Director's Message Archives
June 2006
A Message from Becky Mitchell, associate dean, Alumni Affairs and Development
Summer greetings! I hope this finds many of you enjoying vacation or recreating. As you know, this is a glorious time of year in Ithaca, and I hope many of you will visit during the next few months.
Some of you recently attended Reunion Weekend. Despite cool weather and rain, many alumni commented on the beauty of Ithaca in summer. It was my first Cornell Reunion and I was blown away by the activities and programs and the enthusiasm of our alumni. It was an incredible experience, and if you've never attended Reunion Weekend, please consider coming. I think you would enjoy it.
If you don't have plans to visit Ithaca soon, we may have a chance to connect in the near future. Beginning in September, a number of people from the Johnson School will be traveling around the country and globe reaching out to our alumni, our prospective students, and friends. Dean Robert Swieringa and I will travel together beginning in the Midwest and crossing the Pacific to meet with alumni in India, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. As Dean Swieringa enters his tenth and final year of his incredible tenure at the Johnson School, he wants to meet with as many alumni as possible, to highlight the significant progress over the past decade, and lay the groundwork for building a future for the next 10 years.
As we celebrate the leadership of Dean Swieringa in the next year, the process of hiring a new dean will move forward. By the end of June, a search committee was to be in place, consisting of eight to 12 individuals representing Cornell administration, Johnson School faculty, and alumni, as well as a dean and faculty member from the broader university. The Johnson School Advisory Council is actively working with the provost and the search committee through this process. I encourage you to participate as well by providing feedback about the qualities you are seeking in a new dean. We will make finalists' vitae available online when they are available. We will keep you informed of this process and look forward to your comments and feedback. The selection of a new dean should be announced in Spring 2007.
In addition to the changing leadership at the Johnson School and at Cornell University, we're gearing up for a capital campaign to ensure our prominence in the academic community. The university is launching the campaign this October. The Johnson School will unveil its involvement in this monumental fund-raising effort, and we'll share more details about how you can become involved in this critical endeavor. The needs met by giving to the campaign will help the Johnson School advance to even greater accomplishments in the next decade.
Have a great summer, and I hope to connect with many of you in the coming months in Ithaca or on the road.
Warm regards,
Becky Mitchell
Associate Dean, Development and Alumni Affairs
rhm33@cornell.edu
