I served as the eleventh president of Cornell University, and thereafter I have remained a tenured professor of law at the Cornell Law School.
I began my presidency with a "Call to Engagement," initiating a year-long process of community-wide strategic reflection. The Call to Engagement committed Cornell to strengthen its identity as a transnational university with global impact, and we forged new relationships with peers in China, France, India, and Singapore. As a result of the Call to Engagement, Cornell also focused its scientific and humanistic energies on some of the most significant challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century: life in the age of the genome, wisdom in the age of digital information, and sustainability in the age of development. During my presidency the university also set new records for fundraising success and for applicant volume.
Cornell published a collection of my thoughts as president in a book entitled An Optimistic Heart.
