Robert Sutherland, 2010 Honorary Alumni Award
Dr. Robert Sutherland, the Alumni Association of Cornell College gratefully recognizes your 42 years as professor of politics. You are a respected member of the Cornell community, admired by colleagues for your dedicated ongoing service. Moreover, you have had a profound impact on the lives of generations of Cornell students.
Over the sweep of your long career as a political philosopher, times have changed and students have changed. You have met every challenge, reinventing yourself and crafting a political philosophy curriculum that 21st-century students find relevant and engaging. You cover a breathtaking range of material, from Milton’s Paradise Lost to contemporary Supreme Court decisions. Among your innovations are courses taught with Congressman Jim Leach and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Hansen. Furthermore, your commitment to “extraordinary opportunities” has made you the politics department’s roving ambassador beyond campus with courses taught in Annapolis, Washington, D.C., Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas.
The bookend to your career has been your involvement as faculty director of the enormously successful Cornell Fellows Program, which will send out its 150th Fellow this summer. As your colleague Craig Allin has observed: “Like other great long-time faculty members, Rob has regularly asked, ‘what can I do to make Cornell better?’ Then, he’s done it.”
Robert, we are pleased to welcome you to the Cornell alumni family. In recognition of your legacy at Cornell, the Alumni Association of Cornell College proclaims you an honorary alumnus.
