The Association of American Medical Colleges in December appointed President David Skorton to its governing Board of Directors.

President David Skorton and two Cornell alumni have been named to Governor Andrew Cuomo's economic committee that will help him transition into office.

Cornell President David Skorton announced Friday his plan to launch a national campaign “in the next couple of months” to bolster investment in the arts and humanities, which have been underfunded over the past 16 years, he said.

With an ongoing campus debate regarding the administration’s controversial changes to the Greek system, President David Skorton sat down with The Sun on Tuesday to discuss the plan. He expressed support for the changes, as well as for the Greek system’s history of self-governance.

President Skorton answered questions regarding his lengthy response times for certain resolutions to the University's future plans regarding the fences and suicide prevention in and around the gorges.

President David Skorton recently signed a letter in support of the DREAM Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation which would provide assistance for undocumented students who hope to acquire permanent residency in United States.

The Cornell Board of Trustees unanimously agreed this afternoon to allow the University incur up to a half-billion dollars in debt and scale back its endowment spending.

The Trustees authorized the University to sell up to $500 million in taxable bonds to provide working capital and institutional liquidity.

The University is also set to reduce spending from the endowment by 15 percent starting July 1, with further cuts planned for subsequent years.

“[The University] can’t keep taking the money out as if it were a larger endowment,” President David Skorton said in an interview Friday.

My recent trip to Iran as part of an academic delegation has confirmed my belief that while tensions abound in our world, “people-to-people” exchange is ever more important.

Our world is polarized along lines drawn by our race, ethnicity, religious convictions, politics, gender, sexual orientation and many other attributes. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current tensions defined by the intersection of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic worlds. The events of last week in India are just the most recent manifestations of these tensions. How to respond to this polarization?

According to Robert Massa of Dickson College, “What we’ve done in higher education is let our dreams and aspirations dictate our cost structure.” Due to the financial crisis, this prodigal era of “dreams and aspirations” may finally be over.

This past Tuesday, Cornell implemented a hiring pause, a delay on new construction, and other cost-saving measures. The contract colleges are especially hard hit. According to a dean in the ILR School, administrators — rather than tenured faculty — may have to teach some classes, while existing faculty may be allotted fewer teaching assistants.

Despite national economic turmoil and threats of the worst financial crisis since the great depression, President David Skorton assured on Friday morning that Cornell is “not in a financial crisis.” Still, in his annual State of the University Address, Skorton emphasized the need for the University to revise its economic plan for its future in light of recent “stresses and strains that deserve our serious attention.”