Input from the SIPS community regarding the next SIPS director is requested. Please read the message below, communicated from Senior Associate Dean Beth Ahner on November 4, 2021. Full professors eligible for nomination are listed at the end.
Dear Members of the School of Integrative Plant Science,
SIPS Director Chris Smart will complete her term as director on July 31, 2022. Please join me in thanking Chris for her successful leadership of the School of Integrative Plant Science, as interim director effective July 1, 2016 and as director since August 1, 2017. To ensure a successful transition and build on Chris’s achievements, I write to invite your thoughts regarding your next director.
Given the near-term plans on the horizon, not the least of which include significant renovation of SIPS facilities, the leadership team of the college agrees with the SIPS director and section chairs that candidates for the next director must be full-time faculty within SIPS willing to commit to a 3-5 year administrative term. A successful director will have many attributes. Specifically, they must be:
- A respected faculty member at the full professor rank
- Able to consider the common good of the school and commit to transparent decision making
- Fully committed to building, promoting, and sustaining an equitable, diverse, and inclusive working environment for students, staff, and faculty
- Able to interact successfully with all members of the school (faculty, students, staff)
- Able to build consensus, but also able to make difficult decisions
- Fair in dealing with people with a track record of communicating with humility, compassion and gratitude
- Able to communicate important issues between the sections/school and external audiences (other units as well as external stakeholders)
- Able to work productively with the college leadership; and h) of high integrity and honesty, along with many other favorable attributes.
The SIPS director is responsible for building synergy across units, campuses, and constituents (faculty, staff, students) to promote a strong school identity including a clear brand. Key strategic responsibilities include: to advocate for SIPS with administrators at the college and university level as well as external organizations, to partner with Alumni Affairs and Development colleagues to bring public recognition and support to SIPS, to negotiate strategic faculty hiring requests, and to prioritize elements of the SIPS strategic plan for execution to underpin the development of a long-range vision for SIPS. The next director will also have continued oversight of the Plant Science building renovation. The director should be able to set ambitious, realistic goals, and measure progress against those goals throughout the school.
Administrative responsibilities of the SIPS director include: managing the selection process and annual reviews of section chairs, supporting section chairs with the rollout of associate and full professor reviews, ensuring parity of expectations in research, teaching, and extension, overseeing the SIPS executive committee and optimizing administrative resources. A description of the general responsibilities of CALS department chairs may be useful.
To ensure the best outcome in the upcoming SIPS leadership transition, we seek your candid feedback by asking you to suggest the names of faculty nominees, including yourself if appropriate, who have the traits and abilities described above, regardless of their perceived willingness to serve. If you have concerns regarding any potential nominations, you may use the opportunity to relay that feedback as well.
Your feedback in the selection process is critical and will inform the decision-making process. For full consideration, please send your confidential responses by e-mail to calssrad@cornell.edu by December 1, 2021. Please provide rationale for your opinions. I encourage you to consider carefully the future leadership of SIPS.
Following a comprehensive review of your feedback, the process to interview top candidates will commence at the beginning of the new year. I look forward to reviewing your feedback, working with the executive committee, and keeping you informed throughout the process, with the goal of having a new director installed successfully by August 1, 2022.
Thank you for your commitment to a successful transition by sending your feedback to calssrad@cornell.edu by December 1, 2021.
Sincerely,
Professor Beth Ahner
Senior Associate Dean
Full professors in SIPS eligible for nomination:
- Bassuk, Nina
- Bauerle, Taryn
- Bergstrom, Gary
- Bjorkman, Thomas
- Bogdanove, Adam
- Bridgen, Mark
- Brown, Susan
- Buckley, Daniel
- Cheng, Lailiang
- Cherney, Jerome
- Crepet, Bill
- De Jong, Walter
- DiTommaso, Antonio
- Doyle, Jeffrey
- Drinkwater, Laurie
- Fuchs, Marc
- Gan, Susheng
- Gore, Michael
- Hanson, Maureen
- Hua, Jian
- Lehmann, Johannes
- Martin, Greg
- Martinez, Enid
- Mattson, Neil
- Mazourek, Michael
- McBride, Murray
- McCouch, Susan
- Miller, Bill
- Mutschler-Chu, Martha
- Nasrallah, June
- Nelson, Rebecca
- Nixon, Kevin
- Pawlowski, Wojciech
- Pritts, Marvin
- Reiners, Stephen
- Reisch, Bruce
- Robinson, Terence
- Rose, Joss
- Scanlon, Michael
- Setter, Tim
- Smart, Larry
- Smith Einarson, Margaret
- Sorrells, Mark
- Specht, Chelsea
- Taylor, Alan
- Turgeon, Gillian
- Turgeon, Bob
- Van Es, Harold
- Van Wijk, Klaas
- Vanden Heuvel, Justine
- Vatamaniuk, Olena
- Watkins, Christopher