Kotlikoff formally inaugurated as Cornell’s 15th president

ITHACA, N.Y.— Michael I. Kotlikoff was officially installed as Cornell University’s 15th president in a Friday, Oct. 24 ceremony in Barton Hall on the university’s campus. Kotlikoff had been appointed as Cornell president back on March 21, after having served as interim president since July 2024. The inauguration event followed a dinner for Cornell trustees, council members, and guests as part of the trustee-council annual meeting schedule, according to an Oct. 27 Cornell Chronicle article. Anne Meinig Smalling, chair of the Cornell board of trustees, presided over the ceremony, welcoming Kotlikoff’s family members and the two former Cornell presidents in attendance — Martha E. Pollack and Jeffrey S. Lehman. Bob Harrison, emeritus chair of the board of trustees, offered a toast, lauding Kotlikoff for his 25 years at Cornell as a professor, department chair, dean and then as the longest-serving provost in Cornell’s history (2015-24) before stepping into the role of interim president in 2024. Provosts rarely go on to become presidents of the same university, Harrison noted, because they typically must make many unpopular administrative decisions and balance competing academic interests and priorities, according to the Cornell Chronicle. “Remarkably, while Mike has done all of these things, every dean with whom I have spoken during his tenure has told me how fair, straightforward and decent Mike has been as their boss,” Harrison said, thanking Kotlikoff for his “truly extraordinary leadership.” In his own remarks at the Oct. 24 event, Kotlikoff reflected on his lengthy career at Cornell and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. “It’s a different thing to be inaugurated as president of the university where you’ve spent most of your career — when you’ve been asked to help shape the future of an institution that is already your home, and to which you owe a debt of gratitude impossible ever to repay,” he said. “Cornell has given me opportunities that I could not have conceived of when I started college 56 years ago — a directionless freshman on a scholarship. And I never know quite how to respond, when people say, ‘I don’t know if I should offer you congratulations on your new job, or condolences.’ ” Kotlikoff continued, “The truth is, that I could not think of a more meaningful time to serve an institution that has given me so much. And I am endlessly grateful, both for the opportunity, and for your support.”