When Dean of the University Faculty Charles Walcott's five-year term ends June 30, he plans to retire from the university.

"I look forward to returning to civilian life," said Walcott, professor of neurobiology and behavior who is an expert in the in the areas of territorial vocalizations of birds and the navigational orientation of animals. "I am looking forward to having more time to do research and explore some of the other things I'd like to play with. I don't plan to go anywhere, so as long as they'll let me sit in my office somewhere."

Three candidates are campaigning for the deanship prior to the March 7 deadline for faculty votes: William (Bill) Fry, professor, plant pathology; Jennifer Gerner, professor, policy analysis and management; and Daniel (Pete) Loucks, professor, civil and environmental engineering. The normal term for dean of the faculty is three years; Walcott was appointed for an additional two years.

Walcott said he finds Cornell "remarkably collegial," and just as past deans had offered their support to him when he became dean, he will gladly do the same for his successor.

His job as dean, Walcott said, was mainly to keep "the ship moving in the right direction and facilitating communication." When President Jeff Lehman resigned in 2005 after two years in office, Walcott said communication between faculty and trustees was a challenge.

"There was a huge faculty outcry about that [resignation], and I tried very hard to promote conversation between the faculty and the trustees," Walcott said. "I don't think either side was pleased by the results, but the trustees were bound by confidentiality agreements, and the faculty were, therefore, unsatisfied with what they learned."

Now, thanks in part to Walcott, there are semiannual meetings between the University Faculty Committee (an executive committee of the faculty senate) and members of the board of trustees to keep communication lines open.

"[We] learned that neither one of us particularly had cloven hooves, that we could discuss issues that both sides were facing," he said, and that if a difficulty were to arise again, these communication bridges were now established.

After Walcott earned a Ph.D. in zoology at Cornell in 1959 and taught at Harvard and Tufts universities and at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he returned to Cornell as director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in 1981. He stepped down as the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director of the Laboratory in 1995 and resumed teaching and research.

With characteristic self-deprecating humor, Walcott said that in retrospect, the highlight of his appointment as dean of the faculty was "the fact that everybody survived intact."