Kotlikoff inaugurated as Cornell’s 15th president

As he was officially installed as Cornell University's 15th president on Oct. 24 during a ceremony in Barton Hall, Michael I. Kotlikoff echoed the words of the late Dale Corson - another provost turned president, in 1969.

Corson said that "he felt no need to be installed, having been doing the job already for a while, in a place where he had spent so many years as a faculty member, an administrator and a parent," Kotlikoff said.

"I know how he felt … to be inaugurated as president of the university where you've spent most of your career, when you've been asked to help shape the future of an institution that is already your home - and to which you owe a debt of gratitude impossible ever to repay."

The event followed a dinner for trustees, council members and guests in Barton Hall as part of the Trustee-Council Annual Meeting schedule. Unlike most presidential inaugurations, the ceremony wasn't preceded by a formal academic procession, but included all the official symbols of the university: Life trustee Ezra Cornell '70 presented the charter, employee-elected trustee Hei Hei Depew presented the university seal, and faculty-elected trustee Durba Ghosh presented the university mace.

Anne Meinig Smalling '87, chair of the Cornell Board of Trustees, presided over the event, welcoming Kotlikoff's family members and the two former Cornell presidents in attendance, Martha E. Pollack and Jeffrey S. Lehman '77.

Noting that the year 2025 marks the university's 160th birthday, Smalling said that "it has been through multiple generations of loving service by our presidents, leadership, faculty, staff, students and alumni that Cornell has become the world-renowned research university it is today.

"In fact, my father, Peter Meinig - who served as this Board's chairman from 2002-11 - summed it up perfectly when he spoke at the inauguration of President Lehman, right here in Barton Hall in 2003, and described Cornell as: 'a university whose soul is as beautiful as its campus.'

Bob Harrison '76, emeritus chair of the Board of Trustees, offered a toast, lauding Kotlikoff for his 25 years at Cornell as a professor, department chair, dean and then as the longest-serving provost in Cornell's history (2015-24) before stepping into the role of interim presidentin 2024.

Provosts rarely go on to become presidents of the same university, Harrison said, because they typically have to make a multitude of unpopular administrative decisions and balance competing academic interests and priorities.

"Remarkably, while Mike has done all of these things, every dean with whom I have spoken during his tenure has told me how fair, straightforward and decent Mike has been as their boss," Harrison said, thanking Kotlikoff for his "truly extraordinary leadership."

Rick Cerione, professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences, spoke about the evolution of the life sciences and genomic initiatives at Cornell after Kotlikoff came on board in 2000 to lead the then-new Department of Biomedical sciences at the veterinary college.

Cerione recounted Kotlikoff's initiatives as provost on radical collaboration, the recruitment of additional top-tier scientists to the university, and how he inspired the creation of the new Cornell Center for Immunologyto bridge research at the Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medicine campuses.

Professor Emeritus Glenn Altschuler, Ph.D. '76 (A&S), who served with Kotlikoff as a fellow dean and later reported to him when he became provost, praised him "for his intelligence, integrity, candor, compassion, decisiveness and decency," but also offered a slew of humorous quotes on leadership to guide Kotlikoff as president.

For example: "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."

But Altschuler also gave serious advice, including philosopher Immanuel Kant's "It is absolutely essential that faculty members be free to evaluate everything," and the proverb "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

Smalling, beginning the official investiture ceremony, called Kotlikoff to the podium and praised his "vibrant outreach to the university community," his work as a researcher, his initiatives for teaching and learning and his expertise and leadership through the pandemic.

"Mike, you have already proven to be the exceptional and visionary president Cornell needs at this moment: a leader to guide faculty, staff, students and alumni through what are exceptionally turbulent times - together," she said.

"Being asked to lead Cornell at this challenging juncture in our history is both a privilege and a responsibility I cannot hope to shoulder alone," Kotlikoff said in his inauguration remarks. "It's one I am glad to take on, in the hope of repaying, in some small measure, what Cornell has given to me."

In his address, Kotlikoff echoed the multitude of challenges he had outlined in his State of the University Addressearlier that morning as part of the Trustee-Council Annual Meeting, noting: "We're at a critical point in America - a point where our national commitment to higher education, and to the democratic values of open inquiry and equal opportunity that Cornell was built on, is in doubt.

"Where the partnership of generations between our government and our most promising students and scientists is at risk. Where much of what has made this community of 'any person … any study' possible is under threat," he said.

Answering these challenges will "have an impact far beyond our own institution," he said, and he would ask the Cornell community, as Corson did more than 55 years ago, "to respond to these problems out of a deep sense of our common destiny, and develop out of these responses a new sense of our common purpose."

Kotlikoff pledged that Cornell will serve as a model for others to follow:

"A university committed to open inquiry, and the values of our democracy; that prizes access and diversity, rewards merit, and protects everyone from discrimination and bias; a source of knowledge, creativity, and innovation; a place of personal transformation and intellectual awakening; a contributor to our country's strength and well-being - now and for generations to come."