July 4, 2008

A Composer Will Orchestrate Vassar's Faculty; Stony Brook's Longtime President Steps Down; a Parsons Chairman Will Lead Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell

By PAULA WASLEY, PAUL FAIN, and RICHARD BYRNE

THE RIGHT NOTE: As a composer, Jonathan L. Chenette, an associate dean and a professor of music at Grinnell College, is used to making symphonies out of competing instruments and voices. But he will take up the task of keeping harmony among professors at Vassar College when he assumes the position of dean of the faculty on July 21.

Mr. Chenette, 54, has been on the faculty at Grinnell for 25 years and has based many of his orchestral works on the Iowa landscape and history. He based