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This book, a history of Cornell University since 1940, examines the institution in the context of the emergence of the modern research university. It examines Cornell during the Cold War, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, antiapartheid protests, the ups and downs of varsity athletics, the women's movement, the opening of relations with China, and the creation of Cornell NYC Tech. It relates profound, fascinating, and little-known incidents involving the faculty, administration, and student life, connecting them to the “Cornell idea” of freedom and responsibility. With access to all existing papers of the presidents of Cornell, the book is a respectful but unvarnished portrait of the university. The history of Cornell since World War II, the book suggests, is in large part a set of variations on the narrative of freedom and its partner, responsibility, the obligation to others and to one's self to do what is right and useful, with a principled commitment to the Cornell community—and to the world outside the Eddy Street gate.

Using a risk management framework, the book discusses the landscape of U.S. higher education and faculty employment decisions. Topics include institutional differences, challenges facing colleges and universities, the erosion of academic standards, administrative bloat, changing promotion and tenure standards, sexual harassment, and Title IX concerns about campus safety. Attention is also given to the manner in which faculty members are hired and mentored and the decision-making biases that affect the way in which faculty members are granted promotion and tenure. The social psychological aspects of faculty employment decisions have been largely ignored in the literature, and we attempt to shed some light on these issues as we deconstruct promotion and tenure decisions. Traditional legal concepts of contract and employment law are examined as they pertain to hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions along with the cherished, but changing, ideals of free speech, academic freedom, and collegiality that have altered how faculty must deal with the rising tensions of political correctness on campus.

College students today display disturbing levels of stress, depression, and other psychological conditions. The reasons for this rise in mental health problems are many, from increased reliance on electronic technology, the related prevalence of social isolation, and anxiety regarding societal ills. College and university counselling centers are challenged to address student demand for psychological services, with many counseling directors having to reduce the number of visits for non-crisis patients to cope with the increasing number of clients. While more serious mental health problems will continue to be addressed through intensive counseling, medications and, in extreme cases, hospitalization, the majority of young people can positively impact their mental well-being by simply spending time outside in nature. A large body of scientific evidence verifies that time spent in natural settings can lower young people's stress levels, anxiety, blood pressure and heart rate, and improve memory and cognitive functions. College Nature Rx programs encourage students to spend time in nature and to develop greater appreciation for the natural world. We present a step-by-step formula for how such programs can be constructed, sustained, and evaluated, and profile four progressive Nature Rx programs at American colleges. In a final chapter, we argue for the need for such programs to the future health and strength of such institutions.

It has long been assumed that college admission should be a simple matter of sorting students according to merit, with the best heading off to the Ivy League and highly ranked liberal arts colleges and the rest falling naturally into their rightful places. Admission to selective institutions, where extremely fine distinctions are made, is characterized by heated public debates about whether standardized exams, high school transcripts, essays, recommendation letters, or interviews best indicate which prospective students are worthy. And then there is college for everyone else. But what goes into less-selective college admissions? Ravenwood College was a small, private, nonprofit institution dedicated to social justice and serving traditionally underprepared students from underrepresented minority groups. To survive in the higher education marketplace, the college had to operate like a business and negotiate complex categories of merit while painting a hopeful picture of the future for its applicants. This book is a snapshot of a particular type of institution as it goes about the business of producing itself and justifying its place in the market. This book documents what it takes to keep such an institution open and running, and the struggles, tensions, and battles that members of the community tangle with daily as they carefully walk the line between empowering marginalized students and exploiting them.

This book is a story of continuity and transformation. Cornell medical school has been a leader in education, patient care, and research—from its founding as Cornell University Medical College in 1898, to its renaming as Weill Cornell Medical College in 1998, and now in its current incarnation as Weill Cornell Medicine. The book situates the history of Cornell's medical school in the context of the development of modern medicine and health care. It examines the triumphs, struggles, and controversies the medical college has undergone. It recounts events surrounding the medical school's beginnings as one of the first to accept female students, its pioneering efforts to provide health care to patients in the emerging middle class, wartime and the creation of overseas military hospitals, medical research ranging from the effects of alcohol during Prohibition to classified partnerships with the Central Intelligence Agency, and the impact of the Depression, 1960s counterculture, and the Vietnam War on the institution. The book describes how the medical school built itself back up after nearing the brink of financial ruin in the late 1970s, with philanthropic support and a renewal of its longstanding commitments to biomedical innovation and discovery. Central to this story is the closely intertwined, and at times tumultuous, relationship between Weill Cornell and its hospital affiliate, now known as New York-Presbyterian. Today the medical school's reach extends from its home base in Manhattan to a branch campus in Qatar and to partnerships with institutions in Houston, Tanzania, and Haiti. As the book relates, the medical college has never been better poised to improve health around the globe than it is now.