Cornell Loses a President

by Brian on June 14, 2005

The President of Cornell, Jeffrey Lehman, resigned in somewhat mysterious circumstances at the weekend. Lehman was the first Cornell alum to be President, and it had seemed like he was treating this as a job for life. But after just two years he has jumped off the ship, in his words because the “Board of Trustees and [he] have different approaches to how the university can best realize its long-term vision.” This isn’t maximally plausible. The best story on the background to Lehman’s departure is by “Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed”:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/06/13/cornell. I suspect there is still a bit more to this story to come out.

{ 6 comments }

1

slolernr 06.14.05 at 4:37 pm

I find Jaschik’s piece to be as inconclusive and noncommittal a bit of Kremlinology as ever there was. Or am I missing some incredibly obvious yet subtle Ivy League code-word?

2

steve kyle 06.14.05 at 5:34 pm

Hey I work at Cornell and it was a surprise to all of us. Nobody had the slightest clue this was going to happen. More will likely come out in the future but at the moment anything you hear is just reading tea leaves.

3

John Emerson 06.14.05 at 6:36 pm

The story said nothing about Trustees, which is presumably where the answer to the question is. I agree with slolernr — there’s no apparent there there.

4

jmb 06.14.05 at 8:16 pm

The truly disappointing thing is represented by Peter Meinig’s quote (from the IHE article) that “it ‘serves no useful purpose’ to discuss the specific areas of disagreement.” It’s shameful that Cornell, which recently solicited ideas from all its stakeholders about the future of the university, will now say nothing about what’s really going on at the highest levels. When the truth eventually comes out, it’s unlikely to reflect well on Cornell and its trustees.

5

steve kyle 06.16.05 at 9:52 am

I understand Meinig has only a year or so to go as chair of the board. Lehman could/would have lasted another decade or even two. Meinig must have been difficult as hell to get along with for Lehman to have quit with virtually no notice.

I also have just read a slew of emails from the hierarchy all saying not to talk about this and to “back our leadership”. I have no idea what they mean by that but they sure do sound defensive. And rightly so. This was a major screwup by somebody.

6

Mrs. Coulter 06.16.05 at 1:59 pm

The comments about his wife were particularly odd.

Comments on this entry are closed.