"Sustainability problems are real, immediate, and answers must be found if we are to have a just and humane future on this planet," warns a report issued by the provost's Task Force on Sustainability in the Age of Development. Cornell has great potential to lead the search for those answers, the report notes, but changes must be made to encourage more interdisciplinary collaboration, innovative and risky research, and a broader, more global reach.

Among other initiatives, the task force, formed by Provost Biddy Martin in February 2005, calls for the creation of a new Cornell institute for sustainability and development, which would include faculty and students in fields ranging from the physical sciences to agriculture, city and regional planning, law, and environmental sciences. It also recommends seed grants to encourage faculty in areas of research related to sustainability, a series of international workshops, a universitywide course on sustainability, new faculty hires in the field of global warming, and a tenure structure that better supports junior faculty doing unconventional, cross-disciplinary or "disruptive" research.

"The great strength of what the report proposes is to provide mechanisms for the many disparate groups at Cornell -- centers, institutes, et cetera -- that deal with sustainability to interact in productive ways," said task force co-chair Nelson Hairston, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "There is a lot going on already in sustainability at Cornell, and we should strive to become more than the sum of these parts. However, these proposals are a starting point. Bringing these ideas to reality will take a lot of dedication by Cornell faculty and substantial resources from the university."

"Cornell is perhaps the best suited of all universities in the country to tackle sustainability in a comprehensive, integrated way," said Sidney Leibovich, Cornell's Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Mechanical Engineering and task force co-chair. "The university is well-known for the excellence of its existing programs devoted to sustainability. The report seeks to promote existing activities, expand and integrate research and teaching where it will enhance what is being done, and to enable a more comprehensive attack on the vast range of issues sustainability presents."

Dean Koyanagi, Cornell's sustainability coordinator, said the report's recommendations are "right on the mark." Koyanagi, who focuses on campus operations issues and was not on the task force, added, "Right now is a critical junction for Cornell's sustainability efforts. If we can get trustee and alumni support for the short-term recommendations outlined in the task force's report, I suspect that the true wealth of our expertise around campus will come forward."

Implementing the recommendations will take time and further study, report participants caution. But Stephen Kresovich, Cornell's vice provost for life sciences, is optimistic. "It certainly is a good start," he said, "and builds a focus that is central to the university's mission."