Senate-At-Large Senators 

• 2 tenure seats / 3 non-tenure seats; 3-year term (NOTE: Only one non-tenure nominee accepted, so two seats will remain open for now)

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Robert Karpman (rk395), non-tenure, Life Sciences

Biography:

Robert R. Karpman, M.D., M.B.A - Teaching at Cornell has been my third career in the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. In 2014,I came to the University as a part-time adjunct professor in the Meinig Department of Biomedical Engineering, where my efforts were primarily devoted to instructing Masters’ of Engineering students. Since that time, I have created and taught multiple courses in business, management and entrepreneurship to undergraduate and graduate students. In 2017, I was appointed a Professor of Practice in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Director of the Dyson Business Minor in the Life Sciences, and most recently, a member of the graduate faculty in applied economics and management. I have been a full time faculty member since 2016. In addition, I have developed a 7-course certificate program in Business and Management Excellence for Healthcare Professionals with the assistance of E -Cornell. My first and second careers consisted of serving as an orthopedic surgeon in an academic teaching hospital, director of academic affairs in the same institution, and then chief medical officer in 2 community hospitals. I have authored a book, wrote multiple chapters in other texts, published 29 papers in basic science and clinical research peer review journals and have served on Boards of many of my professional societies.

Candidate Statement:

As someone who considers himself an outsider, I have observed there are four basic issues of importance to faculty. Those are titles, time, space and money. While the issues of titles are routinely addressed in the Faculty Senate, on review of meetings and legislation over the past ten years, the other three issues have infrequently surfaced as part of Faculty Senate deliberations. While these are usually addressed at the Department or College level, these issues cross all disciplines and all Colleges of the University and I believe that perhaps it is time for the Faculty Senate to address these critical issues. It is also time for the Senate to seriously consider and review opportunities for funding outside of the traditional tuition and grant models. For the University to stay competitive, it must find alternative funding opportunities to recruit new faculty, and  to effectively reckon with the other faculty issues stated above. I am confident that my experience, both in and outside of Academia will allow me to energize the other members into considering and taking actions regarding these critical issues and I look forward to participating in these crucial discussions.

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Scott Coonrod (sac269), tenure, Biomedical Sciences

Biography:

Dr. Scott Coonrod is the Judy Wilpon Professor of Epigenetics and Cancer Biology at Cornell Universities’ Baker Institute for Animal Health in Ithaca, New York. The Baker Institute for Animal Health is one of the oldest research centers dedicated to the study of veterinary infectious diseases, immunology, genetics, and reproduction. Prior to that, Scott was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetic Medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City. His primary areas of interest include preimplantation development, epigenetic regulation of disease progression, and cancer biology. He received his B.S in Veterinary Physiology (1984), his M.S. in Reproduction (1991), and his Ph.D. in Veterinary Physiology (1995) from Texas A&M University. Scott then did his postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia under Dr. John Herr in the Department of Cell Biology.

Candidate Statement:

I am interested in serving on the Faculty Senate because I care about the people of our Institution and want to do whatever I can to help maintain the character and quality of this University.

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Chelsea Specht (cds266), tenure, Plant Science

Biography:

Professor Chelsea Specht arrived at Cornell 1 July 2017 as the Barbara McClintock Professor in Plant Biology. She received her PhD in 2004 from New York University in a joint program in evolutionary and organismal biology with the New York Botanical Garden and the American Museum of Natural History. She began her academic career at the University of California Berkeley as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology (PMB) and later joined the department of Integrative Biology (IB), advancing to Full Professor in both departments in 2016.  At UC Berkeley, she chaired the Academic Senate committee for Demonstrations and Student Actions (DSA), was an active participant and incoming chair of the Committee on Diversity, Equity and Campus Climate (DECC), and was selected to serve on a special taskforce funded by the Mellon Foundation to Transform Graduate Admissions across the UC system. She served as the Faculty Equity Advisor for PMB from 2008-2017, a departmental service under the Office for Faculty Equity and Welfare in collaboration with the Division of Equity and Inclusion. The EA is responsible for ensuring best practices during all procedures associated with hiring, recruitment, and admissions of academic positions (faculty and graduate students) in the department. During this time, she also wrote the departmental Strategic Plan for Equity and Inclusion as part of a 10-year departmental review, and ultimately chaired the committee responsible for executing activities associated with the strategic plan. She is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, a Kavli Fellow (NAS), a Hellman Family Faculty Fellow, and received the Prytanean Faculty Award for excellence in Mentorship in 2009. She is currently President of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.

Candidate Statement:

I’m very motivated to develop academia in general as an inclusive community of networked scholars, working together to solve problems, to discover and explore, and to engage in the advancement of knowledge through pedagogy and dissemination. I am strongly committed to achieving excellence through the diversity of systems we study and the diversity of people engaged in the process, and am interested in developing and leading campus initiatives to broaden participation, particularly for those historically unrepresented or unwelcome, through programs and services that lead to academic access and success. I am passionate about seeking mechanisms to actively reduce the role of biases and open pathways to equity in our admissions and hiring processes, particularly graduate admissions and faculty hiring. I want to work with our community to normalize specific and effective mechanisms that optimize equity and inclusion as part of our search for excellence, and in doing so build a campus that emerges as a welcoming, supportive and inclusive environment.