Office of the Provost

Academic Priorities and Initiatives

Undergraduate Financial Aid Initiative

Building on a long history of need-blind admissions and need-based aid, a sweeping new financial aid initiative, starting in 2008-09, will eliminate need-based loans for all undergraduate students from families with income under $75,000, making it possible for new students to graduate debt-free. Learn more...

Overarching Goals, 2006-07 (PDF)

Cornell has great strengths that permit transformative contributions in a range of areas. Our challenge is to take advantage of existing strengths, enhance our faculty and programs in areas that have strategic importance but are not as strong as they need to be, and identify more links among basic research, education, and outreach or application. Over the coming months and years the provost and vice provosts will focus their efforts on the critical areas identified in this document.

ACCEL: The ADVANCE Program at Cornell University

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) ADVANCE program's stated goals are "to increase the recruitment, retention, and promotion into leadership positions of women in engineering and the sciences, and to institutionalize best practices, policies and programs across colleges as they pertain to women faculty."

This award will directly involve and have maximum impact on the areas supported by the NSF: engineering, physical sciences, life sciences, and social sciences. However, because many of the initiatives are indeed institutional, they will impact the university as a whole. Over the five year life of the ADVANCE grant, we aim to achieve 20% women faculty in each Science and engineering (S&E) department. Our longer-term objective is that a third of our S&E faculty be women by 2015, Cornell's sesquicentennial.

Task Force Charges and Reports

The three areas listed below were identified by faculty as providing strategic opportunities for Cornell to publicly demonstrate its expertise and leadership capabilities. Cornell is currently developing structures for interdisciplinary collaboration around these areas. Final reports with recommendations (PDF):

New Life Sciences Initiative

Cornell's New Life Sciences Initiative (NLSI) is a university-wide collaboration to develop and launch a multiyear $600-million campaign that will enhance and support life sciences research and education at Cornell and elsewhere. It is the most far-reaching research initiative in Cornell's history.

Announcement of Initiatives in the Social Sciences at Cornell (PDF)

A series of initiatives in the social sciences at Cornell are described in this document, including the formation of Cornell's Institute for the Social Sciences.