THE MANY FACETS OF RON'S INFLUENCE AT CORNELL RON BUTLER: GENEROUS COLLABORATOR, SELFLESS ADMINISTRATOR,DEDICATED TEACHER

摘要

In academia I have encountered two types of effective leaders. Some are very focused, energetic and aggressive in pursuing the interest of their own "team" - be that a section, department, college or university. They argue that if their counterparts are equally aggressive, it is up to the next level of administration to make good decisions. A smaller number of academic leaders takes a wider view, carefully considering the overall good of their own unit and the greater whole, sometimes endorsing a path that may not be in the short term interest of their own unit but is likely to be best overall. In my opinion, Ron Butler belongs to the latter group. This is part of the reason that I am proud to call him a friend. Ron Butler was a team player at Cornell for 42 years, and Chaired the Department of Animal Science for 10 or 11 of those years. He has many, many accomplishments in that time but I want to highlight just a few.