ITHACA, N.Y. -- Members of the Cornell University Board of Trustees and Cornell University Council will arrive on campus Thursday, Oct. 16, for Cornell's 53rd annual Trustee-Council meeting and the inauguration of the university's 11th president, Jeffrey S. Lehman.

The meeting of the more-than-700-member council and a quarterly meeting of the board of trustees is scheduled on campus every fall so that the groups can attend joint sessions and hear the Cornell president's State of the University Address. The council is an advisory body made up of alumni and friends of the university who are elected by the trustees.

Lehman, whose term as president began July 1, will be inaugurated in ceremonies on three Cornell campuses around the globe Oct. 12-16, culminating in ceremonies in Ithaca Thursday, Oct. 16. He will deliver his first State of the University address Friday, Oct. 17, at 9 a.m. in Alice Statler Auditorium of Statler Hall, on campus.

The Cornell Board of Trustees will meet in open session Friday afternoon at 2:15 and Saturday morning at 9 in Room B09 of Sage Hall. The open portion of the Friday meeting will include a report from Lehman and a financial report on fiscal year 2002-03. A limited number of tickets for the full board's open session will be available starting at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Information and Referral Center in the lobby of Day Hall on campus.

Several board committees will have open sessions. No tickets are needed for the open sessions of the committees:

o The Committee on Land Grant and Statutory College Affairs meeting, Thursday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 a.m. in the Statler Hotel's Taylor A/B Room, will be open for discussion on a range of program and financial matters affecting Cornell's contract colleges.

o The Buildings and Properties Committee meeting, Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in the Yale-Princeton Room of the Statler Hotel, will be open at the start of the session for status reports on ongoing projects.

o The Committee on Academic Affairs and Campus Life meeting, Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in the Yale-Princeton Room, will be open briefly for presentations, including an overview of the coming year.

The theme of this year's meeting is "Cornell Celebrates a New Beginning," with events centering around inauguration activities. Inaugural symposia will be presented at 10 a.m. on campus by renowned architect Richard Meier, Cornell Class of 1957; Narayana Murthy, chairman of Infosys Technologies Ltd. and a Cornell trustee; and Cornell professors Kenneth McClane, the W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature, and Alice Fulton, award-winning poet and professor of English.

An inaugural luncheon and special chimes concert will precede the academic procession, which begins at 1:25 p.m. on the university's Arts Quad. The inauguration ceremony, in Barton Hall, begins at 2 p.m. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a 1954 Cornell graduate, will deliver approximately 20 minutes of remarks and Lehman will deliver his formal inaugural address in an installation ceremony that follows.

Receptions will be held at 5 p.m. at various locations on campus, and an evening of entertainment at Barton Hall, "Ezra and Andy's Excellent Big Red Adventure," begins at 7.

On Friday afternoon at 2:15 and Saturday morning at 9 and 10:15, council members can choose from a series of seminars offered by Cornell faculty on a variety of subjects. The seminars include "Addressing Food Security and Global Nutrition," "Museums: New Definition, New Roles, New Impacts," "Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Business," "The Future of Space Exploration" and "Forever Young: A Timely Wrinkle on Age Issues," among others.

A special panel from 10:45 to 11:45 Friday morning in Statler Auditorium will address "University Outreach: From Academic Research to Startup Company -- A Faculty Perspective." Panelists include Carl A. Batt, Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor, Department of Food Science, director, Cornell University/Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Partnership and co-director, Nanobiotechnology Center; Kenneth P. Birman, professor, Department of Computer Science; Bruce Ganem, J. Thomas Clark Professor, Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Program, Franz and Elizabeth Roessler Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry; and

David A. Putnam, assistant professor, chemical engineering, School of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, and member, Biomedical Engineering Program.

On Saturday afternoon, Oct. 18, trustees and council members can attend the Big Red vs. Georgetown University football game at 1 p.m. at Schoellkopf Field. From 5 to 6:30 that evening, a reception and tour will be held at the newly completed Cornell Lab of Ornithology building, officially opened in June.

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EDITORS: Cornell Board of Trustees Chair Peter Meinig and President Jeffrey Lehman will be available to answer questions from the news media Saturday, Oct. 18, at 11:30 a.m. in the Atrium of Sage Hall. Tickets to the full board meeting are available for the news media from the Cornell News Service at (607) 255-4206.