ITHACA, N.Y. -- To give the humanities and social sciences a new focus on campus, an Office of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications has been established within Cornell's Division of University Communications.

"I will be working closely with faculty, department chairs and academic directors to make new communications links so that the humanities, arts and social sciences are covered more expansively on campus and in the outside media," said Linda Grace-Kobas, senior director of the new office, which is located within the Cornell News Service and Web Communications offices at 312 College Ave. 

The new office will help create awareness and appreciation for the humanities and social sciences on campus by helping faculty produce such events as lectures and discussion panels. To communicate the central importance of the disciplines in campus life, the new office will generate publications that present faculty writings and activities in a way to make them easily accessible to the general public. Among the planned events is a lecture series by writers in the humanities and social sciences that will begin early in the fall semester.

Grace-Kobas, who was then director of the Cornell News Service for a decade, was asked to head the new office by Tommy Bruce, vice president for university communications. Noting the need for a new approach to communicating the importance of the humanities and social sciences, Bruce said, "Linda has developed the depth of institutional knowledge and campus connections that this new Division of University Communications initiative requires."

Bruce added that the new office's activities will be supported by the Cornell Chronicle, the Cornell Press Relations Office and Cornell's Office of Publications and Marketing. Grace-Kobas will be adding staff to the new office.