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KAUST Inauguration Symposium Speaker

Frank Rhodes

Cornell University (Emeritus)

Frank H.T. Rhodes retired from Cornell University in 1995 as the longest-serving Ivy League president. A national leader as an advocate for education and research, he has played a significant role in the development of national science policy under several United States Presidents. He is also a central strategist in the creation of KAUST, and serves on the KAUST Board of Trustees.

Born in Warwickshire, England, in 1926, President Rhodes is a graduate of the University of Birmingham, from which he holds four degrees. He held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois. He has taught at the Universities of Durham and Wales. He is a former Fulbright scholar and distinguished fellow, a National Science Foundation senior visiting research fellow, and a fellow at Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of Wales. Dr. Rhodes has published widely in the fields of geology, paleontology, evolution, the history of science. His books include The Language of the Earth, Fossils, Geology, Evolution, and The Evolution of Life. At Cornell, he is not only President Emeritus but Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences.

The impact of President Rhodes’ on Cornell includes increased diversity among students and faculty; adding teaching and advising of students to tenure standards; tripling research funding; boosting endowment to support financial aid, educational programs, and libraries; and ending deficit spending. His major disciplinary initiatives include Asian studies, supercomputing, biotechnology, and nanofabrication.

Rhodes was appointed by President Reagan to the National Science Board, of which he is a former chairman, and by President George H.W. Bush as a member of the President's Educational Policy Advisory Committee. He has served as chairman of the governing boards of the American Council on Education, the American Association of Universities, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. He also has served as a trustee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and was a member of the board of directors of General Electric from 1984 to 2002.

His latest book, The Creation of the Future, published in 2001, deals with the role of the American university. Rhodes was chairman of the 1987 National Commission on Minority Participation in Education and American Life, which produced the report "One Third of a Nation."

Rhodes holds 37 honorary degrees and is the recipient of the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society, the Justin Morrill Award, the Higher Education Leadership Award, the Clark Kerr Medal of the University of California-Berkeley, and the Ian Campbell Medal of the American Geological Institute. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and former president of the American Philosophical Society. At commencement ceremonies in 1995, the Cornell Board of Trustees announced that the Cornell Theory Center building was renamed Frank H.T. Rhodes Hall and Cornell also has several named professorship honoring him.