Frank H.T. Rhodes, the president of Cornell University from 1977 to 1995, will deliver the inaugural Moses Passer Lecture at Cornell on Monday, Sept. 9. His subject will be "Science and the Academy."

The lecture, hosted by the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, will be at 4:40 p.m. in 200 Baker Laboratory. The lecture is free and is open to the public.

The annual lecture is named for the late American Chemical Society (ACS) director of education who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1948. Passer, who died in 1999, was professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, until joining the ACS administration in 1964. While at UMD he also directed the Duluth section of the Minnesota Peat Research Project.

The lecture series is endowed by Passer's widow, Dorothy.

Rhodes came to Cornell from the University of Michigan, where he was vice president for academic affairs from 1974 to 1977. He joined the Michigan faculty as a professor of geology in 1968; in 1971, he was named dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, the largest of Michigan's 18 schools and colleges.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan appointed Rhodes as a member of the National Science Board, and in 1989 President George Bush named him a member of the President's Education Policy Advisory Committee. In 1992, Rhodes was named to the 15-member Special Commission on the Future of the National Science Foundation. He is former chairman of the board of trustees of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, of the board of directors of the American Council on Education and of the Association of American Universities.

Born in England, Rhodes earned his bachelor, doctor of science and doctor of philosophy degrees from the University of Birmingham. He holds honorary degrees from more than 20 institutions.