New Leader of AAU Is Ex-President of Iowa and Cornell

The Association of American Universities, a prestigious organization of 63 top research institutions in the United States and Canada, has a new president. He is Hunter R. Rawlings III, a former president of two AAU members, Cornell University and the University of Iowa. Mr. Rawlings, who was chair of the association while at Cornell’s helm, will take office on June 1 for a five-year term. He will succeed Robert M. Berdahl, the president since 2006, who is retiring. Before serving at Iowa and at Cornell, from 1988 through 2003, Mr. Rawlings worked 18 years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, another AAU member. In a news release issued by the association, Mr. Rawlings stressed the importance of the partnership between the federal government and research universities in producing transformative technologies and top graduates, and in advancing scholarship. “AAU’s first responsibility,” he said, “is to work with government to ensure that this relationship remains strong” despite “potentially severe fiscal restraint and increasing demands on our universities.”