Martha E. Pollack, Cornell College’s president for the previous seven years, introduced in a shock electronic mail on Thursday afternoon that she is resigning.
“I perceive that there shall be a number of hypothesis about my determination, so let me be as clear as I can: This determination is mine and mine alone,” she wrote in her electronic mail, addressed to “Cornellians.” “After seven fruitful and gratifying years as Cornell’s president — and after a profession in analysis and academia spanning 5 many years — I’m prepared for a brand new chapter in my life.”
Dr. Pollack, a pc scientist, mentioned she would stay in workplace till July 1.
In a separate announcement, Kraig H. Kayser, the chairman of Cornell’s board of trustees, mentioned the board had requested the college provost, Michael I. Kotlikoff, to function interim president for 2 years. Dr. Kotlikoff was beforehand dean of Cornell’s Faculty of Veterinary Drugs, amongst different posts.
Dr. Pollack’s resignation signifies that 4 of the eight Ivy League universities — Harvard, Yale, the College of Pennsylvania and Cornell — will now be in varied phases of management transition, three of them with interim presidents already in cost or presidential searches underway. The presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned within the final six months, partly due to fallout over their testimony at a December congressional listening to investigating campus antisemitism.
Mr. Kayser mentioned that Cornell’s trustees would wait to start a seek for a brand new everlasting president till about six to 9 months earlier than the top of Dr. Kotlikoff’s two-year time period, an unusually lengthy delay.
Dr. Pollack, 65, leaves at a time of controversy over disciplinary motion Cornell has taken towards pro-Palestinian pupil protesters. Whereas Cornell has not summoned outdoors police forces to its campus in Ithaca, N.Y., it has taken what some professors known as draconian measures towards six protesters. Critics have discovered the disciplinary actions notably disturbing coming in a college yr when Dr. Pollack launched a campus free-expression initiative.
Although the scholars’ protest remained peaceable, the college invoked a provision calling for “rapid momentary suspension,” a measure meant for conditions the place the protection and well being of the group have been threatened, in line with Risa L. Lieberwitz, a Cornell professor and the campus president of the American Affiliation of College Professors.
“It’s not meant for use the place the college is sad about the truth that you’ve got an encampment and chanting,” she mentioned.
Professor Lieberwitz known as on Dr. Pollack to revoke the scholars’ suspensions — penalties that might erase their educational credit for the semester — as a parting presidential act that will ease tensions on campus.
Mr. Kayser known as Dr. Pollack a “transformational chief” who elevated monetary support and created new educational applications at Cornell.
