.

Rawlings serves on the AAU's 11-member executive committee, which oversees the group's activities in federal government relations, policy studies and public affairs relating to research issues, including funding, undergraduate and graduate education.

Elected for the second time to the AAU executive committee in 1999, Rawlings joined the AAU in 1988 when he assumed the presidency of the University of Iowa, a member institution. He became president of Cornell in 1995.

The AAU is an organization of research universities devoted to maintaining a strong system of academic research and education. Membership is institution-based and by invitation. Currently, 63 institutions, almost evenly divided between public and private, hold membership.

The organization was founded in 1900 by a group of 14 Ph.D.-granting universities in the United States, including Cornell under President Jacob Gould Schurman, to strengthen and standardize U.S. doctoral programs.

Rawlings is also now serving as chair of the Council of Ivy Group Presidents, the presidents of the eight universities in the Ivy League.