Russell named to board of trustees

The Cornell College Board of Trustees has elected Dr. Jean Russell ’65 to serve a three-year term on the board.

Russell, who lives in Pentwater, Mich., with her husband, Bob Childers, earned her Ph.D. in biology from Rice University in 1971. From then until 1993, she worked at Washington University in St. Louis, teaching and researching. She contributed significant work to bone and calcium research and was able to extend many of the medical principles concerning growth and repair in the skeleton.

Clocktower Hall is being re-named Russell Hall in honor of the contributions of Russell and her family to Cornell. In September a gift of $5.6 million from the estate of her father, James Russell, which was one of the largest outright gifts in the history of the college, went toward renovations of the Thomas Commons and endowing a scholarship in Jean Russell’s name.

One of the 40 “Colleges That Change Lives,” Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, is a national liberal arts college with a distinctive One Course At A Time (OCAAT) academic calendar. The OCAAT schedule provides students with intellectual immersion, academic focus, and unique freedom to shed the confines of the traditional classroom to study off-campus, pursue research, or accept an internship—all without missing out on other classes. Founded in 1853, the college’s entire hilltop campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.