Strategic Faculty Hiring in Sustainability
(Proposal deadline extended to October 15, 2009)
The Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future (CCSF) was launched in 2008 to help advance multidisciplinary research and cultivate innovative collaborations within and beyond Cornell to foster a sustainable future for all. One of its mandates is to facilitate strategic faculty hiring in CCSF's three thematic areas: Energy, Environment and Economic Development. CCSF's primary instrument to facilitate such hiring is bridging and start-up funding it can provide to Colleges and Departments committing faculty lines to focal areas of particular strategic importance to the broader Cornell community. There is currently significant funding budgeted for FY10 to provide bridge funding for hiring faculty into existing lines to support existing strengths or to realize latent potential in sustainability science. Funding in later years will be determined by the Provost and available donor funding.
The Recruitment sub-committee of CCSF's Faculty Advisory Committee is leading the effort to define focus areas for strategic faculty hiring in sustainability. The program can be used to promote cluster hiring, in cross-cutting areas. Focus areas for hiring need to be problem defined and reflect either existing or latent potential for excellence or areas where an existing gap on campus can be rectified. Multiple units (of multiple colleges) should be involved in focus areas. The first such focus area was formed this fall to guide a cluster hire in climate change within CALS. Within the next year, we anticipate recruitment of several faculty with skills related to energy supply, distribution and end use, in association with the College of Engineering's efforts to establish an Energy Institute.
Focus areas should be formed by groups of faculty keen to identify and promote the sustainability hires. Groups should write a brief (1-3 page) statement of vision, which should include what could be done with these hires which cannot be done today. The core strategic question to address is what important, high profile new activities could Cornell undertake with one or two key new faculty hires in this area and how would these hires impact the productivity of existing Cornell faculty? The statements should be clear in how the hires would address CCSF's Energy, Environment and/or Economic Development themes. The rationale must also (i) include a draft ad for the cluster hire (see the attached example from the climate cluster hires), (ii) identify multiple departments that would participate in the search, potentially serving as the tenure home for newly hired faculty identified by the search, and (iii) propose a multi-disciplinary, multiple-unit search committee for the cluster hire.
Deadline: Vision statement, draft cluster hire ad, and proposed search committee must be sent to ccsf@cornell.edu no later than Monday, September 14. These will be reviewed by the FAC Recruitment sub-committee. Groups that pass that first screen will then be invited to present their case to the full FAC in September or October 2009.
We strongly encourage interaction meeting with members of FAC subcommittee to refine their statements before the October 15 deadline.
Questions? Contact Kieran Donaghy, Chair of the Recruitment sub-committee, Frank DiSalvo, CCSF Director, or any of the CCSF Associate Directors (Anurag Agrawal, Chris Barrett or Jeff Tester)
The Recruitment sub-committee has developed a draft, preliminary list of possible focus groups. Additional suggestions are welcome.