As Cornell Turns

Well what do you know. . . a little bit of scoop and eyebrow raising at Cornell. The big news this weekend was that our university President of 2 years is up and gone as of June 30th. He resigned. Right in the middle of Reunion Weekend during his state of the union address to all the 600+ alumni in the audience who had no clue that this was coming. Not so sure if the president's tactic was an "in your face" maneuver or something that was required of him. But the reason the president cited for his resignation was a difference in opinion on strategy between he and the Board of Trustees that cannot be rectified. Hmmmm.

Of course there is all kinds of speculation on campus. All kinds of water cooler talk. "I heard that there was tension between Inge and he", "I bet it is because of his wife" to even the comment that, "its because he is Jewish!" It seems as if gossip and rumor has taken on a new level at Cornell. Now, politics goes higher than just the petty stuff at the division and department level, there are seeds of a scandal at the highest place. ooooh, the intrigue.

But what amazes me at an Organizational Development level is the affect that this news has on the staff, the university's dynamic and our future direction. Because no one is really talking other than the standard "because of differences" the masses are left to speculate on their own, and given the fact that it is summer and there is very little else to focus our energy's on, we are left to gossip and gossip and gossip. I wish someone would lay it all out on the table so we can actually focus on the business at hand.

People are worried on what kind of impact something like this will have at an institution like Cornell. What will this do to our image? Well, I tell you, if this is all we focus on and gossip, gossip, gossip, we have destroyed our own image. . . not the president's act of resigning. Cornell is still Cornell. We have a legacy, we have a history. Trust the institution and it will prevail. An act of a simple resignation will not destroy this place. It is only if we linger in it and dwell that it can have the most damage.

It is also interesting to note the fear that an institution has when it loses its leader. Good or bad, we lost our champion, our director, our man in charge. What’s going to happen? What will happen to the two years we spent moving in this direction under the president's leadership? Will we change? Will we lose our momentum? Well, yes and no. Of course we can expect some directional change, of course some of our energies will be spent finding a new leader. But Cornell still plugs along in its institutional calendar.

Change hits people on an emotional level. It has been interesting to watch the last few days unfold and how people cope. The next year ahead will be an interesting one to say the least in the soap opera that is Cornell.