3 longtime faculty retire
Craig Allin, Lyle Lichty, and Rob Sutherland became emeritus professors at the end of the 2016-17 academic year. In their combined 94 years of service, Allin and Sutherland have taught well over half of all politics courses ever offered at Cornell, leaving a deep stamp on the department. Lichty’s service adds an additional 28 years of teaching in the physics department.
Allin, professor of politics, is leaving Cornell after 45 years. During that time he was an early and powerful advocate for switching to One Course At A Time in 1978. His constitutional law courses were legendary for their rigor. He was an expert and author on the politics of wilderness preservation, and taught many courses on the subject at the Wilderness Field Station in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
He served on numerous committees within the college and as the faculty director of the Center for Law and Society. He was a founding member of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Ambulance Service and served as the chief of service for 11 years, and as president of its board for 25 years. In 2016 he was named Mount Vernon Citizen of the Year.
Sutherland, professor of politics, leaves the Hilltop after 49 years of service. Over his long career as a political philosopher, times have changed and students have changed. He met challenges by crafting a political philosophy curriculum that 21st-century students find relevant and engaging. His scholarship and teaching cover a breathtaking range of material, from Milton’s “Paradise Lost” to contemporary Supreme Court decisions. Among his innovations were courses taught with then-Congressman Jim Leach and then-U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Hansen.
He was the politics department’s roving ambassador beyond campus with courses taught in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas. Sutherland was faculty director of the Cornell Fellows Program, which has placed more than 300 high-achieving students in real-world opportunities.
Lichty, professor of physics, taught at Cornell for 28 years. Throughout his tenure on the Hilltop, he actively engaged students in courses for non-majors, like astronomy and musical acoustics, and inspired physics majors in courses like quantum mechanics. Over a 10-year period, he collaborated with his departmental colleagues and more than 20 students in a research project creating and testing dye-sensitized solar cells.
He also took a leadership role in convincing the department to strengthen its offerings in engineering, primarily as a way to help students find jobs more directly after graduation. His vision led to the creation of Cornell’s first bachelor of science degree in engineering.
