As a first-generation, African-American, female neuroscientist, I am atypical along many dimensions. My research also crosses typical boundaries using a cross-species approach, in rats and humans, to examine how brains and cognitive faculties change across the lifespan. 

 

At Vassar College, I prepared for a career in modern dance and medicine. After graduation, I worked in a surgical metabolism research lab at Harvard University School of Medicine, where I fell in love with research. For my Ph.D., I trained in animal neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and then trained in human neuroscience as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. After a decade as faculty at the University of Toronto – St. George, I was recruited to Cornell. I was named a Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow and re-built my rat and human labs through an Empire Innovation award from SUNY. I support my research primarily through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In Canada, my research was continuously supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. 

 

I have contributed to service for the Department of Human Development (HD), the College of Human Ecology (CHE), and the University: CHE Dean’s Fellow for Racial and Social Justice (current), Director of Undergraduate Studies (3 years), Executive Committee member (7 years), Chaired the Graduate Admissions Committee (3 years), CHE Education Policy Committee member (3 years), CHE Dean’s Search Committee member and multiple faculty search committees, and a standing NIH study section member (6 years). In 2019, I received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. 

 

For community outreach, our lab has developed a program, seeded by funds from Engaged Cornell, to have undergraduates teach neuroscience to elementary school children in the city of Syracuse. This program supports my passion for how scholarship needs diversity in both ideas and the people who wish to pursue them.

 

I am a Professor of Labor and Employment Law in the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR School), where I have been on the faculty since 1982. For many years, my teaching, research, and service have focused on academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education in a democratic society. My expertise and experience in these areas have enabled me to contribute to scholarship on higher education and to service through shared governance. 

 

My teaching on higher education issues includes a course I developed on the “Changing Nature of the University.” My publications on academic freedom and shared governance include: “Vulnerability Theory and Higher Education,” THE LAW TEACHER (forthcoming); “Corporatization of Higher Education: A Crisis of Labor and Democracy,” in THE CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK OF LABOR AND DEMOCRACY (Angela B. Cornell and Mark Barenberg, eds., Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming); “Faculty in the Corporate University: Professional Identity, Law, and Collective Action,” 16 CORNELL JOURNAL OF LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY 263 (2007), and “University Science Research Funding: Privatizing Policy and Practice,” in SCIENCE AND THE UNIVERSITY (Paula E. Stephan and Ronald G. Ehrenberg, eds., University of Wisconsin Press 2007). 

 

In recognition of my expertise on these issues, I was appointed to the prestigious position of General Counsel of the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and I have served in that role since 2014. I also serve on the national AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Since March 2019, I have held an elected position as President of the Cornell University Chapter of the AAUP. 

 

My Cornell shared governance activities include: Faculty Senate (1996-2004; 2016-2021); Chair, Faculty Senate Committee to Review Faculty Governance (report: 2007); University Faculty Committee (2013-2016; 1998-2004); Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Status (2002-2005, 2009-2012); Faculty Senate Committee on Affirmative Action (1997-2000); Codes and Judicial Committee (2017-2021); University Appeals Panel (2012-2017, 2018-2021). 

Faculty governance is at the core of who we are and why we value the university. Cornell’s Bylaws recognize this, describing the University Faculty’s function to consider matters of educational policy. I would be honored to be elected as Dean of Faculty and to work with the Faculty Senate to fulfill this essential role in the university. 

 

I am deeply committed to shared governance. For many years, my teaching, research, and service have focused on academic freedom, shared governance, and the role of higher education in a democratic society. I have actively engaged in shared governance at Cornell in the Faculty Senate and its committees. Since 2019, I have been President of the Cornell Chapter of the AAUP, and since 2014, I have been General Counsel of the national AAUP. As Dean of Faculty, I would draw upon my expertise and experience to work with the Faculty Senate and the Cornell administration to strengthen shared governance. 

 

In times of crisis, shared governance is more important than ever. Although I yearn for in-person meetings, the Faculty Senate Zoom meetings have increased faculty participation on crucial issues, including our advocacy for policies and budgetary measures that protect the physical and economic welfare of all faculty, students, and staff. 

 

Recently, shared governance worked well when the administration and Senate jointly developed the Cornell Policy Statement on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech and Expression. The Faculty Senate should build on such accomplishments. To do this, we must seek greater transparency and meaningful consultation about the many issues that are part of shared governance, including international programs, college restructuring, academic freedom and due process rights for all faculty, and social justice on campus.