ITHACA, N.Y. -- "Hats Off to Hunter, a Campus Salute to President Hunter Rawlings" will kick off a day of events on Monday, April 28, to celebrate Rawlings' eight years as president of Cornell University.

"Hats Off to Hunter," an ice cream social with entertainment, will be held under a tent on the Arts Quad from 1:10 to 2:30 p.m. A chimes concert will start the program, open to all members of the Cornell community. Entertainment will include performances by student vocal groups, a poetry reading, jugglers and musicians. A large Grecian urn will be provided so that participants can write down their recollections and good wishes for Rawlings and place them in the urn.

The celebration will conclude with a brief "hats-off-to-Hunter salute," so everyone is encouraged to wear a special hat for the occasion. All faculty, staff and students are invited, and supervisors are being encouraged to be as flexible as possible in findings ways to permit staff members to participate.

A free public lecture, "Freedom of Conscience: James Madison's First Right" by Professor Jack Rakove of Stanford University, is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall. Rawlings' Virginia home is near Montpelier, Madison's home, and in recent years Rawlings has become an important Madison scholar. He spoke at the Library of Congress' 2001 celebration of the 250th anniversary of Madison's birth and is on the board of the Montpelier Foundation, which is planning a major renovation of the home and estate.

Earlier on the 28th, a small ceremony will be held on West Campus to celebrate the groundbreaking and naming of the first house in the West Campus Residential Initiative. In the evening, a private reception and dinner will be held for Rawlings on campus.

Rawlings became president of Cornell in 1995. In March 2002 he announced his intention to retire from the presidency June 30, 2003, and to assume a full-time professorship in the university's Department of Classics.