THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412110060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON AND STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: ITHACA, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
A Norfolk native and classics scholar who graduated second in his class from Norfolk Academy has been tapped as president of Cornell University.
Hunter R. Rawlings III, 49, was officially confirmed as Cornell's 10th president during a ceremony on Saturday. His selection ended a nine-month search during which a university committee looked at more than 450 nominees. Rawlings succeeds the current president, Frank H.T. Rhodes, who plans to retire in June.
``I'm quite honored,'' Rawlings said in a telephone interview Saturday. Cornell ``is one of the nation's finest research universities, and it has an unusual combination of very high academic standards and a commitment to public service.''
Rawlings was born in Norfolk on Dec. 14, 1944, and graduated in 1962 from Norfolk Academy, where he played on the school's baseball team. In 1966, he received his bachelor's degree in classics from Haverford College in Pennsylvania. In 1970, he earned his doctorate from Princeton.
Many of his relatives, including his parents and a sister, still live in Hampton Roads.
Since 1988, Rawlings has been president of the University of Iowa and a professor of classics. He has been called a coalition-builder by faculty members there.
Before going to Iowa, he served for four years as vice president for academic affairs and research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Colorado. He joined the Colorado faculty in 1970 and became department chairman eight years later. While there, he became a well-known classics scholar and won the school's Teaching Excellence Award in 1979, news reports said.
In 1992, Rawlings was rumored to be a candidate for the presidency of Duke University. More recently, he was named as the trustees' choice for chancellor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In academic circles, Rawlings has been considered a ``commodity,'' news reports said. He is considered a young, articulate, scholarly and experienced administrator with a strong academic background.
``I'm very pleased and privileged to be Cornell's 10th president,'' Rawlings said, crediting Norfolk Academy for giving him ``an awfully good start.''
Rawlings said that with his own background in the classics, he values the study of foreign language and the humanities. ``But nowadays, I think it's essential for students to be technically literate as well,'' he said, ``so it's quite a challenge to prepare students for the 21st century.''
And expensive at a time when money - especially government support - is getting harder to find.
``Everyone knows that there are pressures on funding,'' Rawlings said.
``It's a fact of life. But Cornell is, financially, very strong. And it has an extremely loyal board. . . that gives one a good deal of confidence about the future.''
Still, ``This does not mean that budgets will be constantly growing,'' Rawlings said. ``These are tight times and I expect them to remain tight. But it's encouraging to begin at a well-endowed university.''
At Iowa, Rawlings oversaw a budget of more than $1 billion and an enrollment of more than 27,000 students.
He also served as the Big Ten representative on the NCAA President's Commission, where he was a spokesman for reforming college athletics.
It was in this role that he apparently received the most criticism. In 1989, Iowa Hawkeye fans criticized Rawlings for proposing that freshman athletes be ineligible for practice and games unless the NCAA reformed national academic standards for athletes.
Rawlings was also president during a tragic incident there.
On Nov. 1, 1991, a former graduate student named Gang Lu shot and killed three physics professors and an associate vice president in Rawlings' administration. Lu also wounded a student working in the vice president's office before shooting and killing himself.
Rawlings is married to Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings and has four children, ages 19 to 27. His father, Hunter Rawlings Jr., lives on Shirland Avenue off W. Little Creek Avenue. Rawlings' father could not be reached for comment Saturday. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Hunter R. Rawlings III, a classics professor, president of the
University of Iowa since 1988, has been called a coalition-builder.
by CNB