Dale R. Corson

Corson, Dale R.

Ithaca: Dale Raymond Corson, Cornell University's eighth president and a renowned physicist and engineer, died on March 31, 2012 at his home in Ithaca, NY, just short of his 98th birthday. He was born in Pittsburg, Kansas on April 5, 1914. The first in his family to attend either high school or college, he earned an A.B. from the College of Emporia (1934), an M.A. from the University of Kansas (1935), and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California-Berkeley (1938) during the golden age of nuclear physics. As a postdoctoral fellow working under the physicist Ernest Lawrence, he discovered the element astatine and with two associates determined its physical and chemical properties. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory from 1941 to 1943, Corson played a key role on the Anglo-American research team that perfected the use of airborne radar. He later served as a technical adviser at U.S. Army Air Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he consulted on radar deployment in Europe and the Pacific. At the end of the war he joined the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, directing the establishment of the Sandia National Laboratory. For this and other wartime service, he received a Presidential Certificate of Merit in 1948. In 1946 Corson joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor of physics. He was appointed associate professor in 1947, full professor in 1952, chairman of the physics department in 1956, and dean of the College of Engineering in 1959. He served as Cornell's provost from 1963 to 1969, president from 1969 to 1977 and chancellor from 1977 to 1979. Throughout his many years of dedication to the Cornell community, Corson was widely respected for his personal integrity, fairness, collegiality, scholarship and deft leadership - qualities essential to his success in guiding the University through a period of unprecedented turbulence. Following his retirement from Cornell, Corson spent two decades chairing major national study groups on U.S.-Japanese scientific relations, the introduction of modern science and technology into China, and the balance between national security and open inquiry in academic research. At the National Academy of Sciences he founded the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, designed to promote free exchange among leaders of government, science and industry. He was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences and the Arthur M. Bueche Award from the National Academy of Engineering, two of the nation's highest honors in science and engineering. Corson also co-founded the life care retirement community, Kendal at Ithaca, working with community leaders and legislators to change state laws to permit the creation of such communities. From childhood until his final years, he was an avid photographer, finding refuge and joy in the sanctuary of his darkroom. He was devoted to and beloved by his surviving life partner and wife of 73 years, the former Nellie E. Griswold, and his four children: David (Carolyn Corson) and Janet (Jon Corson-Rikert) of Ithaca, NY, Bruce (Mary Wyman) of Sebastopol, CA, and Richard (Shirl Dorfman) of Phoenix, AZ. He also leaves six grandchildren (Catherine Corson, Amy Schwartz, Abigail Spencer, Tyler and Hayley Corson-Rikert, Melissa Wyman) and six great-grandchildren. A celebration of Dale Corson's life is planned for September 8, 2012 at 10:30 a.m. in Sage Chapel on the Cornell campus, with a reception to follow in the Sage Hall atrium.